Here’s proof, springers are in the Rouge River

John Anderson from memorymakersrogueriverguideservice.com releases the first Rogue River springer of the year caught by Rodney Brim Tuesday. The Pilot/Larry Ellis

In no uncertain terms John said he was going to catch the first springer of the Rogue River and he was going to do it by using a secret weapon he had been tweaking for quite some time. In addition, he wanted me to be on board to verify it. All three events were fulfilled Tuesday morning.

John’s secret weapon was a diver-and-bait combination consisting of a modified Mud Bug and an anchovy.

Somebody figured out that if you stripped the lure of all the hooks and added a 4-foot leader with a couple of hooks at the end, it worked perfectly for catching winter steelhead.

Almost every year without fail, the first Umpqua River springer is caught by a fisherman attempting to catch a winter steelhead using a Mud Bug pulling a sand shrimp. It’s sort of an accident – but a good accident.

The Mud Bug is essentially the precursor of the diver-and-bait fishing method, and it works quite well at catching winter steelhead. Other deep-diving lures that have been used to serve the same purpose are the Hot ‘N Tot and the old wooden Bomber.

As a kid, my tackle box was always filled to the brim with vintage bombers. I liked the way the bomber worked because it imparted a vibrating action to the rod tip that you could feel as it dug its way to the bottom, which made it an exciting lure to use.

I ended up throwing away all those old lures along with my baseball card collection including an autographed card of Sandy Koufax I had gotten while attending one of the Dodger baseball games when I was a little leaguer.

If the baseball cards weren’t thrown away, they were worn out by attaching them to the spokes of my bicycle by using wooden clothespins to imitate the vroom sound of a motor cycle. What a stupid kid I was. My former baseball collection is now worth a small fortune, as are those old vintage wooden bombers that are no longer in production.

The Mud Bug is also no longer being made, which makes it a hot commodity.  Fortunately it has been copied by the company Brad’s, and is now being marketed as a diver-

and-bait.

The way the Umpqua guides use Mud Bugs (and I have fished with plenty of them) is to either anchor up in a slot or slowly back-troll them through the tail-outs.

Anyway, Anderson who has the guide business memorymakersrogueriverguideservice.com figured that since most anglers fish the lower Rogue similarly to the Umpqua by anchoring up, there was an untapped resource in springer fishing, so he modified the Mud Bug to work differently than used by the Umpqua guys.

Like I said before, John had been telling me on a previous fishing trip how he had tweaked this lure to give an anchovy a wild action that no self-respecting springer could resist. He had so much confidence in his newly modified Mud Bug that I could hardly wait to be on the boat the next time he used one, which was last Tuesday.

Around 7:10 a.m. we set out two rods, one with an original Wiggle Wart and another with a Brad’s Wee Wiggler, both lures having a gold belly and black back, with the Brad’s version having a red lip. The third rod with John’s modified Mud Bug and anchovy was set out on the port side.

At 7:15 the middle rod doubled over and I fought an 8-pound chrome-bright steelhead to the net.

Not 15 minutes later the port rod went berserk. It was Rodney Brim’s turn at the next take-down so he grabbed the rod.

“This one’s a springer for sure,” Brim shouted out.

Anderson then pulled anchor and followed the fish downriver. Ten minutes later the first verified Rogue River springer was landed.

Since it was a wild fish we were required to release it, but not before taking a quick snapshot to verify the catch. Upon netting the fish, Anderson immediately cut the line to prevent endangering the fish. The hooks will eventually work themselves out on their own.

We also did not weigh the fish in on the boat because, in doing so, the gills would have been compromised and the fish would have died for sure. That look you see on John’s face in the picture is telling me, “Hurry up and take the picture. We want to get this fish back in the water ASAP.”

Not long afterward the starboard rod doubled over, giving me another shot at fighting another nice plump winter steelhead. So that was three hookups in less than an hour for some of the fastest and most furious action I have ever seen on the Rogue.

At 9:57 Rodney was battling another hatchery metalhead to the net. We stayed on the water another hour before calling it a day and heading for the barn.

I have come to realize that John Anderson is the Cesar Millan of the salmonid kingdom, the “Fish Whisperer,” if you will. When he picked up that springer, the fish knew that Anderson was the alpha pack leader and assumed the submissive position, allowing for an effortless, quick snapshot.

Steelhead are still whacking those gold bodies with black backs. In Brad’s Wee Wiggler’s case, use the one with the red bill. Two steelies fell for the Brad’s lure that day.

The Chetco also turned on a few days last week, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday. Dave Castellanos from smithriverfishing.com had the hot rod with at least six fish boated when I lost count. There are a lot of aggressive downers in the system now, something I am really glad to hear about.

Tight lines!