Quick any last m inute salmon tips??

[Lepper]

I'm still relativly new to the salmon fishing in the ocean. I have gone 2x.. with little success caught 1 fish. I used a diver w/flasher with a green apex got several bites but only got one fish.. also tried plug cuts but no bite there....

any other hints for how to catch some big ones????

thnx.
dave

[wak'm&stak'm]

If you are fishing divers.....the ole standby I used for years for coho is.....diver...6 ft of leader.....large dodger......18 inches of mooching rig. Seems like you can't miss with a hot pink for coho. I always run a herring fillet or a small herring.

I am not sure how deep you are going but half the silvers are 20ft behind the prop

Good luck

[Lepper]

Havent' been going that deep I dont' think...... I tried a white/red hoochie and didn't get squat with a filled piece of hering.....

thnx..... anyone else?

[fishinfool]

Lepper,
Last year we ran delta divers with a fish flash hooked directly to them. Then used the mooching rig leader that came in the package. Had a slip 2nd hook put on a herring bent it slightly to get a roll put it down bout 15 pulls and held on as fish after fish hit it. Hope you have good luck and be careful out there. :grin:

[Lepper]

thanks for another reply.... will only be going if it is nice.... I dont' like rough days.... although I have been out in some 10 foot swells.... I like the little ones much MUCH better.

[Pilar]

Lepper,

Silvers - Fish shallow and troll fast, 3 or 4 mph. Favorite rig is, use a deep 6 diver size 0, silver if you can find one, a chrome Les Davis dodger about 6" long on 24" of 40# leader behind the deep 6, and follow with a 24" to 30" 2 hook mooching leader and a whole small herring. A fast spin is ideal and use bead chain swivels to prevent twist. The rotary Salmon Killer is a bait holder that makes whole baits easy and sets the bait spin every time. Try one of those too if you can find them in a store near you.

Troll this rig at 6 to 8 pulls early in the day and maybe as deep as 13 pulls later. You won't be fishing long as you will have easy limits.

Kings - Fish deeper and much slower, 1 - 2 mph. Use a mooching weight from 8 to 12 oz., follow that with an RSK (Rotary Salmon Killer) on a 2 hook mooching leader. I like long (6 foot) light leaders for nooks. 30# big game or maxima chameleon works pretty good. Set your large whole herring to spiral not spin and troll slow. You can run the same rig on a downrigger, go deep 100 feet is typical. Also you can use a flasher if you are on a downrigger.

Finding the Silvers is pretty easy. There are thousands of fish finders hard at work all day. Find working birds or full birds that can't fly for being so full of bait. They will sit on a bait school once they find it and gorge. The Salmon are down under the school of bait. Troll around the edges, don't barge right through.

Silvers are shallow and Kings are deep. I like 180 ft or deeper for kings and troll at 100 feet or deeper on a bright sunny day.

[ 07-15-2002, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[Hookset]

Pilar's got it right. Troll near the surface early and drop down 4 to 5 pulls once the sun hits the water for silvers. If your running more then one rod, try different depths, shallow and deep to find the sweet spot. For silvers, many people make the mistake and troll to slow. Silvers will follow your lure/bait for quite awhile and a faster troll gets thier attention. Silvers just prefer a faster troll. Also, vary your speed and direction, making the rig dance a little, often this produces hits. If your running the motor, you have to watch the poles. When you see a hit without a hookup, gas the motor 1 sec, then drop off, then resume speed. Often this will trigger a second strike, works better with bait. Another way to increase your odds is never get in a hurry to remove the rod from the holder, make sure the rod is dancing. After a fish hits, most people slow down and remove the rod. Big mistake since now you gave a moving fish slack line. Instead, after the rod goes down, speed up a little, this helps to really set the hook, now without slowing down, remove the rod and once the fight is on, you can back down a little, I like to troll slowly while fighting a fish to keep the gear from tangling and increases your chance for multiple hookups, silvers often travel in groups. For my tackle, I still like trolling bait behind a flasher, or use O or OO size dodger behind a dep six or delta diver. I like divers in the ocean since they plane on a more even level when trolling shallow through swells rather then using lead. I often use lead trolling deeper for chinook. Properly rigged, a trolled bait will usually get first and second hits. As I said earlier, the person behind the trolling motor has a lot to do with the success of the boat.

