I may be making the pilgrimage to lake Washington for the Sockeye season for my first time this year. I have caught them out of a river but never out of a lake. I was wondering about effective techniques and gear. I would also like to know if anyone jigs for them and what jig patterns work. Are they shallow runners or deep?

I usually troll them with a red/silver dodger, about a 24" leader and two 2/0-3/0 red octopus hooks. Alot of people run straight hooks. My "ultrasecret, not to be released on the internet" method is using a slim piece of fire engine red powerbait on the first hook, which increases visibility of the presentation and results in more hookups IMO.

Try this from ifish http://www.ifish.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=035200

This is pretty much a downrigger show. Troll 40 to 90', very slow, dodger with 16" leader to a double 2/0 red, gami hook. Get there at 3:30 am or plan two hours to launch and the same to take out. Don't forget to bring your patience, bumper boats and fish ....

Thank you for the info. Who'd a thunk it, bare hooks....

Yup, just like Beaver Creek on the Kenai or the Russian , only with a downrigger

Do you really think these fish are getting flossed? That would be weird, since you're pulling your line directly through the water. I can see how Hood Canal chum are flossed, but not sockeye on a trolled downrigger.

Flossin them in the river is for sure, but in the lake trolling, not likely

Various techniques will work for those stupid Lake Wa sockeye.

The favorite method these days seems to be the two red/pink/orange bare hooks behind a flasher method. Leader length usually dictates trolling speed. You can troll faster with a longer leader. Doesn't matter too much, as these fish are stupid. Since they are soft-mouthed fish, expect to lose a few with this method.

You are best off by running your gear on a downrigger, as it keeps everything all nice and tight under your boat. Or, you can be like the "zoo" out there and run banana leads, divers, or whatever else you can find. If you go this method, bring plenty of rods and gear, as once you hook up on a downrigger cable, you can kiss that line/gear goodbye. Well, that is what seems to happen when people hook our rigger lines. Dunno why, but steel cable always seems to win out over monofilament or braided lines!

To increase your odds of hooking up, run as many rigs as possible/legal. The more dodgers you have down there, the more those fish like to come and investigate. Usually, when one rod his hit, they are all! It's fun fishing until that ONE guy needs just one more fish. 7 fish in 10 minutes, followed by trolling around for hours for that one last stupid fish.

A standard steelhead rod/reel will work just fine as your rigger rod (until they explode on the hookset).

If it were legal to do so, and I DO NOT know if it is, I'd put out some dodgers on the riggers (no rods, no hooks, etc), just to make some noise down there. Maybe run 3 fake dodgers, followed by the one with the hooks. I bet that would work really well, if it's legal to do so.

You can also run a Coyote spoon directly off a rigger. Try doing that with a really light spinning rod and light line. Way fun! Way more fun than having to fight a dodger.

These sockeye don't put up a good fight, so it's a meat fishery. Most of the fish that I have seen attempted to be C&R'd end up dead on the surface. Kinda fun to get one on a light spinning rod and light line. Almost makes it a challenge.

Back "in the day", a lot of folks used to try Flatfish with various degress of success. Personally, I don't think I'd go that route.

Parker,

I am pretty sure the regs allow you to run extra flashers on the downrigger cable, as long as they don't have hooks on them. You may end up spending all your time minding the flashers, though. That's a lot of hardware to keep up with everytime you raise and lower the ball.

The U20 flatfish worked for me over the bare hooks during the last opening....

When Spawnout and I fished Sockeye in the salt last year we used homemade FishFlash flashers that were connected to downrigger cable snap clips. Easy on-easy off.

Ah the ol' Flatfish... That was back in the day huh?

The red (bare) hook represent krill... The red color turns a "perfect" shade of gray; the natural color of krill at the recommended fishing depths. Pink and orange are effective too (amphipod colors.)

Yes.. it is legal to load your wires with flashers, gang trolls, fish flashes... I fish 8-12 of them off the wires in the salt...

is there going to be a season this year? Sorry I am out of the current news
David

Lotsa flashers, that's the ticket. I run 5 dummy flashers on each side below my releases with the real thing. Keep moving slow even when you have a fish on and raise and lower the 'riggers slow - the sockeye will follow the "school". Kind of funny last trip we took when it was open a couple years ago - we had a big wad of socks on our gear for about a half-hour while everyone on the boat limited out, and everyone around us was getting blanked. Pretty soon I had as many boats around me as fish - dummy flashers work for the "dummies" too :rolleyes:

Look on the WDFW website - they have a whole section on rigging up for sockeye

Spawn,

I need a lesson on making those babies....

The setup is very simple:

One Luhr-Jensen single "0" chrome dodger

Two florescent pink (my favorite) hooks

Drop your DR ball down 75'.....FISH ON!

I could not get two lines in the water at the same time with this setup without getting a fish on. We would only fish with one rod.

As always, you can wander over to WashingtonLakes.com and review the Report Archives for sockeye reports going back to 1996. Plus there's a featured article posted on sockeye fishing. More info than you can shake a stick at. A bouncing DR rod stick, that is.

Cant wait for these sockeye to show up, should be a blast from what i have been hearing.

Thank you all for the input. I was really hoping to hear that jigging would work like for pinks but it looks like it's gonna have to be wires and hardware. I might try running flashers directly off the ball and something like a pink/krystal flash small coho killer type fly or shrimp immitation off the clip so I can fight the fish without fighting the flasher. If that doesn't work I'll be sure to have plenty of red or pink 2/0 or 3/0 octopus hooks ready. That's why I like mooching for kings instead of trolling, no flasher to fight with although I will resort to what works if need be. The thought of launching at three to combat fish really doesn't appeal to me at all but I have a good friend that may come up from Oregon and I will do whatever it takes to make his trip a good one. Thanks again, Ron

Ron - you don't have to hit the ramp at three to catch fish. I usually hit the ramp at seven or eight in the morning. By the time seven or eight rolls around everyone is already on the water and launching is a breeze.