Northwest Fishing Reports

So i've been to a few rivers and I'm always reading the reports, and it seems like the majority of the people 98% that I see fishing for salmon use this technique. Grab an 8-9 ft pole, tie a 4-6 foot leader on it, cork and yarn, cast, wait to feel the line rub up against a fish, and yank as hard as you can to try and snag it in the mouth. Do salmon actually hit/ strike cork and yarn, or is that just a floatation device needed to keep as much line in the fish zone? I mean, how else can you foul hook a fish if it's striking your lure?

It would seem using that techique color/ presentation/ line weight/ is not important. Just having a sensitve enough rod and a good backswing to rip those fish from the river is all that counts. I have not yet been able to catch a salmon, I have never felt a strike. but the people all around me seem to have no problems draging in fish by the tails. It makes me wonder if my traditional ways are just not the way to go, if I want to catch something. Or maybe I should just drop some explosive into the river and get my fish that way... I wonder what the looks on their faces would be? "HEY! that guys cheating better than us!".

But really, is the cork and yarn an effective lure for striking salmon? Or am I better off using something different if I want a fish to actually strike what I'm presenting?

thanks for your time

This is called flossing, and there are many other, and legal ways, to catch salmon. Corkies and yarn are productive, and will take fish in the mouth, but its the guys with long leaders (typically 5+ feet, usually no corky and just a small tuft of yarn) who are fishing these rigs through spawning beds or shallow riffles and setting the hook (aka snagging) multiple times per casts.

You see lots of snagging/flossing typically at the combat fishing zones, but there are some folks who do it on their own in their own hole on a secluded spot on a river. It's a bad problem, but it doesn't account for 98% of the way people fish in rivers.

Stay away from these people. Flossing isn't an ethical method of fishing, as it is typically considered snagging.

Corkys and yarn are effective. Stick some sandshrimp or eggs on there if you want some more scent, or just use scent. Drift fishing is not an easy way to detect bites. Many people say the float and jig is the method people should start out with fishing in rivers for salmon/steelhead.

There are many other presentations you can use to get a fish to bite your offering, and flossing shouldn't be one of them that anyone should consider.

seems like the guys with shorter leaders and big oz of lead with size 8 hooks with a ball of yarn are snagging more than the guys with longer leaders. just because a guy uses longer leader doesn't mean he's trying to snag fish. i hate when people talk about this issue. if you can't hook up don't hate on another man's technique. btw i use long leaders and 90% of the time it's hooked in the mouth. you can't help it sometimes if the fish brushes your line and gets snagged on it. long leaders/short leaders makes no difference. it's the amount of lead you use that counts. you want to go deep use more lead, fish high use less.

Good question gian. I'm in the same boat.

So, like gian said, the question is.....Do salmon actually HIT the corky/yarn on purpose, or is it all just a lucky "snag" in the head area??

I've been wondering the same thing.


I've been to a few rivers this fall also, and I have heard this multiple times,

"you just have to get lucky" Is this a code phrase for a "lucky snag"??

i know for a fact that salmon especially buck silvers and chum will hit corkys and yarn. i hook them in the upper jaw and when flossing most of the fish will get the hook right in the corner of the mouth. steelhead also hit corkys and yarn pretty well but will take just one little tiny red or orange corky. i guess it seems like an egg to them or maybe just irritates them. some will be flossed but some will hit it. other things that work well for salmon are blue foxes and cured eggs jigs and sandshrimp.

juscallmetoad wrote:seems like the guys with shorter leaders and big oz of lead with size 8 hooks with a ball of yarn are snagging more than the guys with longer leaders. just because a guy uses longer leader doesn't mean he's trying to snag fish. i hate when people talk about this issue. if you can't hook up don't hate on another man's technique. btw i use long leaders and 90% of the time it's hooked in the mouth. you can't help it sometimes if the fish brushes your line and gets snagged on it. long leaders/short leaders makes no difference. it's the amount of lead you use that counts. you want to go deep use more lead, fish high use less.