Good luck,

Gregg

[Scaup]

I agree with several points from above.

FishinFool and Pilar have it right, you need to get your bait to spin. Fast spins for silvers and a slow roll for Chinook have always worked the best for me. Last time out I rigged one pole with a spinning bait and one with no spin. The pole with the spinning bait got all of the hits. You can make the bait spin by either the way you cut it or, the easy way, just put a slight bend in the bait (easier to tune to get the right spin). Both have worked equally well for me.

Hookset also has good advice, frequently change your course and speed. Seems like I hook most of my fish while turning, so I usually end up driving in circles. It's also great practice for my future career in NASCAR.

Hookset is absolutely correct on what to do when the fish strikes. A lot of fish are lost when people grab the pole from the rod holder.

If your using hoochies try different colors until something works, especially if you see other people catching fish and you're not. I rig up several leaders with different color hoochies, then just keep snapping on different ones until something seems to work. Sometimes the old standby's don't always work.

Sharpening your hooks will increase your number of hook-ups.

[AngleThis]

I agree with Pilar, except I don't believe chinook are neccessarily much deeper. I've taken 3 25+lb chinook the last couple weekends and got them all between 20-60 feet.

Use one of those plastic head clips on a whole large herring rather than a mooching rig. Put bead swivels at the top of the leader and above the flasher to prevent twist ups, and stick a hoochy skirt between your top hook and head clip...useful for that follow up bite when a hungry fish takes your bait.

[Streetwalker]

We lost 2 nice nooks at the boat Sun off twin rocks we also had several silvers come un unpinned. Overall had about 14-16 hookups it was a slow day out there. We were using rotary samon killers w/ fishflash on 2 rods & whole w/ dodger & chartruese hoochies on the others. It seemed that the RSK's got the most hits (got the nooks 30 -35 pulls) but also lost the most fish. I believe it is due to the large siwash hooks that come on them. I see that some of you are using mooching leaders on them. Do you rig them any different? The stock hooks have the plastic tube that keeps the hook spacing down & seems to give the head clip something to bear on in order spin right. I'm looking for some input to modify them. We never used them till yesterday & seemed to be getting more strikes than most other boats around so I would like to keep using them if I can modify them to hookup better.

[Lepper]

wow, thanks for all the replies.... one thing that I want but don't have is a down rigger, just been using divers..... But that is in the future somewhere behind the gps... In the river all I ever did was plug cut'em and troll 3-5mph (faster then most) and we caught actually quite a lot of chinook last yr..... smallest being 15lbs......

thanks again
dave

[bullhead]

For what it's worth I caught two Nooks in 200' of water off Twin rocks on Sunday. Caught them at 12 pulls, using Deep Six diver, Les Davis, single ought (O) flasher and 18" of leader with plug cut herring. There are many chinook up north, not sure about down your way. It's the best Chinook fishing I've seen that fat offshore, that shallow.

We run the dodger about 5' behind the diver. Plug cut herring with a fast spin, as we were really fishing for Silvers, but happened upon the Chinook. My friend also boated an 8lb. chinook as well. We limited in 21/2 hours both fishing at 12 pulls.

Saturday we were at 18-25 pulls and we had several strikes but only one landed. We talked to other guys who also had luck at 10-12 pulls. Each pull is about 18".

I have always found best action for silvers by using the Deep Six, Single Ought Les Davis dodger, and plug cut herring. It's a simple but very effective technique.

Good luck!

[ 07-15-2002, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: bullhead ]

[Lepper]

thanks again for all the info. I am going to try and sneak out tomorrow morning from 5:30-9:30 for fishing.... We have a house full of guests so it might not be to easy...... I just want to get away with out everyoen and there dog wanting to go......
dave