Podcast with JT Shortbus

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Addicted Fishing Podcast. We're in the house today with Cameron and one of our longest sponsors ever. The man. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, I'm excited. And he showed up with some, uh, some, uh, treats and prizes and a bag full of goodies that I've never seen before. From the Stay Fishy episode, everybody, we're going to use that sound effects a lot. Dramatic moments. No, we finally got JT in the house up here today. I had to convince him to, uh, come up and, uh, join us for our live feed and do a podcast by, uh, saying I was going to take him out steelhead fishing. Um, unfortunately, unfortunately on Noah's Ark, we're fishing in the trees. Now, unfortunately on a Monday night, though, the mountain that we fished by decided to get about nine and a half inches of rain in a 24 hour period. So unfortunately we did not do any steelhead fishing and we figured, well, the Columbia is only going from five feet to 11 feet in the next three days. Let's go try for his brain for 72 hours straight. I swear it has not stopped. It's unbelievable. Bad timing too, right? In the, I was going to say the best time to go steelhead fishing. Yeah, we needed it though, but it was forecasted to be an inch and a half. So I was telling JT, you know, Wednesday is going to be like awesome. But now it might be a little more days later, literally a little higher than we're expecting. No, even when we were on the Columbia today, we were, you know, figuring what the heck, this is the only option, the only place we can find some green water. And it won't be by the time you guys are hearing this, it's going to be completely gone. But you could even see like tide was incoming, but you could tell the river was going up. Like it probably went up, you know, three, four or five feet while we were there and it's, there'll be out. But like you said, the timing kind of sucks, but the reality is, is like afterwards, like we're at least going to get one hell of a finale for steelhead and these warm temps. The Columbia went from 40 degrees to about almost 44 and a half in a week. So, and that's like with, you know, channel water and Willamette water going in. So I think, uh, things are going to be in really good shape in just a few days. Give you a lot of options for a lot of different fish. That's right. This, uh, kind of oddly enough leads into talking about warmer water temperatures, uh, you have some new flashers that might just be working. The 360 fishing and a little bit warmer water temps this year. Oh, there he goes again. Everyone just not supposed to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, I just told him that's the, everyone 360 fishing equals warmer water temps. And I couldn't abhorrently disagree. Okay. Oh, okay. Clear, clear, clear water people, but maybe we should ask JT with his opinion on that because he's already, he's the only one here sitting at tables hooked to springer this year. It was an accident, but no, you just, this, this early in the season to your point, Jordan there, when everybody says that the water's too cold, you figured what the heck where the odds of catching one in February are pretty low, let's go ahead and throw a 360 out there and try a couple of new colors and lo and behold. I found out that I can't tie hooks, but at least I hooked a fish. So just that wire leaders and going to wire leaders. I'm going to do it. Just just harpoon cord. That's all we're going to need. No, but that was still the condition. So, but let's talk about those conditions then a little bit. And then let's talk about maybe the flasher, because I have a feeling you were probably trying something a little different than what you were throwing around or what you've seen. Explain to my, my ignorance. So I would feel like a flasher covering more ground would probably be better in dirty water. Some that's right. That's to the contrary of what I'm thinking, obviously. I just want to hear, I want to hear, I'm not arguing or anything. I just want to know, like, what do you guys think? I would think that a flasher, like a 360, do you think water clarity makes that bite better or vice versa? So to me, well, do you want to answer that JT or do you want me to give? So I guess there's a couple of different, different schools of thought there. The, your, your flasher can work for the water clarity. Yes. But then there's also the second theory of what's the temperature of the water. What type of flasher do I use? So the colder the water, generally you want to go slower to give the, this, the springers, which are more of a lethargic fish than the fall fish. So you're trying to do a slower presentation. So exactly. Exactly. So you want to have the triangles, which you're generally can run a little bit slower and wait until the three sixties, till you're at least 45 to 50 degree water temperature, and then you can move a little bit quicker as for the turbidity and things like that. Again, you want it in their face a little bit longer. So again, back to the slower, the slower speed is whipping by them. They don't even get a chance to see the spinner. Exactly. Two feet of water visit and give a foot and a half long