After back-bouncing eggs through prime spring chinook water without a bite, I rowed the drift boat upstream and let out the plugs. As soon as the inside rod hit the main seam, the rod tip buried. My son was soon locked in battle with a hard-fighting, acrobatic summer steelhead. After boating that fish we ran through the hole again, this time picking up a springer at the lower end. Both fish came on back-trolled K15 Kwikfish, confirming that plugs can outperform eggs and that they still have a place in every salmon and steelhead angler’s bag of tricks, whether fishing from a boat or shore.
Plug fishing for salmon and steelhead peaked in the early 1970s, when casting and retrieving was a popular approach. By the early 1980s, plug fishing was almost exclusively a back-trolling show. By the turn of the century, though, plug fishing greatly declined.
Today, plug
