First off, this whole sport is horribly addicting. I've hooked one and lost and landed a buck....I've leapt into junkie status. The numbers may be low, but I attribute that to two hour trips as my time has been limited. Yet I've pursued to educate through your site and reading.

If you are in search of a particular jig color on a given day, how often do you change out the color before as you are looking for a successful color (ie. 15 minutes, 10 drifts)? I'm trying to give the color a chance, but don't want to over indulge if not working.

It was mentioned in a post reply that Oregon fishing is all about water and rain? How does rain come into play? I am going to have Tuesday through Sunday off and intend to spend a significant amount of time on the Rocky River (local hot spot) and the forecast does project rain in the ladder part of the week.

I also have an local outlet for fly tying equipment.....any suggested brand names or input regarding the
tools.

Thanks

Rain is only key because it brings the water level up which brings the steelhead up the river. If I were fishing a spot where I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt there was a steelhead there I would change colors after 20 min or so. It's not always the color change that triggers the bite. In some holes we fish the bite just turns on. So I always keep going back to colors I know work like black/purple, pink, white and red. I'm don't know much about fly tying equiptment, but there are some on hear that do and I am sure they will chime in. Good luck next week.

I'll leave fishing questions to the other guys on here as they have much more experience than I. Oregon (western oregon) fishing, especially in the winter, is all about rain because many rivers do not have much in the way of flood control and the surrounding landscape is already nearly saturated with water. This means that the river levels rise rapidly following a large rain event which happens frequently. Not only does the speed and depth of the current pose serious challenges to most techniques but the water becomes cloudy with silt from runoff so the fish's visibility is restricted and they may hunker down in survival mode or wait for it to begin to clear before pushing into the system. As the water drops it clears and the fish make more of a concerted push upriver. When the water drops even more and becomes gin clear, steelhead become even more finicky and may hold in deeper holes and cover water to wait for the next rain. This last situation is where micro-jigs and stealth tactics come into play. If I didn't get it quite right feel free to correct me anyone.

As far as tying equipment, I am assuming you are going to tie jigs rather than flies. I recently got my self set up and this is what I found. As far as vices, I believe most people prefer a cam-lock vice for the holding power and ease of adjustment. I personally went with a Dyna-king kingfisher because I liked the robustness and simplicity of it. I am happy with it thus far but a bobbin holder would have been handy. Hollywood touts the Danvise and for good reason. It is a reasonably priced vice with all the bells and whistles and many online reviews claim it as the most bang for your buck. Probably as long as you don't buy an el cheapo you will be fine but you don't have to spend 3-400 dollars either to get a high quality vice either. As for tools, I think Griffin and Dr. Slick are two of the better brands but there are likely more out there that I don't know about. Be sure to get a ceramic bobbin and the best scissors you can. Thread was the most confusing part for me. To my knowledge, the three most applicable threads for jigs are Danner? 210, 3/0 monocord, and Kevlar. I bought a bit of all three following recommendations on this site and this is my opinion of each. The kevlar is super strong and almost won't break. However, the color of mine is not very good or even and it tends to unwrap easily if you don't keep it tight as you are tying. The 210 I liked as it seemed to stay in place the best when I would start to tie in a feather but I seem to have to be the most careful not to break it with this one. 3/0 monocord was my favorite because it seemed stronger and the wraps stayed in place even if you let a little slack in the line to start a feather. The only other advice I would offer would be to learn to palmer all your feathers. This makes a much prettier jig with better action especially if you are using several colors than if you simply hold a clump of marabou to top and bottom of the hook and tie them on. Good luck, you will soon have two addictions!

fishing in the rain is awesome!! one- it will eliminate any fair weather fisherman from the water, giving you better odds of hooking up. two- rain brings the water level up a bit, which at times is needed. not just for the fish, but a very slow moving river can get really boring in a hurry. fishing low and clear water isnt all its cracked up to be. three- it'll bring color to the water, giving the fish a sense of security, so to speak. but too much rain can bring too much color, for some people that is. four- it can also change the temp of the water. as all us experienced steel headers know, water temp is of the utmost importance when it comes to hookng up. five- usually when its raining, it means its a cloudy day, giving the fish another reason to feel just a bit more secure in their holding water. hiding in the water on a dark ugly day is much easier than it is when the bright sun is directly above...

Thanks for the informative responses guys!

Hard to add to the above sage advice My trick on a fresh rain is to sleep in! Rain in winter, even if it's a sheit pile, warms the water and just before it starts to blow-out the
steelhead go on a great bite.