Fall Bounty

Sometimes you just get lucky!

Fall is when the salmon come in. Maybe it's the time when I finally slow down and put the rod out and see what's biting.

An extended crab season was an unexpected bonus this year.

And sometime you have to toss a few back.

SIGHT. SMELL. SOUND.
Salmon have three sense mechanisms they use to find their prey. They are sight, smell and lateral line response (sound). If you are trolling and your lure passes within a few feet of a salmon and he sees it, you will probably catch him. The problem is the ocean and most bodies of water salmon can't see more than a few feet. This gets worse as you go deeper. If you are relying on sight alone you probably won't bring home many salmon.

The second is smell. Salmon have an extremely sharp sense of smell. But that doesn't help unless you get the bail right in front of him.

The third sensing mechanism is the one you want working for you. Down a salmon's side and on his head and back there are tiny hair like projections called cupula. Each of of these has a nerve cell at the end. These cells are used to pick up vibrations in the water. This is the mechanism that you want to take advantage of. If your lure is putting out erratic vibrations twenty or thirty feet from a salmon you can pull him in like a magnet. He will follow the vibration like a radar beam and attack your bait.

Lures like a Crocodile, or the Apex put out an erratic powerful vibration that will get you salmon. A trolled cut plug gets you the same vibrations.

When you put a bait or lure in the water, you should carefully check its action. You want to convey that their buddies are attacking baitfish. Boat speed, depth and current are critical.