Freshwater Hooks on Saltwater Lures

In a previous article, I mentioned that some saltwater lures come with freshwater hooks and that they rust and are impractical for ocean fishing. Coho Killers from Storm Lures are examples. Even though they work well, in short order the hook is rusty and needs sharpening every time out or to be replaced with a saltwater, non-rusting hook.

In the case of Killers, there are a couple of other problems: the lure itself rusts/discolours after a few uses; and the lure is so slim and bendable that it loses its shape in short order, as well. Some might use Brillo to remove the discolouration on the lure, but that leaves the scent of Brillo on lures, something a fish is less likely to bite.

I use fine grain sandpaper to touch up the lure itself, but that, too, over time, takes the shine off the lure as well as dulls any finish, like the green Splatterback pattern and the white of the White Lightning.

As for lure bending, this happens because the tin from which the lure is made is thin. Fish of even ten pounds can bend the lure during its runs. By the time you have the fish at boat-side, the lure can be quite bent. If you hold the line or lure while handling the fish, this also bends the lure.

I have not had a problem rebending the lure back close to its original shape. But, you need to monitor the lure after that to see whether it still catches fish. If not, that’s the end of the lure, and these come in at almost $10 at some stores, so expensive to restock. Long in the tooth anglers recall bending red Krippled K spoons with a twist across and down their length. The purpose was to introduce an asymmetric bend that was fishier than the lure right out of the package.

And, of course, many lures over their lifetime become fishier. The ones that work, keep getting used and any changing of the components just makes them catch fewer fish. That’s why I suggest fishing a lure in, as in say a dozen of your lures. By reusing the ones that catch over the years, the better they get. Don’t change leaders on your best hootchies and squirts. Fish them until the leader breaks and say goodbye, don’t change the leader, as you invariably ruin action. 

Bait head leaders seem less likely to lose their fish-catching charm, but then length is less important to their action beyond the lengths used for plastic and tin lures. So you can restring a new leader that you have set up with a leading treble and a trailing single. I tie 25 at a time at home and wind them around a leader board, a component in one of my tackle boxes.

You can then quickly change leaders in the boat. Buy packages of snaps and ball bearing swivels, for the same purpose. Putting four ball bearing swivels from tag end of mainline, top and bottom of flasher and tag end of leader is much more important, as it eliminates line twist, something that affects lure action and life if it becomes tangled.

I had an ancient magnesium single Siwash break on big chinook in Quatsino, that broke two summers ago, but not too many of those out there. But back to the reason for freshwater hooks on saltwater lures. Bill Gower, long time industry rep, who now gets to fish a whole lot more than he used to, sent me a note explaining what the industry does to lures before marketing.

Bill Gower: I think I know the problem of fresh water hooks on lures. As a mfg. rep for too numerous years to admit, the major manufacturing facilities make lures for the world and as most lures sold are used in freshwater, you will not find stainless or coated hooks on lures other than a manufacturer specifically producing product for saltwater use. It is a long time since you and I have talked, but as Rapala (Normark) was the Canadian Distributor for Hardy, it brought us together. A number of things have changed and Rapala no longer has a relationship with either Hardy or Cortland, but also is owned partly by VMC which means every lure Rapala produces for its Luhr Jensen, Storm, Blue Fox, and Williamson brands and obviously including Rapala itself, has a VMC hook attached. In some cases, where lures are designated Salt Water use, they use coated/anodized hooks, but never stainless (too tough to produce, as in hard on machinery). 

Let me give you some examples of what Rapala does for its different brands. Luhr Jensen Coyote Spoons are used primarily for Salmon fishing and do have a coated hook even though a huge number of them are used in freshwater, in the great lakes. Luhr Jensen recognized that when it came to production efficiency, it was better to make this particular product with a coated hook, saving the fisherman the inconvenience of changing over. Another Luhr Jensen product is Kwik Fish. They use fresh water hooks on sizes F3 to F9, but change over to coated hooks on their larger sizes. Rapala Magnum Lures are coated hooks along with anything else deemed to be saltwater, but the rest of the line is freshwater. Blue Fox Gomame Jigs have coated hooks, even though we find them used in fresh water for Burbot. 

Storm ‘Wildeye” soft baits in Anchovy, Herring and Sardine are coated, but most of the Storm line up is freshwater. Basic rule of thumb when it comes to major producers, you will find treble hooks are commonplace as the World supply is looking for this. Manitoba allows the use of treble hooks albeit barbless, which makes it easy for manufacturers. Personally, I think barbless treble hooks would do less damage to catch and release fisheries over a single hook, but do not have paper to back this up, just personal observation of how well the Mb. Fishery has sustained itself. Keep up the great articles. Bill

Flycasting the Dawn - Vince Aubin

A lovely image of a great caster, Vince Aubin, in the dawn on North Island estuaries, 2016. Vince is using his Sage Pulse, 9-foot, 8-weight along with a Rio Outbound Saltwater line, with a long head that matches the rod well. His arm is in the drift back phase of the back cast, (left hand having just hauled) prior to the forward cast and haul to lay it out, in his case, 90 feet every cast. A hard thing to do all day long.

