Flashers
Most boats fish red hot spots only. Few exclusively green. And, there are those who fish green in clear to light green water and red in dark water.
Any thoughts?
Salty
2015-04-17 06:51:31
I have hundreds of flashers in the garage, metal and plastic, from Dodgers to Nootkas, from pearl white through every shade in the rainbow to black. I have dozens of brands. I have flashers that spin, that rotate oh so slowly, that never rotate but dodge back and forth, that rotate three turns one way at the right speed, and then dish out and start rotating the other way. I have all kinds of paint and stickers for dressing them up. I have some with ball bearing swivels, I have some with barrel swivels so they will seize up after a few rotations and spin the other way. I have flashers with magic "chips" in them. I have some flashers that fish better at 50 fathoms and some above 10. I have flashers with washboard like ridges.
I have flashers for pinks, for chums, for sockeye, for early coho, for ocean fishing, for fishing in tide rips, for fishing in bays.
I have flashers for almost every historic bite in my fishing career in the areas I fish. I have ordered a run of 3,000 custom made flashers for our group. I have ordered up to 50 dozen flashers for myself in a season.
But, what I don't have yet is the flasher that will be the hottest this season. Could someone pm a picture of it?
Crawfish
2015-04-17 15:27:44
"PURPLE" for the win!
LOL Some where in the attic I have some Ab & Ls and Nootkas. I have a representative sampling of Salt's inventory, at least what I could get off the shelve or was given to me. I tend to migrate back to standards. Just interested if someone had a rational reason for fishing the same stuff. Other than it catches.
I did hear the hot spots made in China don't fish worth a nickel. Need to make sure they're manufactured in Canada.
Salty
2015-04-19 06:07:57
There is rationality in troller lure selection Lulu? LMAO!
most of the guys I know have the rational, "throw it in the water and see if it works."
Salty
2015-04-20 06:11:04
Assuming you can make a rational decision based on what happens next? There is science, there is math, from which you can often derive rational conclusions. Then there is fishing, religion, and politics. They, I think, are in the realm of faith and spirituality...
Amen brother! I have a science degree. I have been trained to connect the dots, evaluate the weight of data, search for more data and its relevance, study those constants which influence an outcome. My conclusion is salmon don't read the memo.
Salty
2015-04-22 01:16:44
LOL
carojae
2015-04-22 17:13:51
Flashers have evolved a lot the past few years. The newer jelly belly's (?) are intriguing if a flasher is suppose to flash.
Crawfish
2015-04-22 23:28:14
Oddball low drag flashers are my nemesis...
I tried the cone zone flasher's last year. They did not work well for me. Moon Jelly UV was supposedly one of their better colors.
Fish Flash were better. I called and tried to order some fish flash from Yakima Bait Co in a old color they used to make and they treated me like trash. If by chance you read this Yakima Bait, up yours.
Short Bus was another company I called and the guy that makes them seemed nice enough but I have yet to try those.
My best producer over the years has been Hot Spot .
The rest were a waste of money.
Salty
2015-04-25 02:36:15
[attachment=0]image.jpg[/attachment]I just did some very rough calculations. In my fishing career I have made well over ar million dollars on fish caught on flashers other than "hot spots". Just when you think you have it all figured out you find out you don't have a clue. When you get over the stages of grief associated with that epiphany then you might become open to real learning. At least that is my path. But, I am the author and chief contributor to the "you know you are a Lowliner when....." Thread.
On the other hand, I have caught 14 king salmon on two lures or less over the last 4 days and given most of them away.
Brother Dave
2015-04-25 05:26:53
Salty
2015-04-25 15:30:55
I used to use the big red ones as triggers to start clatters on coho and chum. Never had much success with stacking them up. Heavier to handle, more drag..
Salty
2015-04-25 15:31:46
I will sell some if anyone is interested.
Crawfish
2015-04-26 04:04:36
Makes me wonder which ones you have been successful with?
Wow , I have tried all kinds of dogers / flahers/ spinners and none have been that wonderful.
Maybe I don't have not enough faith in them to drag them long enough?
Seems I always come full circle when trying out different ideas.
