Way to go! You're right, it seems like this year the fish are really full of fight, more so than usual. We've broken off a couple and had one spool me before chasing it down.

Good job switching to different baits until you found what the fish wanted. Friday we got bit on superbaits, kwiks, and mag warts. Saturday it was mostly kwiks and one on a real herring but for some reason we couldn't get bit on superbaits. Today I didn't get to fish but my buddies were about half and half between kwiks and superbaits. Funny how every day is different.

Starfish wrote:

Sounds okay. I probably run a little bit farther off the bottom than that but only by a few feet. Just gotta get in front of some biters! The water ought to cool off soon and the bite will get a LOT better.

Hey Don,

I finally got my boat out of the shop so I'm anxious to hit the Reach. I'm still a downrigger novice -- If I understand your advice correctly you're running them a 10+ feet off the bottom? My depth finder is such a piece-o-crap I never see fish on it, so it'd be usefull to know roughly where the fish are suspending (at least a starting point...)

Thanks,

i picked a couple up yesterday 1 i was hugging pretty tight to the bottom within 5 feet or less the other 1 around 10 feet seemed like there was alot of fish though.even seen one swim by when i was launching the boat

E-mann wrote:

Hey Don, I finally got my boat out of the shop so I'm anxious to hit the Reach. I'm still a downrigger novice -- If I understand your advice correctly you're running them a 10+ feet off the bottom? My depth finder is such a piece-o-crap I never see fish on it, so it'd be usefull to know roughly where the fish are suspending (at least a starting point...) Thanks,

Finally! Glad you got your boat back, that must have been making you crazy.

Remember that kwiks will dive ten feet just fine, so running your ball 10' off the bottom doesn't mean you're fishing suspended fish. If fish really are suspended then you need to go even farther up.

Even with superbaits, the flasher can tend to take your bait down a little deeper than your ball, and also the flasher can attract fish up from below. You might want to tinker with the depth on those if you're not getting bit, and try both deeper and shallower until you get dialed in.

Good luck, give me a call when you're on the water!

yeh,starfish is right i did snag up a couple times and i've been taking my mom out trying to land her a salmon with the cheapest crappiest downriggers you can get with the depth changing sometimes i get behind.so im above ten feet below it and some where in between plus my kicker dies everytime i idle it down slow enough,i got me a new kicker today and tommorow im going to look at down riggers,i probably wasn't working my lure fast enough is why i got away with being shallower didn't know they dove 10feet thanks starfish.do they dive furtherdown.if your far away from the ball or is it all speed related or a combo of both?i know i ask alot of questions and i appreciate all the help from you guys it's been real helpful

Thanks for the tips; I plan to put the advice to work on Friday.

See you on the water, Mark- I'll be there Friday too.

Frank, yes- farther behind the ball dives deeper up to a point, and a moderately fast troll will reach the max depth while too slow a troll will let them float up. But each combination of lure and line has a different dive depth characteristics, you just need to figure out the optimum for each kind of lure. There's a book called Precision Trolling that includes charts for most lures showing depth curves.

didn't know that i'll have to read that

It was good to see you on the water Friday, Don. We managed to bring another fish on board after we saw you which made for a pair on the day for a few hours of fishing -- not bad for us.

A few questions came to mind while fishing...

I was working deep water with downriggers -- as seems to be usual for the low water condition when we started, but when the water comes up while you're fishing, do you move to the edges? I noticed lots of people picked-up and moved out all-together (could have just been finishing up) but lots of boats just kept fishing right down the middle of the hole, but at some point the current must be forcing the fish out of the center and to softer water at the seams.

When(if) you're fishing the edges, do you give the downriggers a rest and switch to divers and work 15-25 feet or so?

Between the high and low extremes, it feels like two different rivers. I still haven't figured out how to adjust to the high water.

That spot gets tough to fish when the water comes up. I stuck it out for a few hours but ended up heading downriver and finding one more fish. We ended up 5 for 12 which was a terrible landing ratio but a lot of fun.

I do sometimes pull toward the side of the hole and switch to mostly divers, although you can still run downriggers if you prefer by just raising them up far enough. If you're still seeing fish rolling it's well worth sticking around.

Sunday was really good despite the howling wind. We went 6 for 8 by 10:30am. I was so glad to tag out so we could get out of that wind!

is this don fellow, don gerlach by chance?

Scottlake wrote:

is this don fellow, don gerlach by chance?

Naw -- but if this Gerlach gent can catch a limit blindfolded from a mud puddle he might be related...

[quote="E-mann"]

Scottlake wrote:

Naw -- but if this Gerlach gent can catch a limit blindfolded from a mud puddle he might be related...

Isn't that the truth.

fishing @PETCO DON'T COUNT GUYS

SPORTS WHOLESALE has lots of Brads Super Baits cut plug.