Frankfort

[Rockin' Randy]

Fished 6/18 from about 6:45 am to 8:15 am and got one king, 17.5#. It was my nephew's first time salmon fishing and he was pretty happy to bring in such a nice fish. The water was pretty rough for a first timer but we ran a few miles north and set up trolling back with the waves to make things easier. I got 5 lines set and took the wheel back to think about whether I wanted to try setting a board out or another diver for the sixth line. Checked the speed at the ball, 2.3, and temp was 47ish at 60 down. My center rigger was set at 110' in 220 fow, as I noted a couple of marks at that depth prior to dropping lines. Now at the wheel, I saw most of the marks at 60' and 80', so I stepped back to the center rigger to raise it up to 80'. After bringing up the rigger, I started to reel in the slack line, but after a couple of turns, the rod bent over and the drag screamed. Handed it to my nephew and schooled him on bringing in his first king. The only fishing he did before this was trolling for pike with another uncle 12 years ago at age 17. It was a special moment. The fish hit on a Salmon Candy vegan rig - Mercy UV, trailed behind a silver Kingfisher flasher with a chartreuse stripe. I was trying to reset the rig when my nephew yelled from the wheel he was going to be sick. The wind had picked up quite a bit more so we called it.

The next day, 6/19, my nephew had to leave as it was father's day. So took my buddy out for a few hours and got him into a 23 # king. What a difference one day can make. The water was flat, but after a couple days of hard north winds, the water was 44° at 50 down. This is like my third time out with the Fishhawk, so still trying to get used to it and apply it. Like, I know salmon like 54ish and will come out of their comfort zone, but I saw marks at 40, 50, 60 and 80 in 150ish fow, so still set lines to what I saw on the graph. After a bit I moved everything up to the 40-50 range as those were the predominant marks, but still couldn't buy a bite. Running the same program as day before, with the exception of putting out a three color on a board just because everything was up so high. The other lines were running off three riggers with two flasher/flies and a spoon, and two wire slide divers - one with flasher and the other a spoon. At 8 am the port diver woke us up. It turned into at least a 20 minute fight. Right off the bat the king tangled with the three color and I reeled in the slack while my buddy fought the fish, until I could bring it in and untangle everything. The 23# king hit on a Moonshine fly with a glow in dark willow blade, trailed behind a blue Salmon Candy flasher (can't remember the name). We put four hours in and only one fish. As an after thought I wish I'd have run everything up even higher. The slide diver was out 70' on counter and #2 setting. It also had the magnum kit. Back at the dock, both days, the gal running the launch said nobody else brought anything in. There were very few boats though, both days. Probably because of weather and then being Father's day. Tight lines folks.

 

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[ThreeDogsDown]

Great report Randy. Hope to see you out there again this year.


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[CAC]

Great report! A buddy and I are new to using the fish hawk too so I appreciate your comments on it. Hopefully I will hit the water again Friday and Saturday.

Clyde
Reel Therapy


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[scubastew]

Randy,

Very interesting report here. I also fished out over Frankfort over the weekend. We had one King that was probably a little over 10 pounds Saturday and lost a few more. Sunday we landed the bites and ended up with 5 salmon. We did best fishing deep (around 150' down) in 200 FOW is where we hooked more fish on both days. We marked more fish up high and had high lines dragging spoons up there but only caught 1 fish above 50' and it wasn't big. Interesting to here you found a big one up that high.

[Rockin' Randy]

Scuba, I know right? I talked to two guys today who went out Sunday evening, three guys in the boat brought in four kings. The clincher is they said they were in around 220 fow, and all of them came from the top 40-50'. The fish are really scattered apparently. Once the water stratifies I think we are going to have a really good year. Good luck, hope to see you out there sometime.

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[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Nice to see some big fish being caught.  We were out on the 19th but came up empty.  Cheers!  

[Rockin' Randy]

On 6/21/2022 at 9:42 AM, CAC said:

Great report! A buddy and I are new to using the fish hawk too so I appreciate your comments on it. Hopefully I will hit the water again Friday and Saturday.

Clyde
Reel Therapy


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My only glitches with it are the top speed is one mph faster when trolling and 10 mph faster when running. I hope to be able to calibrate that. Couldn't get it to calibrate on the trailer, so maybe it has to be in water. If not I have that info on my graph. I didn't have a good spot for the transducer to mount, so it might be affected being in between the trolling and main motor.

Good luck Clyde.