TyeeTanic

It depends ... The mature salmon will all be in very close to shore now in 20 feet of water. You need to troll with large agressive setups - 12" flashers, purple/red colors. Speed should vary up and down. Zig zag through same fish once you've spotten it on the screen (mark and do figure eights). Your catch ratio won't be good. They stop eating when they spawn as their stomaches shrink. So only good way is to get them angry to bite. Going to the blue zone is a different story (+300 fow). You are now targetting 2 year old salmon. The setup out there is kind of the same as what was working in 150 fow a few months ago. Try a variety of colors and baits and see what works for the day. I like to start with a spread of spoons, flies and meat rigs (I use artificial strips). I also try blue, green, red and purple colors. When they start biting you will know what they want, and then change up the rest of the lines to be within that range of selection (not exactly all the same, but zero in on color for sure).

The convector 30D's fit 1000 ft of wire perfectly, no backing required. Have two of them spooled with 30 lb wire.

The talora roller rod is amazing, if you can afford it. A more wallet friendly option is the rapala RSC 10 ft roller guide rods - about $120 per rod cheaper. Not as good as the talora's but they are still really, really good. Go for the Oukuma Convector 30D reel - best value for money, and holds up fine.

Get 10 ft dipsey diver rods. A good one for money will be the Rapala RSC with roller guides. Get the Okuma Convector 30D reel and spool it with 1000 ft of 7 strand torpedo wore 30# test. Get some good torpedo swivel quick connects. Connect a #1 dipsey diver to this. Get black or white. Get 30 lb seagar fluorocarbon leader line. Connect 10 ft behind the dipsey and add a lure to the end. Get a few lures 4" long orange, green, blue, purple. Northern King make good colors. Start here and then add spin doctors and flies to the arsenal next once you have got lures under control.

I was one of the original posters in that link. Some more advice - I've also used a market egg cure which you need to disolve in water. Both methods (salt and sugar in water) or cure mix are good, but it is hugely important to drain clean eggs of blood and remove excess water after curing. The other trick is dethawing of the eggs. I find that if I dethaw at room temperature a lot of the eggs shrivel. If I dethaw overnight in the fridge I get at least 99% recovery rate - and the eggs look good. Now, something more to the point of the question above. Are you looking to fish with single eggs? This can be done two ways - still put a single cured egg in a roe bag and use a tiny hook to disguise this in the bag. OR Boil the eggs - yes boil. This thickens the inside - turns it into a gel. It will need to boil around 5 to 10 mins. These eggs can be directly hooked through and won't burst. It is about the stealthiest setup there is provided your hook is small enough.

Oh, that just sucks. Can you email me that picture so I can assess if it breaks the rules?

If a boat is approaching, I stick with the boating rules. Keep them on your port side. Some guys just don't get it, if they are on your port side and they cut in front of you, you might have to use your horn and a few hand gestures to ensure they get the message. The reel problem is if you have 3 boats or more heading your way. If this is the case, it probably is best to choose to go perpendicular from them and completely out of their way. Hopefully the depth of water will allow you to do that without hanging up your tackle on the bottom of the lake.

Use whole strips meat rigs with teaser heads. They are really good this time of year. Shallow fish that are staging - very difficult to catch them for all of us. Reason is when a salmon gets ready to spawn its stomach shrinks and they stop feeding. You will mark tonnes of big fish but nothing will move. The only time they really feed is really early in the morning from 5:30 to 7:30 AM - after that it is a waste of time, unless you go to the blue zone where the two year old class is sitting. Then you will get fish, but not huge fish - in the teens.

I agree an educated trip with a charter will help you dial in quick. Do the reading first and then go out so things click together in your mind. Read books from Dan Keating (don't know if I've spealt his name right). Just know there are many parameters that affect fishing, and the experience is in understanding the conditions on a day and how to zero in on an attractive setup (from the fish's perspective). The following are key parameters in my mind, but definitely not close to everything: - down speed (this is the speed of the water passing the lure/fly and includes the effects of water currents). - lure/fly color - temperature of water the lure is at 45F - 50F, preferably at 48F. You need to find what depth this temp is at and that determines where you set your downriggers or dipseys at. - tackle setup (like leader length and weight, use of spin doctors / flashers). It is all about putting an attractive setup in the zone where the fish are hanging out. Mark

I wouldn't be catching half the salmon I am right now if it wasn't for sites like these. These sites have helped me dial into what works almost right away so I could enjoy fishing the lakes from day one. I don't actually think it hurts to tell guys more or less where to look for fish, and what is working. So many things change from one day to the next that you can just reapply everything and hook into 100 fish. It's still work and experience at play to get decent numbers. The only info I hesitate sharing is river fishing locations. When I'm fishing from the river banks (after boat season is over) I find that if you post a particular location then you end up with a whole lotta snaggers and the poor fish don't stand a chance being trapped in a tight hole. It's obviously much different than lake fishing. You can cause some reel damage to a species in the rivers.