I call him Coho Vince because he can see coho I just can’t see and let’s us all know where they are. We and dozens of other anglers meet every year at the same time with camping gear on northern rivers from Campbell River to Port Hardy’s Quatse. In between are Armor de Cosmos (I have not done this one) along with the Salmon, Eve, Cluxewe, Nimpkish and Keogh. 

I am a newbie as I have only been doing the annual pilgrimage for the past decade. Others have been coming for almost 40 years, having started as young couples, then progressing through children, who were brought along, and now the children have their own families who come along, too. It is Neil Simon’s Same Time Next Year in actual fact.

Our conversations begin as though it were only a second since the last word. Octogenarian Jim with his ‘hammer price’ 7-10,000 pound, Hardy, Cascapedia, a ka-ching collector’s item whose drag sounds like hell – to me – because it is an original from +75 years ago, was advised not to drink any more port, but that he should resume when he is 100. I tell him I will bring the bottle for that birthday and scarf the whole thing with him. I always ask if it’s only 2 years away, and he always laughs in his softened UK accent. On his side, he awaits my brain-science/creativity book.

Then there’s Jerry who wears the increasingly oldenized – to coin a word – straw cowboy hat, something that offends the haute couture of fly guys. I found such hats on sale for $24 at Sayward Junction gas station – whose women workers have to be experienced for the various jokes they tell – I am known as Mr. Fancy Pants – don’t ask why – and tried to get someone to go in on the hat with me. No takers, as even though his hat is no longer recognizable as a cowboy hat, Jerry might refuse to wear one that was not his lucky hat, not to mention be offended.

Timber cruiser Bob and wife Linda – on the sign saving their spot, she was referred to as Sugar Pie Linda – had their children’s children to shepherd around – in the rain this year. Bob had bypass surgery a few years ago, but the great good fortune to have his amazingly tough job supply his heart more blood vessels and thus save his life. 

Then my buds Bill and Randy. This year Bill got my gazebo covering after the entire unit collapsed in 40- to 50-mile winds, knocking a hole through my skull, that in shock stopped to realize it was poked and start bleeding profusely, as well as allowing my brain to start draining out, until I stuck my finger in, staunching the flow, and covered it with a bandaid. I survive.

Randy worked for DFO and has an endless series of jokes, including why you can’t say ‘whoo hoo’ when you get a fish on and want everyone to know. Ask him to tell you the story of the feral feline almost canine unit. I can’t because he said he would kill me if I told the tale on internet paper.

Then there is my new fly rod. I purchased a Beulah (a US rod) 8-weight, 11-foot 0-inch switch rod from Nile Creek Fly Shop, in Bowser of all places, on the way up. For those of us who say ‘well, I don’t really need a new rod, but that never stopped me before,’ switch rods were designed for those who consider fishing tackle tools of the trade – and those of us who write about fishing to actually have as a business expense… it’s the old: it’s tough but someone has to do the job.

The rod came with a matched Snowbee, Scandi system, 450 grain floater with an integral running line, and an intermediate tip for sink. And boy did they match. Johnstone Strait estuaries come with an everyday 15- to 25-knot wind, that for a leftie like me, are a pain in the rear end. Every cast blows the fly into the left side of my face on the forward stroke, leading me to cast left handed off my wrong, or right, shoulder – and add a diagonal forward stoke, something that is verboten in fly fishing.

Randy and Bill helpfully pointed out that I was casting ‘Cack’ handed, a term coined by the Hardy, Simon Gawesworth, et al, UK group. I told them I have broken too many pairs of glasses and had several close shaves with my left eyeball almost being donated to the Gods of fishing, and was recalcitrant to this fly fisher’s maxim. They both tut tutted. I pointed to my cheek where several flies have stuck themselves over the years, and refused to change.

Now, and below what is called the Kiddies Pool, on a school I guesstimated at 20,000 pinks, intertidal, but committed fish, a 15-knot crosswind coming at my right side, I was some impressed with how well the rod, and beautifully matched Snowbee line, worked together.

For those who have as yet not bought a switch rod, the primary reasons are that once you master the single Spey cast, they are very easy to cast (65 feet for a beginner) and you use far less energy in an all-day fishing trip, from the alternative, which is dragging a sunk tip from the drink on every cast with a single-handed rod.

You can do all the other casts, including the Double Spey, that in the past I could never get down, until I slowed down, was more deliberate, waited for the loop to form behind me and then cast forward. The length of the rod allows for loop forming without the extra feet of Spey rods.

