OKi versus hot spots and other gear ponderings

mattakfish

2012-12-24 07:56:07

Well, I think I have bought every used flasher and hoochie in Petersburg and on ebay. Now I have to pry open my wallet and buy some brand new gear. So I'm trolling for opinions....

What do people think of hot spot versus oki. How about pro troll or luhr jensen flashers? Abe and al?

Is it best to buy an assortment of flashers or purchase a dozen of the same at a time?

How about nylon versus rubber snubbers? Rubber seems more pliable but nylon seems more durable...any thoughts?

Any preference for online/mail-order gear stores? (I buy local as well....some prices are actually comparable with pacific net and twine or seamar but the local selection is limited)

spike christopher

2012-12-24 18:06:26

Matt, boy oh boy are you in for a long discussion on fishing gear. I was in your position a few years back. I tried every thing any one would give me and then some. For the first couple of years I thought I would never get the correct combination. After a while I started to figure it out, I found it wasn’t so much the gear as it was the speed and the length of gear that I used. At the end of the day I might not have as many fish as the old timers but it was acceptable to me. I found out right off the bat that no one is going to give you their true secret’s and I don’t blame them as they had spent many years perfecting their

Craft. So here is what I found out, and this is only my opinion.

1. Make sure your boat has a decent electrical field some where between .5 to.7

2. Don’t chase the bite until you learn the area you are fishing, you can spend a lot of time and fuel getting to a bite that ends the day before.

3. Learn when the fish or going to be showing up in certain area’s, I am talking silvers here and not Kings.

4. Try to find some one to run with and compare notes and for god’s sake don’t lie to him.

5. I found fishing to be better in the early morning hours than late at night.

6. Try to get a descent night sleep as you can work yourself to death if fishing by yourself.

7. Once you decide on your gear, keep it in the water.

8. And finally after about five years of experience you might catch enough fish to pay for fuel and your gear lost. Good luck and hope to see you on the grounds

mattakfish

2012-12-24 19:13:48

All excellent advice. I need to start compiling a notebook for the boat!

Salty

2012-12-24 19:54:12

!@#$%&* I just had a wonderful reply that I somehow deleted. Philosophical. To boil it down again: Spike gave excellent advice and you need to find your own way, what works for others may not be the answer for you. Evening bites work for me, the sleep you get in #6 affects your decision making for #7.

Trolling is about much more than finding the fish and keeping your gear in the water. It is about having the gear they will bite in the water on the fish when they want to bite.

Some trollers are masters at running the same drag the same way with the same lure at the same depth going the same speed for weeks. Others are masters at flowing to the body of fish from Suckling to Dixon Entrance at different depths with different lures.

9. After a lifetime of visiting with and interviewing trollers, some of who were real highliners, it amazes me the creative diversity in getting salmon to bite. The unique perspectives of thinking about salmon, tides, weather, drags, gear systems, individual lures, the right hook for a particular spoon that turns it from a good lure into a magical one. How what works for your partner might never be a producer for you. How you might never have the discipline to run the same drag the same way for weeks while your partner might never be as adventurous as you in discovering a bunch of fish in an unusual spot with a new lure.

So, given all of that, here is my best answer at the specifics in you question: Next post.

Salty

2012-12-24 20:04:40

What do people think of hot spot versus oki. How about pro troll or luhr jensen flashers? Abe and al?

My thinking is decide what you want and then buy dozens of them. 50 dozen is a good number of flashers to start with if you are going to fish Chinook, coho, pinks, and chums. Blue mylar hotspot is a good all around flasher for all species. Shop around, tell the seller you are thinking of buying 50 dozen. I have sometimes made arrangements to buy thousands of flashers for a group of guys. Volume discounts can be significant.

After a few years you might get to the point where you ask the gear dealers to make the lures you want, from flashers to hootchies. Most of the lures I fish now are custom made, but that is not where you start.

If your are going to fish abe and als, then you need to visit with an old timer who knows how to "tune" them.

Salty

2012-12-24 20:10:20

How about nylon versus rubber snubbers? Rubber seems more pliable but nylon seems more durable...any thoughts?

I threw all my black snubbers away or sold them at a discount about 30 years ago. I think they spook the fish in some situations, particularly in shallow water. I use a few of the green nylon on the lead spoon and first leader up for Chinook. Mostly I fish without snubbers and with the modern hybrid mono, good double sleeves, and changing leaders regularly I seldom break a leader.

mattakfish

2012-12-24 20:23:13

Again...more great advice. Thanks! But did I read that correctly 50 DOZEN....as in 600 flashers? I may have to take out another loan:) I think I maybe have 70 or 80 right now.

Salty

2012-12-24 20:48:21

Any preference for online/mail-order gear stores? (I buy local as well....some prices are actually comparable with pacific net and twine or seamar but the local selection is limited)

This should be a number added to Spike's excellent list:

11. Develop a personal relationship with gear manufactures and dealers around the world. In the last year I have bought spoons from the East Coast, hooks from the deep south, line from Florida, line from California, marabou from Chicago, tinsel from SW Washington, beads from....., hootchies from Canada, flashers from another spot in Canada, etc. I spent an hour having a beer with a guy from France who gave me insights into my fish finding equipment. Go to fish expo, visit the troll gear dealers (not many left) go to troll gear stores all over the NW. The relationships you develop will endure over time, sometimes through the generations. Read the sport fish magazines, contact the authors about interesting gear or techniques.

But, most important, cultivate your relationship with your local gear dealer. Don Wells, a gear seller in Sitka, and I served together on the AC and I often visited with him at his shop. Before he passed last year he gave me all kinds of tips. Just last month I showed the staff at Murray Pacific how to watch the Seahawks games on their shop computers. Those kind of contacts pay off.