leader. Well, my theory is like, you know, two years ago, before they closed COVID the Columbia river was 38 degrees before Washington in their ever so infinite wisdom, shut down fishing. Thank God because COVID was coming out and you know, I'm just so glad we lost that six weeks. Um, I don't, I'm not going to go down that road. You're not bitter. So I'm not bitter still, but just shows that, you know, sometimes state managers don't make the right decisions. Anyways, that year that we had a really low, clear, cold Columbia. I was doing warmup trips and the visibility was seven to eight feet. Water was 38 degrees on my binder and I didn't catch a lot of fish. I think I caught three, but I did catch three fish. Granted. I only catch caught four, you know, before they closed it, but I caught three fish on three 60. That's not three 60 and bait three 60, 30 degree water. Um, there's some situations as we go further up river in the spring that where we have dirty water right outside of clear water, clear water, tributaries where once we get into that clear water, talk to some of the guys that fish, those talking like a river, um, where if you have that clear water, they can see it. And I think it has to do with how we as anglers fish three six. And the reason why is because when a springer, when you have dirtier water, springers will run on the bottom. You know, when you have heavier water, right. Or, you know, or if you know where springers are running exactly where they're running, you can target them much easier with a triangle. You let the lead drag on the bottom. It's always in their face. It's a lot more difficult to do that with a three 60, not saying that it can't be done, but when you can just put a three 60 quote unquote close to the bottom and let it rip and the fish can then see it and make a move five to eight feet versus him sitting in a two foot box and you have to put it, his, his belly's in the dirt just about, and then the triangles got to drag that bait right in front of him. Like, and you got, and he's in a little tiny box. If I put that three 65, six feet above him, even with the amount of flash that JT puts on his, on his three sixties, like if that fish doesn't see it, you don't know it's there. And so I think a lot of it always. So what I have found is that wherever, wherever I've been at, if I have good visibility and I can fish a three 60, at least relatively close to a fish and make a move for it, you will move for it. And then if you want to take it one step further, look at what the three 60 stuff goes on, like in like the Puget sound in the winter time, you know what I mean? You start looking at those fisheries, that water temperature is in the low forties and they're, you know, of course they're feeding Chinooks, I guess it's a little different, but one thing you have there again is the clarity that they can see it. So I, I've always kind of thought like, you know, I mean, with the triangles, keeping it in the dirt, dragging it by him, that seems to work. And then like, let's, let's be honest, like the second that, and what we do see though, at least in some of our fisheries, Portland is as the year goes, we tend to get clear water and we tend to get those suspending fish and then make it a lot more susceptible to three 60. It also is coincidentally when the water warms up, same thing with three 10, obviously 70 degrees or we're ripping them. So I, I, and, but like I said, you fall back to some of those spring time situations and you get the clarity, you get super serious fishing. And I think there's always been a misnomer too, that, um, you couldn't pull bait behind a three 60 just because they wouldn't spin. And I think if you know how to spin a herring or anything like that, then that's even a better recipe for springers too. They're, they're more of a bait fish. Oh, for sure. They definitely, I mean, yeah, springers are eaters. They still have their stomachs for a couple more months versus those fall fish that just want to lash out at a spinner. But like you said too, as I, and, you know, we talked about this a little bit in the boat today about, you know, not being afraid of running bait and it does take some trial and error because you can't just, I don't think you can just put, you know, any old cut plug and you know, you know, depending on your sizes and how many hooks and stuff like you can't just, you got to kind of play with it a little bit, but I think the guys that are eventually going to figure out at least on the springer situation where, you know, bait works really good for springers, short, but super serious flashers work really good for springers. Uh, why not use both? Why not use both? Exactly. We've all seen the old, the old cut plug, you know, brads right behind that flasher do a lot of work throughout the year. So a lot of options, we switch over to the, to the tuna pack ones, like the brads, once the smolts start coming out there, cause they'll tear your bait apart. So that's, that's the other trigger for, for at least in my boat there is when we'll jump to the hardware, the brads and spinners and stuff like that too. But you've, like I said, being the only guy at the table, that's hooked one. Like you said, it was an accident. It