Thoughts after first trip in a while

[dward]

First I want to thank everyone for their suggestions on tackle. I used to fish salmon a lot about 15+ years ago, but basically had to buy all the gear new to get out this time.

We went to Sturgeon bay and fished 7/9, 7/10 and one hour the morning of 7/11 before heading back to Mpls. We caught about 30 fish and had one over 20 lbs, with quite a few in the 15-20lb range, so we had a cooler full of fillets. I now remember why salmon fishing is also called sleep deprivation!!!!!!! We ran 4 downriggers, 2 magnum dipsies and 2 full cores (when traffic allowed). Fishing was good but according to a few charters it had dropped abit from earlier in the week, as charters were staying out til quitting time.

If I were setting up for the trip again here is what I would have done:

For tackle I would have gotten 4 - 8 inch double crush glow SDs and attached a double aqua Howie fly on all downriggers, and I would have run the dreamweaver blue dolpin glow spoons on the dipsies and cores. Blue with some green was definitely the color.

As I used to fish Washington Island where we always fished 60+ feet or deeper on the downriggers I think we were fishing a bit deeper than most boats, but I also think our average fish might have been bigger.

The new Big Jons worked good except that the auto stop bead would always get stuck on some green junk on the cable and stop early, so I ended up re-rigging each with a crimp stop on both sides of the bead and it then worked great.

We lost a couple of really big fish to knot tying/rigging errors that I wouldn't let happen again. When the 50 lb leader to the fly is what breaks.......well that shoudn't happen, and I think they were tied on wrong.

I also have read that guys prefer the in line planers, and that's what we used (church). But next time I'd like to try our big boards as I was watching the charter across the dock and he preferrd his big boards with clip releases. I've done a lot of big board fishing and like the idea.

So all in all I'm pretty pleased with the results given our first trip back to salmon land........and I'd again like to thank everyone for their help.

Good luck - Dan

[JWheeler]

Sounds like a good trip with over 30 fish. And even better that it's been that many years since you've fished for them and you still got it:thumb:. It's funny about gear and rigging, each boat that I fish on has subtle differences and as time goes on you figure out what you like and don't like but it takes the time being out there to figure it out. Keep on em!

[Twill23]

Great trip Dan!

[KJ pluggin]

Nice work Dan glad to see you picked up right where you left off! The bank has defiantly been fun this year.

[Paulywood]

Good job and welcome back!

[GLF]

Nice job Dan!