Snagging is a bit different then flossing.

Long leaders don't necessarily mean you are trying to snag a fish. You are right. But when someones ripping long leaders with a tiny tuft of yarn through shallow riffles, and setting the hook 5 times per cast, your gonna try and tell me he's not trying to snag fish? And when the fish are hooked from the outside of the mouth, chances are it was flossed....

Yes. Incidental snags DO happen, thats part of the game.

Leader length does make a difference. You can't floss too many fish with a one foot leader, bust that length up to 8 feet, you got a lot more water covered to floss a fish.

Rollin with Rolland wrote:
"you just have to get lucky" Is this a code phrase for a "lucky snag"??

Salmon aren't interested in eating while in rivers. They shut down their feeding when they hit estuaries and getting salmon to bite in the rivers is going to be more of a reaction or anger strike, rather then thinking that that silver spoon trickling past me is a baitfish that I need to it.

So you have to get lucky and get a salmon to bite your presentation, which can be tough when these fish are focused on spawning.

I guess you could say it could be a lucky snag as well. The only part of luck I like in that, is that I hope that bad luck comes back to them (if they are intentionally snagging) and the game warden pops up on em...Wish it happened more, unfortunately it doesn't.

Salmon eggs are a good way to get salmon to bite I know they are not feeding but they eat the eggs for some reason. Yarn and corkies wok to either resemble a loose egg sack and get ate because of some genetic responce or a corky and yarn also will tick a salmon off causing it to lash out and being that biting is their defence they end up eating the hook. I use the corky rig in a smaller river where fish are visable if you keep after a certian fish for a while they will attack and it will catch you off gaurd

I've only taken one king on yarn and it was scented. silvers take it better, and it works amazingly well for chums. Most of the snagers I see use black or purple corkies and black or purple yarn. I use large puffs or orang, chartreuse or pink yarn with no corky on about a 2-3 feet leader, and sometimes when the water is really shallow and clear 4ft leaders. I use 10lb leaders usually (light by most salmon fisherman standards). When I attach eggs I usually get a lot more jacks and less adults.
When I fish yarn I end up with about 50% of the fish I catch that bite and the others are either flossed or accidentally foul hooked (very few, less then 5% of your fish will be foul hooked if you don't set the hook every cast).

Flossers give the rest of us a bad rap. Ive fished corkies and yarn since i was 8/9 yrs old. Taught by my dad to fish them...not floss em. id say 90% of my salmon caught w/ corkies n yarn are fair hooked. The bite is all feel, its like trying to explain to somebody the pickup of a rubber worm. Get a sensitive rod and feel your line...a baitcaster reel will help..bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, nothing....nothing...fish.

well i'm glad to see a lot of discussion on the subject. I also did not know that the salmon shut down on eating once in the river. I have been told using large spinners/ buzzbombs piss them off enough to get a strike. I also see now trying to imitate salmon eggs might be a good technique as well. What I was constantly seeing was cast/set cast/set cast/set fish on!... through the back.

Of course I did not want to offend anyone; I'm just trying to figure out what will work best for me. Which path to take that I will be able to live with comfortably. I do want to catch a nice chrome fish, but flossing doesn't seem my style. It looks like it will be awhile before I hook up, and I'm ok with that.

maybe saltwater salmon fishing is the way for me..... now if I just had a boat

gian wrote:
maybe saltwater salmon fishing is the way for me..... now if I just had a boat

i hear ya on that one buddy. i love me a fresh salty nothin better than jiggin a 2-3 oz lead jig and all of a sudden when you pull back... WHAM!!! fish on!!! :bounce: if you are a decent fisherman you won't need a boat to land a salmon in the salt. you can do just as well on a pier, just need some patience, and an arm for jigging 2-3 oz's 3-5 hours straight.

lowvw wrote:Flossers give the rest of us a bad rap. Ive fished corkies and yarn since i was 8/9 yrs old. Taught by my dad to fish them...not floss em. id say 90% of my salmon caught w/ corkies n yarn are fair hooked. The bite is all feel, its like trying to explain to somebody the pickup of a rubber worm. Get a sensitive rod and feel your line...a baitcaster reel will help..bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, nothing....nothing...fish.

