Behind the flasher

[TeamHelgoya]

Hi as a novice fisher with flasher I will ask the experts at the other side of the atlantic ocean. I've been trolling for some years and latley I've started to use flashers on my downriggers. What kind of lures can I use behind it? Can I use apex and tomic, or do they have so good action alone, so a flasher in front of them are as butter on bacon?

I normaly fish trout 50 feets down and have my lures 3-5 feet behind the downrigger wight. How far behind the flasher should I place my bate? Is 1 feet enough or should I have it 2 feets behind?

And how fast can I troll with a hotspot flasher type crome

[LongLine]

TH - Welcome to the board. Where is Insula Santa?

We usually run flies behind the attractors, however some guys may occassionally run a plug or spoon behind the attractor. (flasher, dodger, Spin Doctor, e-Chip etc) For myself, I like dodgers & run flies between 1.5 & 2 ft behind. (18-24 inch) The longer the lead the less action you'll have on the bait. Downspeed (speed at the bait) in the range of 2mph should be a good starting place.

Tell us something about the trout and techniques used in Norway. Ever run into any Atlantic Salmon?

Good Luck on the 10 Kg'r. (That's 22 Lb'rs for youse yanks...)

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[TeamHelgoya]

Thank you. We use many of the same teqnicks as the Swedes. Unfortanly we can not fish the Atlantic Salmon in open water here, because of they're in danger of extermination. However, we hope to could fish it in 10 years. The rules are very very hard if you shall troll after anadrome salmon species (Salamo Salar, Salamo trutta trutta and Salvinius Alpinus) Anadrome fish is fish who spawn in freshwater and eats in saltwater.

Mostly I troll in Lake Mjøsa after brown trouts. The metod depends on when in the year we troll. You can divede our season in two, spring (May-medio July) and autumn (October-Desember) In January, February, March and April trolling fishing is forbidden in Lake Mjøsa. In the spring section we fish close to the surface from 0.5 meters (2feet) deep to 10meters (33feet). The autumn section can altso divides in two parts, early (1st october to 15th november) here we fish from 8meters (24feets) to 20meters (66feets) and late autumn (16th nov to 31st des). In early autumn we mostly use downriggers and in late autumn its combined planerboard and downriggers. Unfortantly its only allowed with 4 baits per boat in Lake Mjøsa, but we cauth a lot of big trouts anyway. The biggest ever caught was caught on November the 1st in 1981. 15,3 kgs.

The lures we use is Tomic, Rapala, Apex, different spoons and some local baits called Devon. This year no one have reach the 10kg boarder, but maybe in the autumn.

Flasher and dodger become more and more popular and we try to learn from the finns who are europes masters in trolling with flashers and baitfish. Since I wanne be the best I ask the best and thats you lads on the other side of the Atlantic. You started with trolling so hope i can snach a LOT of tips from here. Most common baitfish is a herring species (Clupea sprattus). I don't fish with baits I use lures like Tomic, apex and Bomber15A.

Helgøya is an island in Lake Mjøsa and Lake Mjøsa is a pond in your eyes

Surface fishing is planerboard when we use 4 rods and planerboard. Let the lure goes about 100feets behind the boat. And speeds from 2.2knop to 3knop (1knop is 1852m/h)

When we use downriggers we place the lure from 1-60feets behind depending on how deep we fish. The magic line for me is 40feets. From 40 feets and deeper i seldom put my lure more than 6feets behind the weight.

De deepest going lure closest to the weigt.

[muskybob]

TH, your English is fine and it sounds like your fishing skills would match many of us on Lake Ontario. Welcome to the site and please keep in touch on how the fishing is in your area. We ALL learn from each other.

[Fishstix]

Personally I dont use dodger flies for brown trouts.I have my best luck with spoons.

I dont know what water colors you are lookig at over there but if its stained or green water, chartruse is a good color spoon. Copper and orange is my color of choice most of the time with black and silver a close second.

In the sprimg time you can catch them so close to shore their backs are out of the water.

When they move deeper we usually catch them near the bottom. Say 30 to 80 feet of water.

[TeamHelgoya]

At monday the season starts up again. And now I gonna try hard with flashers. My plan is to attatch the flasher 30cm behind the weight and use stacker 2 feet above. Then I can use a bait like Apex and Tomic who have hard action and get the adventage of the flasher, without interfering the lures good action

[LongLine]

TH – Thanx for posting that. Looks like your lake is a little bigger than our largest finger lake and just as pretty. I’m sure there are some big fish in there. The salmon we fish for are Pacific salmon (Chinook & Coho). There are only a few Atlantics caught every year however the Canadians are stocking them in larger numbers now. The government has been stocking the Great Lakes with Pacifics plus Brown Trout, Lake Trout & Rainbow Trout for many years now. It looks like some Chinooks are starting to naturally reproduce in the Great lakes now.

