Flatfish

[Priority1]

Has anyone tried running a large Flatfish for Salmon? I know it's a popular bait on the West Coast. The Luhr Jensen Kwickfish is one brand. I also noticed that Dan Keating mentions a Flatfish as one of his top 10 Body Baits. I don't think the Flatfish would be as speed tolerant as a J-Plug or spoon.

[Satisfaxion_Gauranteed]

My fishin' buddy just bought some to try out this summer. He was on a business trip in northern California and stopped by a fishing shop. The guy showed him several lures used for salmon out there that aren't widely used over here.

We're going to give them all a try and I'll post pics if any are a hit.

[slipknot]

We ran a couple flatfish during our last trip to Lake O in August of last year. I tried them on the downrigger at the depth we were catching kings. Did not pick up any kings on them, but did get a couple browns and a steelehead. Honestly, I didn't give them a lot of time in the water. Maybe ran them for 8 hours total? I tried chartreuse green and orange. Fish on both. The kings were all over the meat rigs, so I stuck with what worked.

[Paulywood]

I have tried to troll them in Higgins for browns and rainbows and it was a complete failure. They are not very speed tolerant. I will probably try them again but will make sure and tune them first. Maybe it will help. They do have a great action on them.

[special x]

I have used them on Lake Superior at Isle Royal with good results ..

Never caught any salmon on them just steelhead and lake trout.

We use them on 10 color lead line straight out the back..

[Priority1]

What makes the Flatfish less speed tolerant is where the line attaches. This attaching point creates a very large bill, that will make it dive. I have a few of the large flatfish. I was thinking about trying to drill one or two holes down from the attaching point. I thought I would put a bead chain swivel through the drilled hole with a split ring to keep it from pulling through then attach the line to the bead chain. Even using the original attaching point, these holes should make them more speed tolerant. If the holes don't work, I can always plug them. I'll let you know how this works. If I can get these flatfish to perform @ our normal Salmon speeds, I think they will work as well as a J-Plug for Salmon. A lot of the NW anglers uses these flatfish with Herring and Sardines on them. It may be that tweaking these plugs will not work. Some things just were meant to run SLOOOOOWER. But I'm going to try a lil tweaking. The flat fish my also be a good bait for drift boat fishing and back trolling where a slower presentation is required. I know they are used in River Fishing in the Pacific NW.

[LongLine]

If you can keep a flatfish underwater at more than 1.8 mph then more power to you...or else you need your probe calibrated. I find the silver and pearl colors to be good for Browns at about 0.8-1.2 mph.

[Salmon Chaser]

Fishing them on down riggers work well out here. Try wrapping them with a

herring,sardine. There are plenty of sites that show you how to do it. Trolling over2.5 miles a hour they will not run true in the rivers not sure about the big lake. Good Luck

[TheKingfisher]

We've had decent luck with flat fish, I have a couple 'new' ones and several 'old' ones that an old salt gave me that he's had since his orginal boat (the Ark I think). I've fished them off the riggers in the fall for stageing kings around 2.0-2.2. They've caught fish, but I wouldn't say any better than plugs or spoons.

[tray19682005]

I tried last fall and in river and lake mich while trolling,they have to be run very low speeds.I had 2 and 1 caught sand while leaving harbor and completly broke off the lip making it worthless.2nd one i used for another 3hrs with no bites, due to heavey boat traffic i went in a to 20ft of water and hit bottom but only for a few seconds and agian it destroyed the thin front edge rendering it useless.I never had chance to try adding meat wrap, but decided if they are so fragile i dont need these. I always test all new lures, by runing alongside of boat and watching and adjusting speed till i get it tuned in, as I Have bought name brand spoons and right from the pkg they occasionaly need tweeked.

[Vitalidle]

I have used flatfish with good success with coho. Never trolled them behind a big boat just a 12ft rowboat in the dirty water at the river mouths in the spring.

[1mainiac]

I still have a couple of Flatfish from years ago that always caught fish was going to run them last year but never did. I will try and rinse them off a few times this year. We used to run them behind Pink lady divers with good success. I have also caught Kings on a lot of bass plugs and other weird stuff like rubber frogs and hula poppers behind downriggers. I really think the list of things they wont hit is way smaller than the list of things they will.

[mayvillemark]

we run them later on when you start running j plugs but you gotta run em slow