Please explain to me how "Flossers" give you a bad name and tell me your not going to sent the hook on a fish who didnt bite but did have your line in its mouth.

Man I love these threads. :geek:

Please explain to me how "Flossers" give you a bad name and tell me your not going to sent the hook on a fish who didnt bite but did have your line in its mouth. [/quote]

There is a difference between setting the hook on every single bump you feel and having a actual pickup....I see a lot of guys doing this and thats how you get a large quantity of back/tail/belly hooked fish. Im not saying that i havent foul hooked plenty of fish before, but there is a difference of a actual pickup from a fish and having your gear drag over the back of a fish and slamming that hook home. I dont know about you but i can tell the difference of a pickup versus me dragging my slinky across their back then setting the hook just cuz i know the fish is there. As for flossers, look to the guys fishing the spawning riffles and setting hooks into visible fish.....thats flossing:-({|=

crankbait42 wrote:i know for a fact that salmon especially buck silvers and chum will hit corkys and yarn. i hook them in the upper jaw and when flossing most of the fish will get the hook right in the corner of the mouth. steelhead also hit corkys and yarn pretty well but will take just one little tiny red or orange corky. i guess it seems like an egg to them or maybe just irritates them. some will be flossed but some will hit it. other things that work well for salmon are blue foxes and cured eggs jigs and sandshrimp.

x2
They will definitely hit those corkies. I don't know why they would but they do. And color choice can make a difference. It's a tough to answer why (with certainty) fish hit inline spinners.

As for flossing, it can happen unintentionally and intentionally. However, I think there needs to be a little more clarification on what I consider a fish that was caught flossing vs not. The hook in the corner of the fish's mouth is not a floss IMHO if the fish is hooked in the corner of the mouth and the hook is in a position such that the point pointing outside of the mouth, just as you would see it as a bass hooked in the corner of the mouth with a T-rigged worm or a trout who just ate a wad of power bait dough.

Now it the hook is in the corner of the mouth and the point is inside the mouth, that would most likely be flossing in my book.

Don't worry about knowing if you have one on. Chances are very high you will know in many cases. Perhaps hardest case to realize hit and swim upstream but even then there are clues suggest you have one on... Start reeling up that slack!

I have seen flossing be very productive for those that use that technique when the fish have lockjaw. They seem to always hook up somewhere close to the mouth so it isn't considered snagging (I guess).
I have never tried it myself and would just rather stick with corky and yarn, spinner, spoon or jig.
I like using a corky and yarn. The presentation can be changed by shortening or lengthening the leader and changing the amount of weight. If you want to slow down your drift add more lead with a shorter leader. Slower water use a longer leader and lighter weight. NOTE: The longer the leader the harder it is to detect a bite so you need a very sensitive rod and know the water your fishing. The yarn holds any scent really well. I like shrimp smelly Jelly. The corky and yarn imitates a sand shrimp very well. So that, in combination with the shrimp sent is a lot less expensive than buying live sand shrimp and can work just as well. Another variation. Use white or silver corky and yarn with Herring smelly jelly and there is a cut herring plug. Also since the corky is buoyant it will keep the hook just off the bottom usually right in the fishes face. The fish will have a better chance of not only catching scent of it they will see it better in stained water.
I see this thread also mentions that salmon don't feed when in the river. That is true, But I think that if they see something that looks like food they would eat in the salt they would probably eat it in the river too. Just like a bass, salmon are eating machines during their entire life.

Tight Lines!

