Dammit, I will be out their again, sleeping overnight in my little boat and I will not go 0-2 in fishing for this blasted fish!!!!!!!

What are you doing wrong? Tell me what you are doing and I will see if I can give you some advice.

Mr. Man,

It is rather humbling when everyone around you is hanging fish with BARE hooks no less and you can't even get a sniff. But if it makes you feel any better just ask yourself this question: If every yahoo on every boat that you saw out there but yours was catching their limits, why are they opening it up again? Somehow I don't think you were the only one that went home empty handed. Anyway, better luck next time.
Right about now there ought to be a couple comin' through the locks with your name on them.
Oh yeah, sweet dreams out there on your little boat as visions of reds dance through your head.

Oh, I was trolling too fast. I went out and bought a trolling plate today that should get me below 2.0 MPH.....

Hey dont get frustrated this fish can be picky. I fished 14 hours saturday and only ended up with two in the boat and a couple of other crackered on the way in. I have been fishing sockeye with my dad since the mid 70's . I was doing the same thing as two years ago same place same boat same speed same gear. Fish on the finder all day long. Some days just go like that. 84 feet seemed like the magic depth for us.

M10Man, you can tow a couple of 5 gal. buckets if you still feel you are going too fast, and I would say 2.0 MPH is still too fast.

Shifting in and out of gear will often times drive them crazy. Shift out of gear and drift until your gear is hanging straight down. BTW, I'm sure you could jig for sockeye and catch them with the same gear.

Trolling speed should dictate leader length.

If you still opt to fish with bare hooks behind a silver flasher, lengthen out your leader if you want to troll fast. Run a 30" leader for a fast troll.

If you can slow down your trolling speed, shorten the leader way down.

Than again, what do I really know about fishing bare hooks, seeing how we troll fast, don't use bare hooks, don't use scents, don't use silver flashers, don't use short leaders, and don't fish in the South end of the lake.

About the only thing in common is that we are using downriggers, and start shallow early (50 feet) and drop down to 95 feet by the time the sun comes up. We caught fish with the line 15' to 30' behind the DR clip. Didn't seem to make a difference for these fish.

I'm probably just incidently flossing those sockeyes, huh?

So Parker,

How fast were you trolling? And how far behind the DR clip?

I didn't do too bad but I know I was going faster than most people say you should. I don't have a speedo so I gauge my speed by watching the lines. I was going just fast enough to put some action on the dodger (IE: make the rod tip bounce). I had my lines about 40' behind the clip. Fished 45 -80 feet. We got 2 fish at 68' and one good strike at 79'.

This weekend I'm going to try mixing it up a bit and put some only 4' behind the clip. I bought another plain dodger as that is the only thing different on the 2 lines we had down and the plain one went 3-0 over everything else we tried.

We don't keep track of speed, but fast. Really fast. Like fishing for coho kinda fast. The DR ball had a good 45 degree angle on it.

15 to 30' (ish) behind the DR clip. I just sorta put it back there behind the boat and clipped it off. Doesn't make a difference, really.

Just a note. My friends and I limited in less than two hours including several early releases , even though I had never fished LW sockeye before. Speed did not seem that critical for me (only depth), but we did notice that we were doing better than most. I did smear a krill paste I purchased on my flasher and hooks. I think it might have made the difference. May want to give it a try.

mount10man were will you be anchored. iam also sleeping out friday.

I found that sleeping under the Boeing Flood lights is just plain relaxing.... :rolleyes:

My anchor light doesn't work so that to me seems to be the safest place....Plus it will give me a chance Friday night to get some bass fishing in.....

I may see you there. 19 ft starcraft white top pink boat.

Do you have a downrigger? I saw very few fish caught without them. Depth is the biggest key to these fish. We hit nothing all morning until we went to 85'. Then we limited in 30 min.

anyone know the legal hours for fishing sockeye? i mean, can we fish for them starting at midnight? that would be reeeal nice.

Me and my buddy should be out there friday night as well, maybe do some night fishin for trout/perch

Curtis

IIRC the WDFW website showed 4:51am as the starting time and 9:50pm as the ending time.

Will do. I have a 1975 Bayliner Mutiny that is piss yellow and about 18' in lenght....

There wll be two goobers in the boat looking like they are two greenhorns....

Unfortunately, no. My wife is already screaming at me over the cost of my two new salmon rods from Sportsman's Warehouse and all the gear associated with it. I will be doing the 3', 6', 9' arm adjustments..........

"The July 24 fishery will open at 4:41 a.m. (one hour before sunrise) and close at 9:50 p.m. (one hour after sunset). The daily limit is two sockeye of at least 15 inches in length. All other salmon must be safely released. Under freshwater fishing rules, anglers can only fish with one rod and must stop fishing once their personal daily limit is caught"

This is a cut and paste from the states website.