I'm heading to Seiku in a week and I read in the Seiku reports that Superfly went thru 100 herring in 3 hrs...ouch! Is it worth trying spoons or hootchies without flashers? I really hate to use any more hardware than neccesary to catch silvers,and really don't want to buy that much bait. How about the smaller Hot-Spot flashers or the trout size flashers by Luhr-Jensen? Any other tecnique's that don't require alot of hardware? Thanks!

Coyote's should work great by themselves. Hoochies probably will not, they don't have their own action like spoons do.

HBP, you could use anything out there to catch fish! When there in you can't even get you gear in the water and down before it's FISH ON! I like the coho killers and just about any other spoon will work. Add just a touch of scent are you will do fine. I would also recommend going really lite on the gear. IT makes catching those fish a blast. If fishing with downriggers try a flasher off the ball w/ a spoon just above it. Small dodge is also a great way to go if the fish are spread out. Good luck.

4" green/chrome Coyote spoon, 6' leader, 3 oz. banana sinker. Troll fast, 2.5 to 3 mph. let out about 30' of line so your just behind the prop wash. Find the tide rips (there's lots of them). This combo is GUARANTEED to put fish in the boat at Sekiu.

with spoons what i like to do is attach a hot spot to the downrigger ball say about 6-8 ft back,i have a green heavy plastic like cord between ball and downrigger wire clip(narrows marine has them) line relaese goes on at the wire run spoon back 10-12 ft and have fun when they run!

Here's what we use. It works great, is easy to use, and eliminates a flasher on the line.

Get a Fish Flash by Big Al's. It's a triangular flasher with bent corners. Rather than make big, sweeping circles, it just goes along straight, while rotating in the water.

Ok, take your Fish Flash and clip it directly to the downrigger ball or cable just above the ball. Run it about 6 feet back.

Drop the ball aboout 4 feet and clip your release to the cable. Run your spoon, or whatever lure you're using about 10 feet back. This should put it about 4 feet behind the Fish Flash and 4 feet above it. This technique could be done using regular Hot Spot flahsers, but due to the large circles it makes, you have to put your lure about 10 feet above it at the minimum and even then, you may get some tangles. The Fish Flash is the way to go.

Now, when fish sees the Fish Flash and it attracts them, they get behind it and the lure is right above them. Since fish see up, it puts the lure in a perfect position to induce a strike. Not only is this technique very effective, it also eliminates the need to have any kind of flasher on the main line so you're just fighting the fish.