One other advantage of switch rods is that you can release a fish without needing a second person. Spey rods break tips when you hold them straight up with a 180-degree bend and reach for the fish with your other hand. And I refuse to drag a fish onto gravel, drop the rod, pull the hook and put the fish back in the water.

The Beulah performed well, both with bottom end strength in the cast, as well as top end bend. The moment my right hand surrounded the leader, I had my rod hand (my left hand) let go of the line, save the rod tip, turn the hook and continue looking for the next fish, all in the water.

A useful thing in this Snowbee line is that it is contiguous with the running line (white head, red running line, as in easy to see), meaning there is no loop to loop Martingaled connection that has to pass through the line guides every cast. Furthermore, the first six feet of running line have the first four of the same density as the floating head, with a taper in the last two. So you don’t have to waste any white head bringing it within the rod tips or hinging the cast, just get the very visible first four feet close to, but outside of, the tip rod guide. 

As with single handed rods, you can either have a stripping basket – as Vince has in the above image – or manage the line within your hands. Depending on how much line you have cast, you strip in line, hang it over your pinky finger, then the third, second, and if need be, first. The most important thing in managing stripped line is for each loop to be successively shorter, thus eliminating loop within loop snafus. 

The Snowbee/Beulah combination had me some impressed, casting out 90- to 100-feet in a 15-knot crosswind, particularly as the fish were 80- to 100-feet from me. I wasn’t so impressed with the fish. While I was new to the gear – second day casting – it was some annoying watching the school divide when the shadow of the line on the surface passed over them on the bottom. Grr.

And I should add that there are many more fly fishers who I meet each year: Ken from Saltspring Island, Doug, Skip, Larry, Bill R (not this year as he is sitting in a wheelchair and thus can’t wheel himself down the beach), Ogilvie (both of them), Bill (the fishing writer) and Susan Luscombe, Winston, 100-salmon Chris, tyee of fishers, even Hans and old Joe… (a tale to tell in conversation). All of these people enrich my life, and summer fishing.

Google this to see Cascapedia images: https://www.google.ca/search?q=aerflo+lines&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=AYOnV7zBG4-sjwPRt5-wAw#q=hardy+casicapedia

Coho Time

Time to get out in Juan de Fuca Strait and catch those American hatchery coho. Retention is 2 marked coho per day with a possession limit of 4 – in most of Areas 20 and 19 (two more wild in Port San Juan). No wild fish, most of which would be Canadian. The Fraser is not doing well. 

The gen on fishing coho is finding tide lines from on-shore all the way to the Canada/USA border. It used to be the case that coho were found in the top 30 feet of water, regardless of depth to bottom. These days, you had better try closer to 100 feet to start as the fish are lower. I don’t know whether the difference is that anglers just selectively caught surface fish for the past 50 years until there were no more and that there were always coho at 100 feet, or whether the fish have actually changed habits.

If the answer is the latter, the question would be: why have they changed? After all, off the west coast, they still do migrate on the surface and you see them jump for miles around the boat on calm days. It could be the case that as herring supplies dwindled, coho moved from surface boils to deeper bait fish. In other words, the pattern is the same – pursuit of bait – and habits are the same, just a change in bait numbers. It could be the case that they have switched from declining herring (on which there is a roe fishery) to needle fish that are mid- to bottom-water dwellers.

Fish habits seem the same. It is still the case that your chances are far better fishing tide lines, crossing over and back – yes, this means it you have to continually clean weed/detritus from your gear, but you will catch more fish – fishing the moving side, because that is where the fish are coming from. And yes, the bait, be it krill, needlefish/herring, with less swimming power than tidal current, end up where the two currents meet, producing a tide line – they don’t have power to outswim either current. That would mean that the issue is still location of coho food, just deeper.

Why deeper? For decades, herring balls have dwindled and disappeared, but in the days of Charlie White’s books on catching salmon, were the big attraction to be spotted on the surface because there were the fish, too, typically coho and chinook. Bait habits can’t change to include out swimming currents, but bait availability would change coho/salmon habits.

Your open water fishing should include ignoring speed over ground measured on your GPS. Speed over ground does not take into account how fast you are moving relative to the fish, just the bottom and your SOG could be a crawl, or could be throttling along, depending on the speed of the localized current. For example, the Oak Bay Flats often has conflicting currents and so SOG can change dramatically in short distances, crossing different direction currents, but your speed in the water relative to the fish has not. 

Instead, in open water, increase your rpm from idle rpm. I go anywhere up to 1200 rpm but this depends on your engine and prop. You increase speed because coho behaviour is to move faster and to chase quicker. Thus you match speed in water to behaviour. An additional bonus is that you cover more territory in the same length of time and thus your gear is presented to more fish. If you catch one, circle the spot, and that includes letting the tide line move you, i.e., you are circling a moving spot. 

