Fishing the River Bottom

 
 I?m asked a lot of times what sort of setups I use when fishing small rivers or streams. For most of my river fishing I use my standard setup consisting of small spinner, red beads, with hook (and bait) attached directly next to spinner.
 
 
 Now the idea is to work the spinner-bait along the bottom as slow and natural as possible just keeping the blade spinning and the bait of the rocks. This is what I call active fishing, where you throw the rig up stream and work it down through the current while constantly moving up river looking for holes that hold fish. This works best for deeper waters where you fish with a ?drop, lift, take up the slack? retrieve.

  
 Fishing with live bait in streams where the waters are low and the current is fast presents a unique problem. Because of the current, the need to keep the bait near the bottom, and the rocky nature of these streams in which fish are found, gear constantly snag. I usually fish these waters with just a hook, worm and sinker setup. I hook a lot of fish this way but your always at the risk of getting snagged. Some anglers say if you are not getting caught on the bottom a lot, you?re not likely to hook many fish.

  
 Now getting hung up on the bottom can be costly, both in time and money. What I try to do is use inexpensive gear (I make a lot of my own gear) and quickly replaceable components each time I get stuck.
  One such way to do this is to use the Stream setup, where you use a three-way swivel.

 
 Tie your main line to one loop of the three-way, your hook on a short leader to another loop, and a 6-inch length of light monofilament to the third loop. To that short piece of mono pinch two or three split shots (what ever you need to keep the bait near the bottom). Now, when the sinkers get snagged, you just yank on your line. If it all comes free, great. But if it?s really stuck, the lighter monofilament will break or the shot will slide off, and you will at least get your hook and bait back. Then you can just tie on a new piece of line and pinch on some more inexpensive shot.
 
                       Hope this helps in your stream fishing?FISH-ON! Cookster