I used to keep a notebook(I know it's somewhere)...and pretty much every old time'r I'd talked with said that out of all the salmon they'd caught in their lives....the biggest were all on WHOLE herring.....and that's when I quit cutting the heads off. They spin faster than fast....and don't tear out as quick(trolling).....Mooching/trolling whatever....I put the first hook vertically right thru the head, and leave the trailer dangling....and tie it so it's an inch behind the tail.....This is just one part of what my friends and I are calling "old man rules"..(since it was imparted to me by a salmon slaying old man who's no longer with us.... His other rule was "I fish in 100ft @ 120 depth...period.....and he's been right more than once...