The age old argument.... which is better for estuary and tidewater mainstem trolling?
At Buoy 10 every time you pull up to the ramp, one guy will tell you "Jeez... we absolutely slayed 'em on spinners. Leave your bait at home."
The next guy insists, "Man it was a total bait bite... plug cut 14 pulls.... spinners were worthless"
At Tillamook Bay, the spinner is king. While at Willapa and Grays Harbor herring is by far the preferred presentation. What's a guy to do? Hey maybe these dudes can help....
DUH!
So for the past few years I've been combining the best of both worlds with very good results. Besides, with the spread I typically run, I gotta have something novel on the captain's trailing clean-up rod if I'm ever gonna get a bite. Within a couple trips, these babies were finding their way to every rod position in the boat.
So let me introduce you to a couple of my best friends this year.
Couple of local boys really gave this one a workout. All I can say is the Dreamsicle was HOT HOT HOT! Esp once the Brothers Barnes teamed up for some SERIOUS damage on my barge!
I put her in service on Sept 23, and she stayed right by my side til her dying day. From coho of the season to furbag of the season, and lots of big chrome kings in between, Rachael Rae delivered the goods for me like no other. Her look-alike cousin Tammy Fae has been an absolute slouch.... epitome of lazy wench!
I do a herring sliver wrap inside the skirt of the hootchie spinner...works on springers. As for fall fish...BIG herring generally work on my boat. But it is crazy what those fish will strike on...............
Ho'Boy..I've known Bathtub Bob since like forever...He really has this fishing thing going on night and day. It's just like a hot blooded fever for him.... I still wish I had it in me....It was truly my pleasure to drive a hundred miles each way and bring some of my over abundant spring kings and halibut catch I brought home from outside Ketchikan down to him for his son's wedding reception in like 1990.
Hell he was there laughing at me the day the damn rain washed out my new Stetson and thus coined the now infamos name...Black Bart...He taught me so much about fishing when I was a darn newbie so many years , that's one debt i'll never be able to repay.
Never will forget the day when his brother Jerry was anchored just below the Fuller Hill Launch, like 5 hours before daylight as usual, in what they used to call the boil. Twas just a tight little place to anchor up when the water below the mouth of the Satsop was dirty to fish. Bathtub Bob was a bit late for the morning launch and here he comes...Down from the other side of the river, A really high bank afair, cussing like hell, sliding down through the freakin' blackberry bushes on a very wet morning, holding his Kunan rod that I had just re-wraped, trying to reach the swollen banks and get in the boat his brother Jerry had anchored several hours before the tide brought the fish up on a cloudy river day. Geeze, good thing Dr. Stro was there to stitch him up. Talk about a guy who had just tried to harvest honey out of a hornets nest, Ho'Boy...Just too darn funny.
i think i'm gonna have to give spinners a try out in the bay next year. most of my time fishing bait seems to be watching a lifeless rod tip for hours, just to realize my bait sucks and the bellies are blowing out.
i've done better on murky lower river tidewater fisheries over the years with spinners, so i can't see why they wouldn't work out in G.H. too, provided they're obnoxious enough.
Over 30 fish in two days of fishin down there. 2 rods one day, 3 rods the next. All on spinners. Bait never even got put in the water. But, some other factors effect yer outcome too. And right lure at right time with a bit of luck on your side on certain days helps also.
This has been my best spinner year in the last 10 or so on the Chehalis system. They are outproducing jigs and plugs about 6:1, a ratio that for the past 10 years has been 1:1.
No idea why, but the silvers this year are loving spinning metal.
I believe the hooking site speaks volumes. Here's what I think is probably going on.
When the fish takes the tow hook, the spinner was the ticket. When the fish takes the trailer, the bait was the ticket. Nice to have two simultaneous options when you encounter a potential biter.
The other theory I have is that whatever I'm trolliing, a biter is simply gonna attack it mid-profile. I do catch a lot more fish on the tow hook with the spinner bait/rigging. It might have something to do with the fact that the tow hook lives mid-profile.... right in the middle of the bite zone. Exceedingly few are caught on the tow hook when I rig hangback with nekkid bait. That's 'cause there is no hook mid-profile.... fish misses the tow hook altogether and gets "flossed" with the trailer.
i think i'm gonna have to give spinners a try out in the bay next year. most of my time fishing bait seems to be watching a lifeless rod tip for hours, just to realize my bait sucks and the bellies are blowing out.
Crap bait is a real challenge if plug cut herring is the only tool in your box. Nothing worse than reeling up a belly that has flayed out.... well, except maybe when you reel up bare hooks.... GRRRRR!!!!
With the spinner bait rig, you can use whole herring or whole anchovies... just stick 'em thru the tip of the lower jaw and aim for the bone plate on the top of the head between the eyes. It'll produce a slow TIGHT spin behind the blade.
Just pre-posted the placeholders to keep 'em all together. Ran out of steam last night before midnight.
More pics coming tonight when I get home.... and yeah, your Rainbow blade with the extra deep scoop was money! Ran it so much that all of the brass eventually tarnished beyond recovery. Put a sticker of UV flash tape on the inside to spiff'er up and she was good to go.
I am mentaly challenged, therefore I am bait challenged, therefore spinners work for me. Put it out, let it go bling, pick up fish without being a expert on how to rig the bait......
My only concern with the spinner bait rig is I really hate that whole hook-inside-the-mouth thing. Gotta work on fixing that.
Gonna have to try something other than a hook to tow my bait. Maybe give a simple safety pin a whirl to see if I can still make a herring or 'chovy spin by just clipping it into place. Can't imagine a steel safety pin would last very long in the salt without rusting away, but if the concept works, I could adapt a similar clip with formed spinner wire.
Well, I love your hang back rig and use it often, especially on bait. But between Bouy10 and Grays Harbor we only got one bleeder, a coho. Most were hooked fairly shallow around the jaw. Probably cuz of using big hooks and high trolling speeds. Which both were used not outta smarts, but outta we had no choice.
This green tipped Rainbow courtesy of Big Moby....
Had a few more pics to add to the original post, but the edit option has already timed out.
This blade went into service on 9/20/11 and continued to produce bites right thru my last day of trolling.... in fact, two bites today. Half way thru the season, the back of the blade had tarnished beyond the point of re-polishing. Stuck on some UV flash tape to restore some flash, and she was back in fishy business.
I put her in service on Sept 23, and she stayed right by my side til her dying day. From coho of the season to furbag of the season, and lots of big chrome kings in between, Rachael Rae delivered the goods for me like no other. Her look-alike cousin Tammy Fae has been an absolute slouch.... epitome of lazy wench!
One more Rachael Rae conquest... this one for FishNg1
While I'm still a spinner guy, last year with the stupid baits brought many limits to my boat. A few interesting twists to my routine and it was on. We'll have to see if I can reproduce those results in my sled, having sold my 20 Pro V Hewes. I'll be picking calmer days to fish.for sure.