Salty
2015-04-26 05:18:07
Remember Abe and Al's? Remember Nootka's? Remember Oki's? Then there are the custom made that I ordered over 3,000 for a group of guys once. At least for me, Hot spots are but one of many flasher choices. Then there was the period when I almost exclusively used hot spots with chartreuse plastic, then blue, then red, then clear.... Now I fish according to my mood. Red when I am angry, blue when I am sad, and green when I am optimistic... Seems to have solved the anxiety about which color to use.... And when I am not sure about my mood I use stripers or holographic.
Some of the above is the unadulterated truth.
Crawfish
2015-04-27 03:53:56
Abe and Al's ....
Yep I have got them, as a matter of fact they work splendidly for a shaft brush spring. Seriously though flasher's impart action into a hootchie. The fish bite the hootchie not the flasher. Does color of a flasher matter ? My guess would be yes but it is above my pay grade. I can tell you if a flasher is out of shape or the Mylar starts to come off fish ability is affected. I know the devil is in the details......
More to think about.
Jackson
2015-04-27 05:36:42
Well, having fished the "usual" on the last couple boats I crewed on, I'll say MY new boat came with a ton of old school gear, including a lot of well used Abe and Al's (which is all I ever heard about from the old trollers growing up in Oregon). Whether they only left their "scrub gear" on the boat for me to fail with, or retired it all I do not know. But I'm going to give them a try. :)
Crawfish
2015-04-27 17:00:13
I think they used to call them kelp cutters.
Salty
2015-04-28 15:13:16
Color does matter. When you can tell best is when you are fishing pinks and chums because you have hundreds of bites a day to evaluate what is getting bit or not.
The other aid is partners who catch way more than almost anyone else and share.
Crawfish
2015-04-28 15:28:10
Salty,
If you were to choose one manufacturer of flashers to be the "do all" one.
Which would it be?
Salty
2015-04-29 01:41:45
Gibbs.
Salty
2015-04-29 01:43:18
Crawfish
2015-04-29 04:26:11
Thanks for the link. Gonna try some.
Salty
2015-04-30 14:07:07
actually, the ones I use are discontinued. I just looked in my box on boat for kings and coho. Hot spot blue Mylar red Mylar, red with brass mylar, green and blue stripers, and a variety.
Resurrecting an old posting: I wanted to know, and put to rest, if red fish better than green flashers. I fished the entire season with red on the starboard and green on the port. Conclusion: it didn't make any difference. Green may have caught a few percentages more, but I'll attribute that to the port side heavy is the money wire. It wouldn't have mattered what color was on that wire, it is generally the first to go off.
Salty
2015-10-28 01:23:00
When trolling west off the coast of SE Alaska the port heavy or bow is often the first to encounter the south migrating fish. But, in different places, at different times any one line can become hot. Bonding Gurdies together, and checking individual line and lead voltages helps me keep them all at my lowline production rate.
Salty
2015-10-28 01:24:54
By the way, I completely changed my flasher array for both chums and winter kings in August of this year. Has saved me a lot of work handling fish.
Some boats fish flashers better than spoons. I fished closely with another boat this year. Lulu is 7 feet deep and 50,000#s. She doesn't jerk or surge forward like my buddies 30" fiberglass boat with a 3' draft. Looking back into my catch records, I could see Lulu fishes flashers much better than spoons. The thought was confirmed when my running mate was stuffin' me with his spoons. I had a hard time just getting bit using the same spoons, line arrangement, and troll speed. The sea conditions were always the same; i.e. scratch bite, little to no wind, low seas. What we learned is every boat fishes differently. Experiment constantly to learn more about the boat and the fish. Maximize what you learn and disregard dock talk. I confirmed Lulu fishes flashers better than spoons this year and was always able to catch up or surpass his morning flurry. I'll never forget his expression as he past me during the afternoon tide change. I was throwing them over 3 to a wire while he was getting one to a wire sometimes. He had me down 20 before noon, it didn't end that way. Point is learn your boat and forget about what others are doing. All they tell you is there is or is not fish in the area.
Salty
2015-10-30 21:37:12
Good point, learn your boat, develop your system, and utilize information from others to enhance your ideas, not replace them. My experience is that the correct flasher combination with bait, hootchies, or bugs will almost always out fish straight spoons. But, sometimes pinks or other factors mean you don't want to use flashers. Then there are times when the right mixture of spoons, bait, plugs, and flashers/hootchies will out produce one type only in Chinook, or Chinook/coho fishing.
Good luck.
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