Finally, go to the local garage sales that have troll gear. You might find those old superiors you heard about, that old guy might know just where to use that bag of hootchies he is selling for $2.00 a pack.

And, here is my Christmas gift to all of you reading this far on this forum......try a #7 hook on that #5 superior. .

Salty

2012-12-24 20:58:01

I have ordered more than 50 dozen flashers in a year. If you order them in bulk you are more likely to get a discount. But, if you are like I was when I was starting, you can't afford 50 dozen. At todays retail prices that is like $6,000. My first handtroller and new motor cost less than that.

So, figure out the flavor you want, and buy a dozen at a time. 4 dozen hot spot flashers will get you through the spring. Add another four dozen for the July Chinook opening, and then another 4 dozen for chum fishing. So, that gives you 12 dozen, which is just barely enough for four lines of 30 flashers for chum fishing at 1.5 fathom marks. Not enough if you use 1 fathom marks. Not enough if you lose a line, but a start.

They will accumulate. I have well over a thousand flashers in stock here. Unfortunately only about 300 are the flavors I am using now.

fishinAK1

2012-12-26 22:56:22

haha Which #7 hook?

Salty

2012-12-26 23:35:39

You can lead a horse to water but he has to figure out how to drink it.

Abundance

2012-12-27 03:04:41

I've always made my own snubbers out of rolls of black tubing that I buy from Murray Pacific. Get the double barb swivels for the leader end. Cut the tubing into the length you prefer, usually a couple of feet, wet the barb with oil or saliva and insert into the tubing. Get out some green net twine and tie your favorite knot around the inserted barb. Tie one end of the twine to something sturdy, and pull the other end hard enough that you think the twine is going to snap. Tie another knot and repeat. I still haven't found a knot that lasts forever, so you have to check on it know and then as you are fishing to see if its starting to slip. I know a number of fishermen who cannot stand snubbers, but whenever I try to get by without them I end up with straightened hooks and broken lines. This is mostly in the spring fishery, dealing with massive spawners ready to fight their way up a river. And winter fishing when the water is ultra clear and you have to switch to fifty or sixty pound leader to get a bite. Summer fish rarely break leaders, but I remember one day as a deckhand out at Forester Island where we had a forty pound average. Most of them broke the leader with a twitch of their head. Snubbers would have saved a lot of hootchies.

Carol W

2012-12-28 01:40:43

First off keep the hooks in the water.

I learned a few years ago while winter trolling off a lonely point with no boats, no feed or other signs of life don't be afraid to try a piece of gear, I threw a hootchie I had been carrying around on 2 different boats for 15 years in the water and made over $1500 on that hootchie that day, it hasn't caught since then. I have more than a 100 different variety of hootchies tied up at any given time and circulate through them on a fairly regular basis, I do have favorites.

I don't use snubbers other than a couple green ones on the bottom spreads.

I personally don't use sleeves I use knots this is a personal preferance.

I use Mustad 95170 hooks.

I use pacific net and twine wire.

I never throw a proven spoon away no matter the condition.

I keep metal spoons in antifreeze.

Speed now this is a perplexing one and the best I can say is keep changing, I personally don't look at the speed on my GPS, but I know others who do and catch plenty, so this is a big variable. Pay attention to the speed when catching but don't get hooked on it, the fish will change when you think you got it figured out.

ATTITUDE to me this is the big one we all forget but most of us know if you have a bad attititude you aren't going to catch as much as the guy who is tuned in.

If you don't like where you are fishing leave cause whatever you don't like about that spot will prevent you from catching as much as you would if you liked the spot.

Don't worry about what I am catching worry about what you are catching, you can't sell my fish and I can't sell yours.

Treat your fellow fisherman with respect. don't crowd on the backtack but beware things happen and sometimes a guy has a problem that screws up the drag, when that happens let it ride cause it could be you next. One time I was trolling down the Gravina shore thinking I was all alone I was taking the back tack tight on the beach, I heard an engine speed up and on my starboard side a well known Ketchikan highliner went buy looking at me like I was nuts. I felt bad so afew days later in town I went down to his boat to appologize. He told me in all of his years of fishing he has caught more fish giving way than stealing the inside, how so true that statement has turned out.

Fish are not only where the fleet is, the best fishing of my career has always been when there are no boats around me.

Think about the life cycle of a salmon particularily Kings and Goho they go out as little babies and spend their whole lives growing so they can go spawn and the primary thing they do in the ocean is eat and that is why troll gear works so well in the ocean.

The most important rule I keep in my head is that if I keep dragging my hooks around that sooner or later something good will happen, and that is why I scratch so hard.

Keep your hand on it

Tom

fvsedna

2012-12-28 02:01:41

Very well placed, Tom~

Andrew

spike christopher

2012-12-28 04:39:13

very well said Tom

Abundance

2012-12-28 04:51:55

Everything you say is true, particularly the bit about your attitude affecting your fishing. Very well put indeed.

Salty

2012-12-28 06:37:09

Well said Tom. Hand marked or brass sleeves on the wire?

So, about 20 of us are hugging the beach at Pt. Dundas facing into a big ebb with the beach on our port sides as it is a port side to the beach drag on the ebb there, when the Happy Hooker comes around the pt. starboard to the beach and he thinks he has the right of way. Talk about a scramble. The north west side of Three Hill Island, Boomer Rk., is also port to the beach. The southwest side, High Anxiety, is starboard to the beach. Wimbledon switches with the tide.

So, just when you think you have it all figured out you learn you know nothing.

A few years ago Mustad made a bunch of 95170's with bad stainless and they broke way too easily. Some of us old timers have been reluctant to use that hook since, though the word is that it was an isolated batch. It is not the #7 95170 I use on a five superior.