A9 wrote:

juscallmetoad wrote:seems like the guys with shorter leaders and big oz of lead with size 8 hooks with a ball of yarn are snagging more than the guys with longer leaders. just because a guy uses longer leader doesn't mean he's trying to snag fish. i hate when people talk about this issue. if you can't hook up don't hate on another man's technique. btw i use long leaders and 90% of the time it's hooked in the mouth. you can't help it sometimes if the fish brushes your line and gets snagged on it. long leaders/short leaders makes no difference. it's the amount of lead you use that counts. you want to go deep use more lead, fish high use less.

Snagging is a bit different then flossing.

Long leaders don't necessarily mean you are trying to snag a fish. You are right. But when someones ripping long leaders with a tiny tuft of yarn through shallow riffles, and setting the hook 5 times per cast, your gonna try and tell me he's not trying to snag fish? And when the fish are hooked from the outside of the mouth, chances are it was flossed....

Yes. Incidental snags DO happen, thats part of the game.

Leader length does make a difference. You can't floss too many fish with a one foot leader, bust that length up to 8 feet, you got a lot more water covered to floss a fish.

yea i agree it's a bit overboard when somebody sets the hook more than twice in a drift. that's definitely "SNAGGING" and not "FLOSSING". we just can't categorize all the fisherman who use the floss technique as snaggers is all i'm trying to get at. i respect a man and his own ways of doing things. but it does get pretty irritating to see someone deliberately trying to snag fish out of a hole. makes me wanna ring up a warden everytime i see it. that and using barbed hooks on a river where it specifically says in the rules to use barbless.

Wow, interesting discussion. I have only fished a river by boat once and it was this year in the Snohomish. (I filed a report in the river section with pictures). I had the opportunity to fish with my friend who is an experienced guide and a police officer, so obeying the law and having ethics is a no brainer on this boat. I was casting with corky and yarn and maybe 5 feet of leader and I had never heard of flossing. My buddy and his friend (also a guide) both explained flossing to me and told me that more often than not in the rivers because the fish are not feeding (as mentioned by A9). They either strike out of anger or are flossed (also stated by A9). So there I was bouncing my sinker and presentation down this piece of water and I am here to tell you every little bump from the lead touching the river bottom felt like a fish to me so I was setting the hook often and felt like a dummy. It may have looked like I was trying to snag or floss a fish but honestly I was not. So assuming those who are setting the hook often are all attempting to snag or floss a fish is a mistake. I'm not saying many aren't trying to hook a fish by flossing. I'm saying not everyone who is setting the hook often is attempting to floss or snag a fish. The fish I caught that day was flossed. The hooks were on the outside of the mouth. The fish was kept as it was a legally hooked and caught fish. Later in the trip I hooked a huge king in the tail. It pulled us around for several minutes before it b-lined for a log and get loose. Had we netted that fish, it would have been released per the rules. We have all heard the term "lock jaw" when talking about river salmon fishing. I am guessing that means they aren't feeding. I am also guessing you can floss a fish and have the hook end up catching the fish on the inside of the mouth as it misses the first opportunity to hook the outside of the mouth. I believe it is more likely than not that these silvers we are going after in the rivers are either being flossed or they are striking out of reaction or anger. Remember this is all just me guessing based on what I have been told by experienced fishermen and what I have read. Good luck out there.

juscallmetoad wrote:seems like the guys with shorter leaders and big oz of lead with size 8 hooks with a ball of yarn are snagging more than the guys with longer leaders. just because a guy uses longer leader doesn't mean he's trying to snag fish. i hate when people talk about this issue. if you can't hook up don't hate on another man's technique. btw i use long leaders and 90% of the time it's hooked in the mouth. you can't help it sometimes if the fish brushes your line and gets snagged on it. long leaders/short leaders makes no difference. it's the amount of lead you use that counts. you want to go deep use more lead, fish high use less.

LAME. we will try to "not hate" on you when you are flossing fish. Just call it what it is.