jdh

Best fishing lately seems to be in the 30-70 fow range.

Fish are moving north.

Fished starting around 7:30 am pulling lines at 2 pm. Stayed in 48-58 fow from 7:30 until 11 am. Worked out to 85, and then ran back into 50 and trolled north back to the pier. Speed 2.0-2.7 variable. Went 7/12 with 4 kings, 1 coho, and 2 nice lake trout. Most likely the 5 we lost were kings based on the hits and drag pulling. All lines took fish, but stingray UV spoons in Jager Bomb and Mixed Veggies took most hits. Next best was UV Silver Streak Mag Bloody Nose. Riggers 25-43 took several fish - we frequently adjusted depths +/- 5 feet. Slide diver back 50-70 took several hits. 150/200 coppers took some hits. Got to watch several fish swim in on Live scope and nail the spoons on the riggers. Awesome day on the water.

Hope you got into em today!

Fished again today with 3 in the boat. Got to the launch around 9:45 and noticed there were a few trailers in the lot. Ok, the most trailers I've seen at that launch in a while. Interesting. Got the boat setup and launched and finally started fishing around 10:30. Saw several boats coming back up the channel with claims of limits - they were north, they were south, etc. Well, at the pier heads there were double the number of boats south, so we went north. Trolled between 20 and 40 fow heading north with 2 fish to show for it by 12:00. Between 12 and 1, the fishing went nuts. Ended up 17/24. Coho dodgers on divers back 17-25 were hottest rods. Next hottest were thin fish any color 45-65 feet back of the boards. And third hottest were 1 and 3 color leadcores with mini streaks spoons. All lines caught fish, and we caught two more while clearing lines after getting our limit. Love the days where everything cooperates - including the fish.

Don't need much more than a depth finder that can tell you how deep it is - actually could probably catch fish completely without any electronics sometimes. But as long as the post was about "perfect set up" I'm adding in the luxuries!

My comments may not apply to you, and FYI I run a 19 ft aluminum side console, but here you go: I get sea sick easily. I hate cuddy style boats and much prefer open boat setups even in rain and cold. I bring the clothing to make things comfortable. Generally, I prefer side consoles, but not sure who makes them in the 20+ ft range. If it's wavy enough that I'm getting the bow to chop into the waves it's too wavy for me to be out there anyways. I also prefer outboards because they're easier to maintain and you can keep the boat ready to fish much earlier in the year, and fish much later into the year. I would also say I prefer rod trees to a rocket launcher holder setup because with long dipsey leads i have people walk to the front of the boat and make netting easier for the person at the back. Two downriggers. Rarely do I find I would want a third. Electronics? I've gotten used to my Humminbird 10-inch graph. Has a chirp, down imaging and side imaging. For salmon i pretty much exclusively use to simple sonar (either high frequency or low frequency depending. I also usually run with gain maxed out. Fish-Hawk is a must. For setups, I usually have 3 diver rods (2 wire, 1 braid). 3 downrigger rods. 2 w/ 20 lb test. 1 with 15 lb test. 3 leadcore setups - 2 color, 3 color 5 color. Copper setups - 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400 coppers.

Went out around 2 pm looking for fish bait for whitefish around the piers. After being ignored for a few hours by all the fish I could find, I decided to troll small spoons in the sand bars. Picked up one nice steelhead on an orange double crush mini streak. Went back towards the piers at dark to look for whitefish, and eventually found a bunch around 7 pm. Fished until 9 and got like 12 fish to the boat - about 5 of them fair and the rest foul hooked. Good last boat outing. Weather's looking cold for the foreseeable future.