Some help please

[turf]

My buddy and I are very new to salmon fishing. We have fished for them on Ontario out of Fairhaven, Pulaski (once each) and the last 2 days out of Oswego. We have found and marked a ton of fish but only have 1 in the boat and 1 lost at the boat. We have trolled from 2.0 to 3.5 anywhere from 75 to 160 feet. We have used spoons, green and white flies and green/ silver, green/ dayglo, chrome flashers, with and without the e-chips. We have trolled close to 40 hours from before sun up to about 6pm. We have seen other boats catch 2 or more fish each time out, have tried matching thier speed, kept the riggers where the fish are. Is there something you guys see that we are doing wrong? Is there advice you might give to help us have more success? Thanks for reading

[LongLine]

Sometimes the fish just don’t cooperate.

Don’t worry about other’s speed. Find your best speed. Check your lure action with rod tip about a foot below surface and with at least 10 ft of line out. (Don’t run 30 Lb line to a spoon – tie on a 15#max leader) If you’re seeing bait balls at 100 ft then zigzag you path from 95 to about 120. Zigzag is very important as your lures speed up/ slow down & work more to the outside of them. Observe which way you’re going if you get a hit. Speed up or slow down according to the side of the hit.

Things I’d try with the rigg’rs:

1 If fish seen at 50 down then let out 65 ft of cable on one & stack a line 15 ft up. Run a flasher/ dodger on the high one and a matching clean spoon on the bottom about 15-20 ft longer. If nothing happens in 15-20 minutes then raise 5 ft. Another 15-20 minutes, then lower it 10 ft. Move it around. It's very easy to fish below the fish on Big-O.

2 If you see streaks on your FF then shorten your leads. Don’t be afraid to run the short one 5 ft off the ball.

3. Reverse the positions of the flasher/dodger & clean spoon. (top vs bottom)

4. Pop the clean spoon & let it come up to the surface by itself every once in a while. (Make sure your release is set so you can do this without breaking your rod)

5. If you’re using a dodger, shorten the lead to about 14â€. Dodgers & flashers are different animals.

6. Change your direction of troll. If for an hour you’re going E-W then take an hour & go N-S. Straight line trolling is best when in a pack but often best to get away from them and do your thing.

Don’t get in rut thinking that “this is what’s working for him, so it must work for meâ€. Sometimes it will, most of the time it won’t. You may have missed one detail. What works out west may not work to the east. Remember, the Capt on a charter usually drives & directs, whereas the 1st mate has to earn his money. i.e. experiment.

Other things – sticky sharp hooks, always keep a constant amount of bend in your rod and if the first is swimming to the port side, have the driver turn slightly to starboard. (Never turn into a fish)

H.I.H. & good luck.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[turf]

Thanks we will give those ideas a try next time out.