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Python

Salmon Fishing Help/Guideance

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Python

I'm super new to salmon fishing, i just got into it last year and have yet to catch one with probably close to 30hrs of trolling under my belt.



I've fished mostly past the break wall and around the welcome islands until today; out of popular suggestion from friends&family i went out to Black Bay this morning.. left at 5am, was dock at 6:30am.



Was on the water for over 6hrs and had no luck.



I currently only have one downrigger; Cannon Digi-Troll 5 & running a stacker line so i can have 2 lines in at once. I plan on getting a second rigger in the future; assuming i can make this fishing hobby something more than being skunked! lol :)



What i've tried:



-Varying trolling speed from 1mph to 4mph. Average speed i was trying was round 2.2-3.0mph. This is logged on GPS.


-An assortment of spoon colors (maybe i should expand my collection beyond spoons? suggestions?) I will attach a picture of all the "salmon spoons" i have, today i tried them all.


-Depth: I've had myself in 30-70ft of water. Keeping the downrigger around 20-45ft (depending on bottom depth)


-Today fish were constantly marked everywhere. The sonar reading is 200/83khz, although when i changed it to 200khz (20deg cone aka. 1/3 depth cone) i was still marking fish so they were deff around me. I've attached a picture of the graph.




Is there anywhere specific i should go in Black Bay? Attached is my route from today. Suggestions, Hints, and ideas will be greatly appreciated! So new to this type of fishing and it is defiantly an art (or im missing something!)



Thanks!!



Chris



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post-2097-0-69549900-1407013807_thumb.jp

post-2097-0-86442400-1407013832_thumb.jp

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Python

Here's my track, took a bit longer than expected to export it to google earth..



My two main trolling points where at the bottom of the track (in mostly 61-70ft of water) and the blob half way down (40ft of water)





PS: If anyone has a Cannonlink module that they want to sell i'll take it off your hands!! :)


post-2097-0-83877500-1407014984_thumb.pn

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pastor norm

Hey Python,,, welcome to the club!



I never fish for salmon deep in the bay like you are. I fish well south of Bend island and close to Silver Islet where I launch.


You turned around at Bent and headed back. So we fish different places on Black Bay. Perhaps someone who works the north part of the bay could speak to your experience.



My concerns are these. Isn't the water there deep in the Bay very cloudy (red or clay coloured)? This might affect the presentation a lot. Salmon are sight hunters MORE than vibration and scent hunters. For this reason I fish Silver Islet because I enjoy the clearer, cooler waters and often I troll along the line where cloudy water from deep in the bay nudges the clear water from our on the big Lake.



I also noticed that you troll a pretty straight line. That's what a lot of folks do. But I also try slow turns to the left and then to the right and kind of tack my way to the place I am trying to go to.. Then the lures will get an extra kick on the side where it's speeding up and they will also get an extra slow gasping flutter on the side where it's slowing down. This little change in the action will often entice a strike. For the same reason, never just reel in immediately when you want to swap out lures and you are releasing it from the clip. Let the spoon slowly ride up the water column. Sometimes that all it takes for a salmon to open wide and take a spoon it's been following for awhile.



I generally troll 2.7 to 3.3 mph on the GPS. I am using two Scotty manuals and if I am by myself I don't stack or even use a slider. Your lures seem to be as good as any to use. Try getting one or two with lots of glow in the dark. If you fish Silver Islet, beware the shoals and reefs that come up out of no where. Polaroid glasses and a contour chart are good friends to have but always be mindful of the sonar and the contours you can see formed on shore. Chinook salmon are the most structure sensitive salmon on the great lakes and they are that way on coast as well. Not as much as a bass or a walleye but enough to make the explorations of reefs, drop-offs, points, and sandy flats worth while. I simply troll along islands and the humps between the islands. Structure is what Silver Islet a great spot for salmon fishing because there's lots of it and the structure holds the bait fish.



I will be heading that way this week. Anytime you want to talk some more, just PM me.



Good luck buddy. It's gonna happen.


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McGinnis_Fishing

Im not a pro by any means but it looks like your too far towards the end of black bay. The mouth tends to be better. You have a good assortment of spoons, i like plumb, and blues are always good. Troll at speeds around 2.5 - 3 mph, always set my lines at 30/15 and 40/20 to start. Then adjust as the day progresses. Keep looking at your graph and if you see fish at a consistant depth then drop the down rigger to that depth and see what happens. Water temperature is more important then depth. Look for 56 degrees surface temp.

Salmon does take some time to get use to but it is fun fishing.

Good luck and have fun

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Pro fisherman-Stud Muffin

we got out a few times and usually hook up after lifting or lowering the ball, seems they follow for quite a while. and either a turn drop or lift gets crushed

last year a big purples hoochie and a flasher were the ticket on most outings,


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Python

Hey Python,,, welcome to the club!

