Neets bay Kings - Forums Archive

Salty

2009-06-12 02:10:51

Tom,

Not that I know anything but I do know some people who have been highly successful. Basically putting in the long hours because they bite early, late, and at tide changes. I share what I know because I am committed to do every thing I can to help the troll fleet harvest our allocated share of the SE enhanced salmon.

I have fooled around right off of the pens at Bear Cove for many hours and never did get those fish to bite like I wanted. But I did get some. I have had some 30 plus days in Silver Bay and some 60 plus days in Eastern Channel on hatchery fish. One of my partners has had numerous 60-80 fish days in Eastern Channel. I have had a few 90 -110 fish days during the experimental openings but those were all over 50 % wild fish so they really don't help.

I fished from 5:00 am until 2:00 pm today for 3. So, I don't claim to know it very well and even when I know what to do I have a hard time putting it together for production. When it is working here for me there seems to be a couple of keys. I will probably be crucified for this but I learned this mostly on my own so here it is.

1. Separate yourself from the fleet.

Here is the biggest problem. I have never ever had great production when there were a lot of boats working the same drag I was on terminal hatchery kings. Never, never ever even once. The good and the few great days always come when I have separated myself from the fleet either in time, depth, or space. My thinking is that the fish, like trout in a pool, get spooked by too much gear and turn off. I am absolutely certain that it happens with chums and pretty sure it happens with Chinook.

So, how does this problem allow trollers to attain good production in a terminal area? We are not really interested in allowing a few people to have great production. What we want is a lot of people to have good production. I don't know the answer to this problem. If I did I would be doing a lot better than I am. But, anyway here is what I would do if I had an opportunity on a whole bunch of hatchery Chinook and could separate myself from the fleet.

2. Think clatters!! When it is working I have had clatters of 15-20 kings at a time. 2 or 3 of those make a day.

3. Decide what lure you are using and use it on every spread. For some reason, hatchery Chinook, like sockeye and chums, seem to clatter best when presented with the same lure up and down the gear. Coho and pinks, on the other hand, will clatter on almost anything. (A problem with this is that a variety of gear often scratches better.)

4. The kings like the gear falling away or rising away from them when they are clattering. I won't tell you the details but you should think about building your gear to maximize these effects.

5. Circle back on the school and do figure 8 or otherwise to keep the school on the gear. (Do not attempt this on a circle drag or in the midst of a fleet, thus remember #1.)

6. Start fishing and end fishing when it is too dark to see your line stops.

7. Fish through the tide changes.

8. Vary the depth of your gear to determine the optimum depth for the most bites, not what you "like" to fish or even as deep or shallow as the water will allow. Of course you can't fish 30 fathoms in 20 fathoms of water but sometimes you need to have 30 or even 45 fathoms of wire out before the schools will clatter even though they are present on the shallower drags. Took me a long time and some advice from someone much wiser than myself to figure out that sometimes I had to fish deeper and sometimes, for example, dragging 30 fathoms off the 50 edge got more bites than 50 on the 50 edge or 30 on the 30 edge.

9. Even though it is a big deal to change every lure, you should be prepared to try different colors depending on the light conditions etc. If you have the right "hootchie" for example on 40 spreads when they decide to hit it, and only it, which they do sometimes, then you are going to do much better than if you only have that hootchie on 10 spreads. Same with bait or spoons. (True story, I once changed a hootchie color on one line and while I was putting it out in Eastern Channel. It started hammering on the way out . Three kings on the bottom three flashers. No bites on the other lines. Put it out again and it loaded (5 kings) again. I finally got the hootchie on all four lines and got all four going once before dark. Called my partner and told him the color and he also got a good clatter before dark. It was when cell phones were just arriving and he claimed that one call paid for his phone for several years.)

10. Vary your speeds. I have had Chinook refuse to strike below 2.5 knots and seen other times when if you went faster than 1.5 knots then they wouldn't clatter. Different gear fishes at different speed so be prepared to experiment. (This means separation again. It is not a good idea to be going slower or faster than the pack in a circle drag or even along an edge or on a line.)

So, in conclusion to answer your question about Neets Bay Chinook and how we get trollers to get a better share. Going to be difficult, Tom. If a few guys actually start getting some production by using a variation of the above or their own tricks then the word spreads and the fleet arrives and spooks the fish. I actually think a few trollers will actually produce more total harvest in some hatchery terminal situations than a lot of trollers will. If someone is really getting them off in his/her own corner then others flock to join the action and spook the fish.

I have made my living trolling for a long time now by refusing to participate in circle drags and usually move on when others try to turn the area I am working into a "circle drag". I recommend everyone give it a try.

In the larger political sense of how trollers get their allocated share of the hatchery production I am very interested in and will be participating in the "Neets Bay Chum troll experiment" this July. Chums are the big hatchery success story in SE and figuring out how to get trollers to harvest a higher percentage of them is key to the continued success of the SE hatchery programs.