You don’t have to be Einstein to discovery relativity: you catch more coho moving to them than moving away. And: the closer you get to the coho, the bigger they become. 

And don’t waste time on bait for coho. You will just spend two trays, instead of one, and all of your time dealing with shreddies, or worrying about them. Good old plastic saves the day. Look to squirts for that thinner silhouette, or hootchies with longitudinal stripes – that means they more closely resemble needle fish than herring.

And Mylar skirts make sense, in silver, rather than gold. Two kerbed hooks rather than one because it gives two chances to hook a coho that will always do the coho roll thing, so second purchase comes in real handy. 

I have always caught coho on Bubble Gum squirts which are pink and white stripe based, but pink is the colour. If you still have some Red Krippled Ks, do twist them to introduce a bend that runs across and down the lure, rather than perpendicular. The key is making your tin lures into killers with asymmetric action. We forget that blue is a coho colour in saltwater, after all, Haig-Brown’s fly is the coho blue. Hence an Irish Mist squirt is on my shortlist.

Oh and that increased speed makes 34-inch leadered plastics do that yanked figure eight thing in a way that makes the beholder keep changing eye position to keep up, and because coho are the most excitable of the five species, once they are locked on, inevitably bite. I discovered this in late fall fishing on rivers, after the main floods have passed. When you draw a spinner across a coho in knee deep water within 18 inches of its face, it starts to follow.

I noticed coho will follow 30 feet, and if they get to the stage of first looking at the lure from one eye and then changing to get a good look from the other eye, that they are locking on, and once this rapid side to side head movement starts they will bite every single time.

Add to this to remember that the faster your speed, the more it reduces leader length. That means that chinook plastics on 34-inch leaders, when sped up, their action becomes faster and more erratic, ie, the equivalent of a shorter leader. This means you don’t have to carry two boxes: one of longer leaders for chinook, and one of shorter leaders for coho.

Finally, spoons make great sense. The advantage in spoons is that they keep on working when all other types of tackle have problems. For example, if you slow down or speed up, you will want to check bait because it is easily damaged. And hootchy fronds can and do wrap around hooks.

The new Coho Killers have that slim silhouette thing, and look pretty sexy for coho fishing. Do remember though, that they are not stainless and thus rust. You should carry some Brasso (or fine grit sandpaper) to polish the lure – and make sure to get the scent off the lure. And change the hook, because, for some unknown reason, they use freshwater hooks, and they rust as soon as they see salt water coming. 

Tin spoons bend far too easily, so it is hard to keep the shape of the lure out of the box. Memorize it the first time you put it out. If it catches fish, observe what the lure looks like, taking care not to bend it, of course, and if it bends, return it to fish catching shape it had before it caught the fish.

On the other hand, if the lure catches nothing, or gets wildly out of shape during the catching phase, either add an asymmetric bend, or return it to the shape it had.

Now, when you have that coho doing its roll thing at the side of the boat, be ready to slip that net under it the moment it ceases, for it will do it again in short order. As we all know: fortune favours the bold, and the only Latin we all know is: Carpe diem means seize the fish.

Some coho policy considerations: 

If DFO focussed on habitat restoration, much of the problem with low, wild numbers, particularly Interior coho, would disappear. No one can change ocean survival rates, but doing the best for our fish on the spawning beds is something that can be done. (There is, of course, a caveat to be mentioned – if DFO says the problem is ocean survival, but bases that comment on low return numbers, that is a whole different issue from measuring the ocean and finding it actually has low survival conditions. For example, the problem could be changing water conditions in inside waters that kills fry, and not open ocean survival at all, unless you have done the actual tests to prove it).

And for the sake of fisheries, hatchery diploid or triploid coho would be a good idea as they would not compete on spawning beds, and with low numbers of wild coho, competition at sea is not the problem. The Pacific Salmon Foundation study on the Salish Sea is a great idea for addressing the problems in inside waters. So, Strait of Georgia coho and chinook numbers, an area that competition between diploided and wild fish may prove a deciding factor on where to enhance which stocks.

All anglers with experience can remember blueback fishing in January in Saanich Inlet, and Georgia Strait up to five pounds in April to June. Winchelsea Islands comes to mind. It was the case that as the smaller outbound fish were ending, the first of the returnees had already arrived back in our waters. June was a big month in kelp beds on the outside of Van Isle.

Links:

1.      The Salmon Outlook document on which fishery plans are based: https://www.watershed-watch.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Preliminary-2016-Salmon-Outlook-1.pdf.

2.      These are the regulations for salmon retention in the Victoria area: http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/rec/tidal-maree/a-s20-eng.html.

3.      I will be doing the pink fly fishing thing on the north island for the next two weeks, so no articles until after I come back, circa August 5.

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