plunking

  • Thread starter Thread starter bennysbuddy
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There's not many shacks left anymore. I fished Thomas eddy on the snohomish a lot, you had to row across the river to get there. Bob Heirman was the ring leader of that crew, always some kind of fun going on when Bob was fishing.
 
There was a great plunkin shack at the old Lyman bar. Spent a few nights in there with some nefarious Skagit guys. Don't remember the catchin but I do recall the drinking and having to look for your bell after setting the hook.
 
I loved to plunk when I was a kid so I could go explore and look for lost gear, but rarely was given the opertunity as dad hated it.
I recently found our old plunking tackle box and 2 more stainless steel rod holders my dad made, plus I already had 1.

When I'm old and unable to wade anymore I will build a plunking shack with wood stove and a generator to power a TV so I can sit and get drunk watch the Seahawks games!
 
The introduction of the spin-n-glo by Worden Tackle was a game changer for the plunker. Here was a highly effective lure that was available in many sizes and colors to fish different water conditions. I remember that we could have more than 1 lure of the same size and color and only 1 would catch fish, even if we changed spots with each other. It was amazing how chewed up some of them got.
 
My son's birthday today and some old memories popped up.

One of the first times I took my son fishing for salmon was plunking with my Dad at the Mickey Mouse hole on the Puyallup. We would clean that hole out every year plus it was just a few blocks from my parents house. In fact my Dad wanted half his ashes put there. Mind you we plunked different spots depending on salmon or steelhead. We plunked Mickey Mouse for salmon and occasionally steelhead. We fished the North Levee side of the HiHo hole for steelhead. The HiHo hole was where I caught my first steelhead on Christmas morning 1976.

I have fond memories having the fire going in the metal 5 gallon bucket, drinking hot chocolate, and listening to my Dad talk with his old fishing buddies waiting for that bell to ring.
 
Tim Lockhart said:
Burlington train trestle for humpies. Woulda been 90's. Besides 5 oz of lead it involved a lawn chair, cooler, and pvc rod holder. But I never stooped to a bell. That's lazy.
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Hey, you're amongst friends here so you can admit it. You lost it in the bushes behind you and never found it...
 
I had a spot about 1/4 mile from my house growing up where around 10 am every morning a few pods of summer runs would pass through until about 11 am. I think this has to do with the time it took to get from a couple pools downstream on their way to the next pools. This was a shallow area about 3 feet deep with a slot slightly deeper on my side of the river. Every so often I'd take a hot shot down there and sit at the top of the" deep slot" and run that hot hot down in there and "plunk" almost all the fish would come and look at the plug some would spook away from it others would look then ignore it. I never had one hit the plug. I imagine a spin glo and some eggs or a shrimp would have had different results anyway it was always fun to see how they would respond.. as I said almost all the fish responded it to it in one way or another..
 
I used to plunk the Snohomish below town. You would throw your line out with 6 ounce pyramid sinker, Stick your rod in the holder attach your bell and go sit in the camper and drink your coffee and play cards. And wait for your bell to be rung. It was a way to get out of the house.
 
Tim Lockhart said:
Burlington train trestle for humpies. Woulda been 90's. Besides 5 oz of lead it involved a lawn chair, cooler, and pvc rod holder. But I never stooped to a bell. That's lazy.
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Never tried plunking, but I had success carving out a spot with a few other flyfishers amongst them near the trestle for pinks last year. Everyone got along great, and it went off like a concert with a slight gap for the swing between the two groups.

The action was fast, and people-watching even more entertaining. I watched a 'spin-n-glo w/shrimp family' land 24 fish! Cell phone required for the parents to summon four subsequent children to the river. Never heard a single bell though!😄
 
While visiting a fellow machinist with my young son one night we were able to acquire 4 aluminum tubes that didn't meet the plus/minus .0003 OD tolerance after turning. At my work I made a press fit plug for each and drilled and tapped the center. I pulled in a favor and had a friend weld em in for me. For the stakes I took some socket head cap screws and opened up the heads to accept 1/2 rod which was welded into place. Easy to assemble and take apart. Before the boys learned to drift fish I would taken to gravel bars,cast out, build fires and hang out.
 
And now you can get Bluetooth bells and sit in your car out of the weather
 
I live about a mile from county line, on the Washington side of the Mighty Columbia. When I still had a job, I used to take a dutch oven down there and cook dinner while the spin-n-glo soaked. Got lucky a few times.
As a kid on the other side of the river, this was lots of fun, the old guys would build a big fire, we would toast hot dogs, play tricks on one another, an all around blast.
 
I come from a long line of plunkers starting with my grandma who was a legend on the Nooksack and Samish Rivers.20191103_210141.jpg
I caught my first steelhead plunking
and likely my last will be caught plunking.
At this juncture my last steelhead was caught while plunking for sockeye on the lower Skagit 2 or 3 years ago. It was a gorgeous 6 or 7# wild summer run hen. Shocked the hell out of me.
I used to do a lot of plunking on the Nooksack, Samish and Skagit rivers as well as a trip or two to Forks each winter.
A mornings catch on the Bogey about 4 decades ago.
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I haven't steelhead fished much the last 10 years. Too much competition for too few fish plus a lot of my fishing buddies have passed away.
 
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I still have one of those bells! When I first got my license I drove to the Skagit and plunked in brown silt. Caught a nice salmon for dinner to the surprise of others on the beach. Just a spin and glow, no sand shrimp. That fish must have literally ran into my spin and glow! No one in my family fished at all. Learned by asking questions and watching people. Glad I somehow caught the bug.
 
I still have my rod holders. I made some in shop in high school, a couple are my Dad's that he got from God knows where.

Still have my old bells. Just cow bell style attached to clothes line clips.
 
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