was an accident. Did you feel bad for the fish? So honestly, I didn't want to get my hands smelly with this, with the stinky because that's bring them up. Admit it. Springers are a little oily, a little greasier and nobody likes it on the hands. Anyway. So it's probably better that way when you net them, you got to like the scales, get all over the boat, make the boat dirty. You know, it's just awkward. Your hand shaking and high fives. It's just, you don't want that, that early in the season just sets it off in the wrong place. So it's probably better that way. You know, I want to make anybody feel bad about themselves. No, no, you want to be like me. Who's tried twice now, admittedly have tried twice now has not touched one. So you want to make guys like me feel better. What's what's good though, is everybody was very supportive on my hook tying abilities there. I, I just learned to tie hooks this year. So I obviously am going to have a couple of failures once in a while. So I'm, I appreciate everybody's support on how to tie hooks. So I need to work on that. Did you do the triple pretzel? Is that what you did on that trailer hook? I must've went clockwise versus counterclockwise and I didn't spit on it three times. So four times on good. But you hooked one. I hooked one 360 bait, 360 bait. Even if it was the water temperature, 41, I believe it's crazy. They're not 45 only and the other 45 only the other bad part though, was we were running triangles and three sixties at the same time. And I don't think that's legal in some states from what I've heard. I don't know. They don't work together is what I've heard, but something's here. Shoot. They do. How was the clarity? Lumps. It was actually a lot because obviously we didn't get the nine inches of rain that we've had this week, but a little bit better. Yeah. Are you suspended or off the bottom? Uh, right on the bottom, right on the bottom. Yep. You still went for the three 60. I know where I can get more of them if I were to actually lose them. So I'm a little bit riskier than some people like to be. Yeah, that is fair. That is fair. No one likes to lose their favorite super series. They are in hard demand. They are in tough demand though. Again, this year, it's absolutely amazing that we can't figure out this whole supply chain deal, but someday we'll get it figured out there. Once the COVID and everything's over with there, maybe we'll all get back to normal. Last year before fall season, I think I hit you up like in May and I was like, yep, go ahead and send an order of, I don't know, I think I ordered like 60. Might've been more than that. I think it was more than that. 60. Might've been more than that. Chrome, you know, different variations of, of chrome flashers. And I got this beautiful giant box of, of everything from, I don't know, I can't remember ice Queens, the Vixens, the silver bullets, all the, all the good chromey one gave you some options, gave me some options, but then you being the, the, uh, I don't know. I don't know what, what, what word I'm going to use right here. He's in swinging distance, but then you decided to come out with something new. And I've seen this new 360 flasher. It's it's going to be, it's going to be amazing. I think I'm very excited for it. I'm still, still waiting for dates and all of that, but it's I'm excited. It's out there. You're letting people, you know, I've had a couple of people already put their orders in there and keeping a little notepad there for the rec for the record. At the end of the fishing trip today, as we were fishing with what four other guys, we're fishing for guides today. And they're like, Oh, I want 20. I want 25. And I'm like, JT, Mike, I will just order a hundred from you right now, get this from you right now. And then I will take care of these dudes because I fish with them every day. It's going to get ugly really fast, but you order a lot of them because they are that significant. I hope so. I think they are. So want to tell people what it is? No, you have to tell people what it is now. Can we tell them on this? Yeah, absolutely. We're going to tell them on the live feed too. Okay. And we show them on the live feed. So we have finally have a prototype in hand of a Chrome 360 super series flasher, and I'm very excited about it. Only two in my hands there and they look beautiful. I am so excited with the quality and there I, it's, it should be a great addition to the line. You guys, this thing is a, when he says Chrome, you're like, Oh, he makes Chrome once. No, no, no, no. This thing is a full pure Chrome. You said they were dipped. They're dipped. They're dipped Chrome, the depth and the coloration. Like, you know, like you can see different, very like Chrome is not Chrome. It's not at all. It's different depths. You have different tones on it there. This is, um, this was a lot of work and that's why it's taken a little extra longer to try and get it to, to my, to my specifications on there. It's, I want to be very picky with what I put out. And guys, I can tell you from seeing this thing in hand, it is absolutely gorgeous. It will change, I think the way we kind of approach it. And, and honestly, I'm just going to be honest with all you guys out there for