I've fished the area between Sekui and Pillar Point a few weekends this year, and I've never used bait... you don't need it, maybe you'd catch a few more fish, but I don't think it's worth the trouble or expense$$$.
I've had weddings and other stuff going on the past couple of weekends, so the last time I was there was the weekend of the July 21st, we fished 7pm to 10pm on Friday and 4am to 12noon on Saturday, we had five limits of silvers in the boat by 10am on Saturday, then went bottomfishing. Totals for those two days were 78 salmon on, we lost 30 of them (see comment later on), landed 48 of them, released 35 of those, kept 13 clipped coho total, they were all between 4 and 8lbs. While we were jigging for bottomfish, we caught & released 6 nice lingcod, and kept a couple of greenling and sea bass.
All the bait I've seen in the water there has been skinny and really small, like 3" long, so I've mostly used Silver Horde Coho Killer spoons, in green/glo, spatterback green/glo, army truck, and purple/black/silver plated.
I've also used the 3" Silver Horde Kingfisher spoons, as well as Coyote spoons, in the same colors as the coho killers. I've used mini hootchies (2" long) in glow and spatter back green/glo, on large green hotspot flashers, about 48" of 60lb leader. I've used Grandslam Bucktail flies in candlefish pattern, both the green and the blue colors. The moral of the story is: ALL OF THIS STUFF WORKS GREAT. If I were to pick one lure, I'd pick the Coho Killers. (if the bait there is still the same)
When I first started fishing there, I was using flashers, running hootchies, spoons, and flies, but I found that the fishing was so good (easy) that I switched to no flashers, and just spoons clipped on my mainline, and run off the downriggers. We caught just as many fish. We were fishing mainly in the top 45 feet of water. We were running two downriggers, and sometimes my friend was tossing a blue & white buzzbomb straight in back of the boat, and jigging it... that caught lots of fish, too. He also tried a letting a Coho Killer spoon out, no weight, just trolling it on the surface, and that caught a bunch of fish, too. He had 14 fish himself on Saturday.
I don't really like running any sort of double-hook setup in an area where you are required to release some fish, especially if they are coho. So for me, that means no hootchies, no bucktails, unless I were to retie them. Coho tend to get wrapped up in the line and hook themselves in the eye or the top of the head with the second hook, especially if you are using flashers. It's my belief that the mortality rate is higher when using two hooks. Also, when you're using just a spoon, you can release the fish a little easier, I keep a couple of sticks on the boat, they are just little dowels with a hook screwed in one end, I just bring the fish alongside the boat, check the fin while it's still in the water, and use the stick to tug the hook out if I need to release it. Granted, you lose a lot of fish at the side of the boat when they thrash and throw the hook (we lost about 27 this way), but it's probably the best way we have yet of releasing fish, as we never handle them with our hands.
Back to your question... if you're going to use Coyotes on flashers, try a 60" to 72" leader, light test, you don't want the line to be stiff since the spoons have action of their own, you're not trying to impart action from the flasher like you would with a hootchie (hence the reason I use 60lb test on hootchies). You can run hootchies if you want, set them up like I said above. With flies, it doesn't seem to matter, if the fish are there like they were two weeks ago, you'll catch fish whatever way you rig them... but I think you'll find that fishing no flashers on light gear, and skimming the surface or clipping to a downrigger as deep as 50ft down will be the most fun.
Good luck, let us know how you do. I'm going to try to get out there Sunday.
-N.
Previous Topic
Index