I’d agree with Fishstix and his choice of colors. Black & Silver has been very good for me. We generally vary the length of line behind the weight. Some days the fish want it up close and on other days they want it further back. I’m not sure if you’re running a “false flasherâ€Â

[TeamHelgoya]

We have three main colours we use in Lake Mjøsa; white, blue and green. Most of the lures have at least one of this colours, but no we altso have started with the mother-of-pearl colour. Black is not fishing any great here.

When it comes to the flasher I've planned to have 1 feet behind the weight, I've have to customize the lenght of the stacker lines above it so I can be sure they don't get into eachother.

I altso looking forward to the picture of the BIG one

[Don M.]

TeamHelgoya

Have you seen the attractors that run vertical in line that attach the the down rigger cable?? We fish Lake Champlain for landlocked salmon and find running two vertical flashers on the outside riggers tends to work VERY well to bring the fish into the spread. I generally fish the back two riggers a little deeper than the sides. For salmon here that run 2-5 lbs we find flashers on the line are a bit much so the flashers attached to the rigger cables work great. We then run a spoon 5-6' or longer behind and 2' to 3' above the flasher depending on depth. I aggree that copper with orange is a great color for brown trout in our lake.

Good luck.

[TeamHelgoya]

Don:

No i havn't seen those atractors, but i think the princip are the same as mine with attatch the atractors to the downrigger weigth with a short line so the flasher goes about 1 feet from the weight.

Our autumn started again today and we got one trout on 2.2kg and lost one between 3.5 and 4 kg.

[Blue Knight]

Hi as a novice fisher with flasher I will ask the experts at the other side of the atlantic ocean. I've been trolling for some years and latley I've started to use flashers on my downriggers. What kind of lures can I use behind it? Can I use apex and tomic, or do they have so good action alone, so a flasher in front of them are as butter on bacon?

I normaly fish trout 50 feets down and have my lures 3-5 feet behind the downrigger wight. How far behind the flasher should I place my bate? Is 1 feet enough or should I have it 2 feets behind?

And how fast can I troll with a hotspot flasher type crome

I'm the Pro Staffer for Hot Spot in Ontario. Don't be afraid to run an Apex behind a Hot Spot Flasher. I run them behind the 8" Hot Spot flasher all the time. Don't change the leader length of the Apex. As for speed I normally troll between 2.5 to 3.2 mph but don't be afraid of varying your speed. They're very speed tolerant. The commercial fleet on the west coast are running between 4 & 5 knots. Take a look at their tips & tricks & download "Deadly Trolling Techniques" Go to www.hotspotlures.com.

[Fishtails]

Blue Knight, I just got an order in of Apex lures. I know they use them out west alot, so I figured I'd throw some in the mix. Pro troll makes an e chip lure that's similar. It seems like you can run them clean or with a flasher...correct? You say keep the leader as it comes length wise, do you change it over to floro? Same single hook, or do you change hooks?

Thanks

[Blue Knight]

Blue Knight, I just got an order in of Apex lures. I know they use them out west alot, so I figured I'd throw some in the mix. Pro troll makes an e chip lure that's similar. It seems like you can run them clean or with a flasher...correct? You say keep the leader as it comes length wise, do you change it over to floro? Same single hook, or do you change hooks?

Thanks

They come with 25lb test mono already on them. I like to go a little heavier & the lures I get are blanks so I make mine up with 30lb flurocarbon. I've used Apex for over 30 years & even with the stock mono haven't had many breakoffs. I use the same hooks. A buddy of mine likes to run trebles for Georgian Bay fish but changes over to siwash for Lake O. Best producers for me have been Stinnson, green fishscale, watermelon & the new UV's did well this year. Pro Troll "were" the US distributors for Hot Spot until they came out with their own copy of the Apex.

[Blue Knight]

Fishtails I forgot to mention yes you can run them clean or behind a flasher. You'll find the best sizes for Lake O are 4.5's & 5.5's. Glow ladderback is also one of my favourites as is the hot pink glow belly. I usually start off with either first thing in the morning. For the last couple of years instead of throwing an old piece of cut bait overboard I've trimmed it up & tied it onto the underside of the Apex with spider wire used for tying roe bags. It doesn't affect the action of the Apex but it catches lots of fish.

[Fishtails]

Thanks for the help Blue Knight. I just checked...they don't have the color marked on the pack, just numbers. I know one is a kevorkian, one a white/pearl and a white/green w/black splatter. I went with spoon colors that worked best for me last year. I'll be picking up more this winter. Do you ever tape them at all? They should be great in the spring, eh?

[Blue Knight]

Fishtails if you go on Hot Spot's website they have all the colours & numbers with the pics. www.hotspotlures.com

[Edd]

Something I use lots of out West in the inland lakes is ProCure bait scents, but I don't see you Ontario fishers ever mentioning such stuff. Does it not work in your area, or what? The new super gels, and UV gels stay on the dodgers and baits longer and seem to catch lots of fish over naked baits. Is availability a problem? Here is their link. www.pro-cure.com

Edd