The Bar 6/4 evening

[tlox]

Tough fishing (at least for us) continues. Set up north of the red can around 5:20 and started the troll.  Worked 100 ft - 230ft east west north south.  Bagged it at 8:45.  We were the only boat out there. 

 

Ended up 2-3, with a skippy and a 12 lb king.  The 12 lb king came off a NBK 55 down over 125.  Didn't mark a whole lot out there fish wise... which brings me to the next point.

 

BAIT BAIT BAIT.  I have never seen bait clouds like that out there in 20 years.  We had clouds that started at 15' and extended down to 100'.... and there were tons of them.  We were marking at least one cloud every few minutes, watching the rods you could see all the riggers start jumping when we went through the clouds.  In past years we would mark some hooks on the back side of those clouds and get some strikes as our lines worked through... but there weren't any hooks with most of these clouds.  There seems to be plenty of prey but not enough predators out there. 

 

Surface temp was 61, 50' down was still 52 degrees on the probe.

 

Washing lures and burning gas.

[Diversion]

 

Washing lures and burning gas.

 

That's the best part   

[f1sh-0n]

This is exactly what we were seeing Tuesday.  I could see my rigger rods bouncing and than I would look back at screen and sure enough right thru a pod of bait.  Didn't seeing many hooks (marks) near the bait like we should be seeing.    

[Big Water]

I had the same problem with too much bait earlier this year and a charter captain told me to head out of it.  It was a good move because when I did, I started hooking up.  Also I keep learning the same lesson year after year and that is, when your not finding fish, troll north until you do.  I get hung up on where I think the fish should be and it costs me productive fishing time.

[TyeeTanic]

Every since last year, bait has exploded on my fish finder screen.  I'm convinced now that there is a huge

imbalance of prey vs. predator.  I don't know what has caused it.  Is something killing off Chinook, or preventing

successful spawn (does thioamine affect Chinook)?  Has warm weather in prior years caused an alwive boom? 

 

It's hard getting fish to go after your metal bait, when there are millions of real bait to choose from.

[tlox]

I had the same problem with too much bait earlier this year and a charter captain told me to head out of it.  It was a good move because when I did, I started hooking up.  Also I keep learning the same lesson year after year and that is, when your not finding fish, troll north until you do.  I get hung up on where I think the fish should be and it costs me productive fishing time.

 

Thats a great point... I keep thinking my typical waypoints out there are going to produce and they're not yet, but I sure am wasting time trying to hit them from every direction.