Walk in to any bait and tackle shop and you are bound to be mesmerized by the hundred thousand different variations of artificial lures, spinners, swimbaits, spoons, etc... I know from personal experience that it is extremely difficult to walk in and not walk out at least $20 poorer toting a bag of artificial lures that I just had to try or at least have in my box for that special day. In fact my tackle box is full of these "guarantees" that haven’t produced a single fish for me. I'm not advocating that fisherman stop buying these products. I have just noticed that this season above all others the fish seem to be catching on. Please excuse the pun. I have thrown a variety of these goodies in the river and in the sound in the hopes that I will find the one that the fish are biting on this season. The results are hardly what packaging promises. What I have realized and practice quite regularly now, is that this season’s runs have been partial to live bait presentations. We all walk in to the bait and tackle shop and glance in the refrigerators to take a look at the stock, but many of us keep walking right on by looking for the artificial bait that will hook'em on a consistent basis. Well I am going to tell you now that I have had more success with live bait presentations than any other season. The fish in the Skagit and surrounding areas have been eating them up. Last weekend I had the boat in the shop so I decided to bank fish the Skagit up around Concrete. I stopped by Holiday Sports, which by the way is a really great store for anyone in the area that hasn’t been there, and picked up 12 sand shrimp. Out of the 12 that I placed in the river only 4 of them did not produce. The same goes for the salmon roe that I threw in. The fish just could not resist biting. So, take a look at your recent results using the artificial variety. If you haven’t been hot this season, I would suggest you go to the live bait; it has produced personal records for me this season in the Silver and Steelhead categories. Good luck and great fishing!!

For me there are certain times and water conditions that call for both applications. I use artificial, barbless, single hook set up on my home river and do very well. The artificials change with the times and water conditions also, so my tackle box is full of the lures that have produced for me at these times. Shakes is right 20 plus poorer for me but the lures get the fish for me. There should be a "Both" to vote for.

So does a Superbait count as an artificial or a natural? I went through a lot of cans of tuna this year so they're sorta like bait, but most of the kings we got were on superbaits. We did get a few on herring, a few on eggs, and a dozen or so on plugs (mostly with sardine wrap) but the top producer was definitely superbaits.

For steelhead definitely the top producer has been coon shrimp in various presentations, but we got quite a few on plugs and spinners as well.