I normally use the S/D with MC Rockets or Flies. If you use spoons on a S/D make sure to use longer leaders so the rotation of the S/D doesn't impact lure action all that much.

Nice fish! Congrats.

Lowrance Elite 5 Gold - is worth every cent. It is a great unit for about $500. Color, dual frequency 83kHz and 200 kHz. GPS with navionics maps - user friendly, etc. If you want to spend more, there's better out there. Yes get color - don't cheap out on B&W. It tells you a lot, for instance color will show you if a fish is directly under you or off to the side of the boat (as the signal return gets stronger the colors go to red).

Wire and braid has no give. Mono has too much give, that's why it sucks on dipseys. You can't drag them out of the water with wire and braid - yes you can rip the hook right out of the mouth. Drag must be set to provide some resistance but must allow them to run as well. You want to be able to pull the line off the reel with one hand with a firm grip. Check your knots as well. What are you using? Also what about your rod - it is also a shock absorber - what are you using?

As mentioned above it is dependant on the size of the flasher - I didn't want to start confusing the guy. Trying to keep it simple so he can learn in moderation. Flies normally come with their leads anyhow - so just use this. Mark

30# torpedo - don't know why anyone would use 20#??

Yes, that's what I do - always have one line at 100 - 110 ft on an MC Rocket. Last week it took the biggest fish around 25 lbs.

Search for this - bud - I answer this question every week. My wrists are getting tired typing the same answer. Here is the quick answer. 1000ft, 30 lb 7 strand wire to the dipsey. 6 ft 30# fluoro to the flasher 6 ft 30# fluoro to spoon or meat 3 ft 30# fluoro to fly Mark

This is my exact setup too, and I have zero issues - in fact I'd never walk away from this setup.

To add a few: Bass Pro at Hwy 400 and Rutherford in Woodbridge (just south of Canada's Wonderland) - Big Store! Burns in Burlington at Fairview just west of Brant St.

The wire is stainless steel - The wire will kink and cut before it weakens from chemical degradation. I use mine for at least 2 years. Between tangles and cuts to free up lines - when it comes down to around the 600 ft mark, it should be respooled with 1000 ft.

I use exactly your setup, except for the reels which are Oukuma Convectors 30D. I do not use snubbers, I am one of those that believes they result in poor hookups. I have not lost any rig in over 1 year. And the one that I did lose ... it was the knot I was using to tie my leader. Fluoro type line is not the problem. 30# is not the problem. Wire is not the problem. Swivel is not the problem. I would check three things in order of preference: (1) Your knot. I use the uni-knot. Go to this link: http://www.thefishinggeek.com/fishing-k ... ing-knots/ (2) Your reels. I would definitely replace these sooner rather than later. Poor drag control will cause line snaps on big fish. (3) how good is your fluoro line. Is it old? Is it a decent brand (Seagar, P-Line)? Mark

Use 4 rods - a dispey on each side on number 2 setting, and the riggers in the middle. White and green dot SD, or green with black dot (frog pattern) SD. Glow Hammer fly Green Glow fly NK NGK green spoon.

Take someone out that knows how to fish. There's too much to learn, and we would need 30 pages and 10 hours to type everything out. All the questions you ask are good, but there is not one simple answer. Fishing is a system, and the system must change to suit variable conditions. Fishing depends on: - water temperature - lure speed - lure color - lure type (fly, spoon, meat) - presentation (length of lead, main line wire/mono/braid, flashers, riggers vs dispeys) - depth of line - depth of fish - weather (both what happen last couple of days, and how it is day of fishing) - wind and waves - moon phase - time of year That is just to get a fish on. Then you have to reel it in, and of course your tackle and gear is important here, as well as your technique. Mark

We caught a 12 lb (or so) coho this weekend. Nice fish.