Hi Y'all, with all the sharing & "feelin' the love" lately, I thought I'd share a few ocean chinook trolling tips. Note that I'm not talking about coho; Oregonians know enough about catching them. I'm talking about big boxes of big fish:
I'm gonna focus on "junk" (lures) not bait right now. Starting with hoochies. There are hundreds if not thousands of different hoochie patterns. It could drive ya nuts trying to choose:
But there is a small handful of patterns that I guarantee you will work well in most conditions. It's kinda like matching a fly to the hatch when flyfishing. About the most awsome condition for chinook is called "brown water", which is from lots of upwelling. The plankton blooms, the krill shows up, & the water temp is between 50 - 54 degrees. In these conditions the absolute killer is this little guy, Luhr Jensen part# c28cr "olive" shown at bottom:
Note that the base plastic is transparent. The top two are Golden Bait p/n omw60r which is opaque. This works OK, but the c28cr is best. Use these with a red hot-spot flasher in brown water.
A close second in brown water are the white patterns. However, whites will work in more different conditions & depths than any other pattern. If you could only have one hoochie, it ought to be these:
The top two are "glow in the dark." It has a yellowish tint to it, compared with the two below. The bottom two are the venerable "purple haze." It is NOT glow in the dark (except the eyes). However, if you look at it closely, it has a purple glow to it. A number of different hoochies get called "purple haze." This is the one I learned, and it will hammer the fish in either brown water up high, or clear water down deep (like on the bottom in 40 fathoms).
When the upwelling is over, and the water warms up above 55 degrees, and gets real clear, this guy (p/n 15r but sorry I don't have mftr) is another killer:
When you rig a hoochie behind a flasher (which you nearly always do) it needs something to fill the head. The best thing to use is a "gum pucky" which is a silicone rubber bullet with a hole in it. Yes some folks use plastic bead or plastic ones, but most highliner commercial fisherman will only use gum puckies. The best hook is a durnickel curved point. 7/0 (shown) is a typical commercial size or for "heavy" sport gear; 5/0 would be for "light" sport gear. The gum pucky fits in the hoochie real snug, and the knot can be shoved up snug into the hole:
My favorite thing about hoochies & big curved-point hooks is that nearly every time, the fish gets hooked real well
Next post: Part II, flashers & spoons.
[ 04-20-2003, 10:18 PM: Message edited by: Mark Mc ]
Mark Mc
Chinook Primer Pt I
NWSH, CCA
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