years, like I would take full mirror Chrome stickers and put them on your blank and mirror out some flashers as well. We compared that week. We had one of those out there, compared it to there. It was pretty close to what it looks like. But mine look like crap compared to what, to what you just, you just made. And so that's why I'm real mad because now I'm going to have to sit and stare at that box of, I don't know, there's probably 50 of them left in there because, you know, just like anything this day and age, if you want to have that product or you want to have that certain bit, you got to have, you got to get it early, get it, but now I've got to get a whole nother freaking color or another, I guess, type, I don't know, another style, style, style, different style of a three 60 flash. And like I said, guys, they look absolutely amazing. Thank you. We're shooting end of end of June, early July is when we're expecting them in, they got a little delayed. So no, like everything. And they might even get delayed then too. So I'm just going to put out this announcement now. Cause I know one of JT's concerns was do not bug him. You will know when they are available, let you know. Definitely. They will be out. Just people call your people. Yeah. Just put it, put it on your radar. I was joking with him. I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to call him tomorrow and see if they're there yet. No. So let's not do that to poor JT because he's letting all of us know there's that there's on the radar, but we should have it for the fall fisheries, which will be, I mean, obviously we're going to do plenty of 360 in the spring and summer, but it's a super exciting new product. I'm excited for it. Not to mention too, um, you've got some new blade colors. Now what's, what's the story on the blades? The, the trolling spinners. We're actually trying a little bit different there. We have a new metallic orange base that we're playing with. Um, little bit, little bit iffy on it when I first started looking into it there, but the first test that were sent over the color is like a very vibrant copper color, and I thought this is going to be amazing in dirty water or just with that extra shine for the, for the fall fish on there. I'm, it turned out really, really well. So it is the very nuclear glow to it almost. Yeah. And it enhances whatever else, whatever, whatever other colors that seem to be on those blades. Just from the few examples that I've seen here, it's instantly came in. What's the timeframe. Is it the same thing? July? Okay. So fall. So something, something to keep in mind too. And I'll be honest with you. I've tried using some of the, um, candy oranges, um, from some of the local, not the local, but some of the paint supplies around here, I haven't touched anything that is that, like you said, vibrant, like you said, it looks like a nuclear copper, nuclear, nuclear copper. So we've got, we're going to have, we're supposed to have blades here in probably about another 60 days. Cause I can get those sent out. I'm just still trying to work on the tubing for the pre-twisted one. So the blades, once they come out there, then I'll really excellent patterns. You got a half pink, half yellow dot. You've got begrudgingly. I know some guy painted some up there and said, Hey, you should take a look at this. And then you've got a pink and blue, which I'm excited to try that orange foil on there because that, I mean, I know those coho is out in the ocean, love that pink and blue. Dang it. You're pushing me into a corner on this. It's going to be, I think, I think it's going to slay, but you've got some beautiful colors there too. And one last product you've, I know you've got Jordan super excited on when you, when you walked in the door here, I had to butter up the big guy in the corner over here. So we're also going to step into the steelhead world and, and throw some spinners out there also. So four different sizes of start for four and a half and fives. Um, or four different colors, I believe. So yes, I like, I like starting simple like that because going to, it's, it's funny how you take that same fish that comes out of the big river and goes into the small river and you start going simpler and simpler on your designs and stuff, but I've loved what I've seen so far. And as soon as you walked in, of course, he's getting nine different opinions on what everybody thinks about them, but they're going to fish. Well, I'm excited to get them. I hope so. Got a bunch of UV on there, extra flash, really bright, put some, put some nice polish on it. It must be so relieving to have something on the market where we can just go and buy it. But that, that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing for me is that, that style of spinner, that, that torpedo body spinners, one that isn't effective all the time, but something you need to have all the time, you know, and it's, and it's for, I can't, that's probably the biggest question I've been asked since we, the first addicted tutorial ever was, where do you get that spinner? I said, you don't, you don't, you don't, it has a great sales strategy. It's never has them in and you can't buy them. So, but I'm excited to be able to push people