salmon bungees???

[R House]

Anybody use bungees for the silvers? Fished with JabberJaw yesterday at the CR Buoy and we had a least 15 strikes for 3 rods that we did not get hooked up. We were using the double deep six divers with kite flashers and the tension on the rods was very strong to say the least. Do you guys think that the bungees would help make the fish stick? On the brighter side we did get our 6 fish 3 nooks and 3 silvers and we released 12 to 15 high finner cohos. We fished mainly between buoy 2 and the CR 12 to 15 pulls. We started with whole herring bought only bought 2 dozen so when they ran out we switched to Coyotes, silver and green and got just as many bites both ways. Jabberjaw put on an Apex first time trying those and he got bites but not as frequent as the Coyote.

[No Fences]

Haven't had to use the bungees. We use glass rods and that's been our best upgrade we've ever made.

[BIGALSURF]

We like the bungees. Had a lot more pole take downs turn into caught fish using them. There is a great video that sold me on them, the video shows salmon underwater biting at bait, as they bite their eyes lose contact with the bait, so they aren't very accurate. They make up for this by inhaling water with their gills into their mouths, and normally with a struggling bait fish that "pulls" them into the mouth just enough. But with hard lines and no bungee, on the video you can see the boat just pulls the bait right out of the mouth, or there is a slight bite but not on the hook.

Our set up is all bungees now, using the rotary salmon killer on the herring head or anchovy.

Lot's of limit days the last few years.

Good luck.

[smalldog]

No,
I want a solid hook set.

[Mypursuit]

Ok, so let's get it started.

I often use them especially on Coho if they are doing a lot of hit and runs.

Once hooked they help with their soft mouths and help keep a taught leader with their crazy death spiral runs straight at the boat.

[BIGALSURF]

Haven't ever had to set hooks using bungees, just start reeling in, they are usually hooked deep in the mouth from their bite. We pull out of rod holder reeling in, give a hard tug but not a really hard swing like a chinook on a spinner. By the way we don't use bungees with spinners, this is only with herring bait.

[BigWaterBigFish]

For Coho - bungees - yes - immediately behind the dodger or flasher, then a top quality ball bearing swivel with leader tied to it.
For Chinook - bungees - no - but drag is set as light as I can (using divers) so that when nook hits, it peels line as he chomps it, then as noted before, lift up the rod to the sky out of the rod holder, usually all the hook set needed

BUT ... this year, oh, this year we're going to do something different ... after bringing in three chinooks up in BC first of June on a 10 1/2' Berkley Canadian Specialist medium action rod and a "knucklebuster"; I'm going to give that a try - guide that I fished with showed me how to use both on a diver and downrigger - no bungee necessary - diver/dodger has "drop" so it doesn't add drag once the fish pulls, or when it pulls free of the downrigger just the in-line dodger - so it's fish to man, man to fish and the pole takes all the action .... no bungee necessary and every movement of the fish you feel as if you have in your hands, have to reel like a madman when they turn for you but it's a reel blast

[KeyWest]

I have been experimenting with these. I tried the same gear with bungies on one rod, one without. No fish hit the bungies. Good fish on the one without bungies - but that is but one day. Swapped sides of the boat, and the same results. I will be doing more testing and comparing....

[DogZilla15]

For the guys who like to use lead to get the bait down they are essential. When using divers I'm not so sure. The trend toward longer, softer rods does help a bunch. I use them and will continue to do so.

[lurking_out_loud]

I've gone to slow action rods (moochers) in long lengths (10'6" or longer) for most all trolling. Personally, I believe that the longer slower action rods leave the bait in the fishes face longer that a fast action one. The bungees work pretty well, but with the long load up time and dampening effect I just don't like them. I like the fact that the slow action moochers load up nice and slow and I can feel what the fish is doing. The bungees just don't work or feel the same.

Canadian style rods with knuckle busters in the salt is way too much fun by the way. Even dink coho give it up on that type of setup.

Bring 'em on eh?

-lol

[Something Good]

I've always experienced better hookups without them. Best bite to hookup ratio seems to be on the downriggers. They really get a chance to inhale it once the clip pops loose.

[fishbait]

I do not use them. Sharp hooks and a properly placed trailer hook and I have a pretty good hook up ratio.

[BIGALSURF]

I'm not as convinced long flexible rods help, because if you're using a diver, the force of the diver is bending the rod to a certain resistance point, which means if the fish needs to pull it back further by inhaling, I'm not convinced that the softer rod will bend back that much easier than if you just had a handline trailing off the back of the boat with no flexiblility at all. Anyway, this is what makes horse races, and I was convinced by the video. I will say one thing against them and that is that sometimes we have lost fish at the boat because inexperienced fishermen don't take into account their flexibility and for some reason when they do their last bit of hauling towards the net, they seem to lose control of the fish just before the thrust of the net.

Once you get used to that, and tie your leaders a little shorter to allow for the length of the bungee, (we put them downstream of the flasher, upstream does not work), then it works well.

One testimony for them is that the charter out of West BAsin, Tiki Charters, uses them.

[R House]

Thanks for all the opinions, guess I'll experiment this week-end with a couple of rods with and without.