Depending on the water you’re fishing, the jet diver will be rigged on a dropper from 4 to 12 inches long.

When fishing rocky-bottomed rivers, use a size 30 jet diver on a short 4-inch dropper. When fishing big waters with sand or silt bottoms, use a size 40 jet diver on a longer 12-inch dropper.

As we slipped down the river, we saw sudden excitement in the boat downstream from us. A “salmon fire drill” was in full bore: Rods were cleared, and a big net came out.

About five minutes later, they boated a bright, thrashing salmon. It was encouraging to see.

Salmon usually prefer the deeper water. As an added bonus at this time of year, summer steelhead are in the river. These anadromous trout like to station themselves downstream of the salmon in the shallow tail-out slicks.

It’s easy to target shallow-holding steelhead: Just slip farther downstream. The guide explained that with back-trolling, the first thing a salmon or steelhead sees is the bait. That’s good because you could use a heavy 25-pound-test leader, even in clear water.

When fishing is slow, one common mistake is assuming that a change to a long, light leader will tempt strikes from finicky fish. Unfortunately, a light leader doesn’t increase success, it increases break-offs. Also, too long a leader makes it difficult to net a hard-fighting salmon or steelhead that’s next to the boat.

Soon, one of our rods started bucking.

“Don’t touch the rod!” said the guide. “Let him eat the bait.”

If you’re new to back-trolling, remember that you need to let the fish mouth the bait, then turn and hook itself. An early hookset usually ends in a missed opportunity.

Once that rod flexed so that its tip was almost down in the water, the guide finally relented and let an angler take the rod out of the holder and begin fighting that game fish. After a short battle during which the fish made several high leaps, a 10-pound summer steelhead was in the net.

Then it was time to motor back upstream and see if we could get lucky again.

The first boat through usually gets a fish. And as you’ve just read, being the first boat on the water is easier said than done. You’ve got to learn the water so that you can run in darkness. It also doesn’t hurt to have everything packed the night before -- and set two alarm clocks.

SUN’S OUT, LET’S BACK-BOUNCE!
Once the sun comes out, it’s common for salmon and steelhead in smaller freestone rivers to nose up into the choppy, frothy water right in the throat of the pools. Currents here are powerful and often deep. You need to get down fast to fish these waters effectively.

In big waters, the midday sunshine can move salmon off the shallower lies only 10 to 20 feet deep, into waters too deep to reach with divers.

In both the above scenarios, the best way to present your bait is by back-bouncing.

Back-bouncing is a very active technique. With the boat positioned above the holding lie, the weight is allowed to free-spool to the bottom. Once you feel the bottom, clamp your thumb down on the reel spool. Lift the rod tip a foot or two, then free spool more line until you feel bottom again, slowly walking the bait downstream.

When the angle of the line flattens out more than about 45 degrees, reel in and start over.