towards them and be able to go out and, and get a good quality spinner that they're going to get to go have fun with. It's nice. And they're nice and heavy. And they got, like you said, good colors and really good pop. Really good. I wish we would've had those on Sunday. Exactly. The Marlin where's the last time you fished a spinner? Like Sunday, dude, you were there. We all were there. It was a long time ago, a long time ago, but no, those are going to be gorgeous. What do you think? What, what's, uh, anything else? Like, what do you got coming up? What do you think? What do you think for this whole year? I am surprised that we still can't get the supply chain out. So as this sounds redundant from somebody that sells product there, if you see something on the shelf, if you find something in stock, get it before it's too late, do not wait till the day before you go out fishing. It's, it's the same thing as last year. Just as Jordan pointed out there, you'd want to, you want to walk down to the store and grab it the day before. If you don't have it, you will not have it. So make sure you plan ahead. And I know you get a lot of talk from people like, so for this year, there's been quite a few fish caught, like, honestly, it's probably been one of the better, probably earlier starts. And I know you get a lot of feedback from a lot of people. What would you say is the best triangle flasher going on right now? I'm like, I was trying to get something good out of him. I know he, I know he knows. All right. So the one that, that supposedly the hallucinator works well, but like I told you, I won't fish that one. Why, why won't you fish it? Because my beautiful supportive wife actually came up with the color there. And I know that if I ever catch a fish on that one, that I will never hear the end of it. So anybody else on my boat can use it, but I can't do it. But supposedly that one works well. I like the old tried and true and my chartreuse Hunter is, is absolutely amazing, but you cannot beat the sweet Abby or the electric pole dancer. They've just been tried and true. The pinks and the oranges. I'm sorry. And then some guides like to use all Chrome on there. One or two of them have been using that. There you go. Now you're talking because sweet Abby's my kryptonite. I can put that in my boat. I mean, and I watch, I mean, you're out there watching. I watch every other boat in the world. Like when a guy has a fish on, you're all, everyone's watching. Oh yeah. That's why you're, that's why you're flash yourself so well, because they see that color and see it. Sweet Abby color. And it's just flashing in the air as their net and efficient. So I know damn good and well guys rip them on that color and I'll put a couple of those in my spread. It's my kryptonite, but I mean, I probably see more fish caught on that damn color. So there's the, the places that I fish, I, the sweet Abby does not fish well, but if I were to go down river to two and a half miles, that's the hot flasher. What, why do you think that is? No idea. There is no, there's no inlets coming in. There's no creeks coming in. I cannot explain it. The water temperature is the same. It is. It's just the way it is. It's just the way that it is. Yeah. You can tell that you can tell just by the way it is. Any last tips, advice before we let you out of here? Let you out of the hot seat. Tell us something cool. Keep your bait in the water as long as you can. There you go. The fish don't bite if it's not wet. That's why we went today, right? We were just as wet as the fish. Yeah, that's true. It was a, it was a cold one out there. And one last announcement before we leave you guys today, we are still running a big promotion on the addicted dot fishing website and it is $5 bags of steelhead worms. So $5 bags, buy five, get one free and that's going to end March 7th. So get to the website, get those worms while they're still there and go have some fun steelhead fishing. There's still time. And honestly, you know what? Like JT said, get them all. We have the colors now, get them for that. And guess what? Summer steelhead like worms too, because we're going to be fishing steelhead, I think. I think we're going to catch summer steelhead. I think it's going to be a good year all around. So, and one last thing guys, wait, before you guys go, we have the central Oregon sportsman show in Redmond on March 12th. It's honestly going to be this Saturday. If you're hearing this podcast, when it's fresh out, we are doing our first bash since COVID. And if you guys have been to our bashes before, you know, we do seminars, giveaways, meet and greets, Q and A's with everybody. We're all going to be down there hanging out from three to 5 PM on Saturday at that sportsman show. And this is hoping you guys get that for the whole family. Sorry to cut you off, but we're going to be talking trout, salmon and steelhead. So if you're anywhere from the central Oregon coast, all the way up, this is going to be your show to go to. Cause it's going to be a really fun bash and we're all going to be there to hang out again. And let us know if you heard that from one of those podcasts, guys. That's really cool to know. So we will now let you go and see you next time.