I never fish for salmon deep in the bay like you are. I fish well south of Bend island and close to Silver Islet where I launch.

You turned around at Bent and headed back. So we fish different places on Black Bay. Perhaps someone who works the north part of the bay could speak to your experience.

My concerns are these. Isn't the water there deep in the Bay very cloudy (red or clay coloured)? This might affect the presentation a lot. Salmon are sight hunters MORE than vibration and scent hunters. For this reason I fish Silver Islet because I enjoy the clearer, cooler waters and often I troll along the line where cloudy water from deep in the bay nudges the clear water from our on the big Lake.

I also noticed that you troll a pretty straight line. That's what a lot of folks do. But I also try slow turns to the left and then to the right and kind of tack my way to the place I am trying to go to.. Then the lures will get an extra kick on the side where it's speeding up and they will also get an extra slow gasping flutter on the side where it's slowing down. This little change in the action will often entice a strike. For the same reason, never just reel in immediately when you want to swap out lures and you are releasing it from the clip. Let the spoon slowly ride up the water column. Sometimes that all it takes for a salmon to open wide and take a spoon it's been following for awhile.

I generally troll 2.7 to 3.3 mph on the GPS. I am using two Scotty manuals and if I am by myself I don't stack or even use a slider. Your lures seem to be as good as any to use. Try getting one or two with lots of glow in the dark. If you fish Silver Islet, beware the shoals and reefs that come up out of no where. Polaroid glasses and a contour chart are good friends to have but always be mindful of the sonar and the contours you can see formed on shore. Chinook salmon are the most structure sensitive salmon on the great lakes and they are that way on coast as well. Not as much as a bass or a walleye but enough to make the explorations of reefs, drop-offs, points, and sandy flats worth while. I simply troll along islands and the humps between the islands. Structure is what Silver Islet a great spot for salmon fishing because there's lots of it and the structure holds the bait fish.

I will be heading that way this week. Anytime you want to talk some more, just PM me.

Good luck buddy. It's gonna happen.

Thanks for the info Pastor Norm.

I wasn't exactly sure where to start, i just looked on Google maps, found black bay and found the landing off of hurkette road. I figured that was the place to go. I ended up buying Navionics for my iphone to get the sonar charts since i don't have the chip in my fishfinder yet. It definatly helped out a lot to find the deeper water in the bay.

The water in the bay is one thing that i did notice, its more of a browny/tan colour and not clear.

I think next time i go out i'll launch from silver islet and try going between islands like you said.

Im not a pro by any means but it looks like your too far towards the end of black bay. The mouth tends to be better. You have a good assortment of spoons, i like plumb, and blues are always good. Troll at speeds around 2.5 - 3 mph, always set my lines at 30/15 and 40/20 to start. Then adjust as the day progresses. Keep looking at your graph and if you see fish at a consistant depth then drop the down rigger to that depth and see what happens. Water temperature is more important then depth. Look for 56 degrees surface temp.

Salmon does take some time to get use to but it is fun fishing.

Good luck and have fun

Thanks for the tips! Greatly appreciated!

Salmon/Rigger fishing is something that takes a lot of art to figure out :)

we got out a few times and usually hook up after lifting or lowering the ball, seems they follow for quite a while. and either a turn drop or lift gets crushed

last year a big purples hoochie and a flasher were the ticket on most outings,

One thing i'm looking forward to finding is the Cannonlink module for these riggers (although Cannon discontinued them 2 years ago). It will allow me to follow the bottom as well as jig the ball between depth's automatically when i have it linked into the fish finder. Like Pastor Norm mentioned, i'll start doing more S's to alter the action of the lures some more too. Thanks !

General Question: How much lead do you give your lures from the ball? I've been averaging 10-20ft or should i keep it closer ?

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dano

Always a good idea to vary the lead from the ball 10-100+ feet depending on conditions. Surface temp is a start but doesn't really mean much as it's way more important to know what's happening at the cannonball. You might want to add a couple dipsy diver setups to your arsenal as well. Silver islet is a good place to fish now , as is little trout bay which has a great launch. Great Lakes salmon tactics and tips is hardly a secret , just ask google and you'll find more info than you'll know what to do with.

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filletandrelease

A good starting point for rigger leads is the "100 rule" (ie. 10 ft down 90 ft back, 40 ft down 60 ft back, 80ft down 20ft back)

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pbear

A good starting point for rigger leads is the "100 rule" (ie. 10 ft down 90 ft back, 40 ft down 60 ft back, 80ft down 20ft back)

That's good information, I was not putting out enough lead line (not even close) when fishing in 40 feet of water... Thanks

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AB

pbear,



Let the fish tell you what they want for leads behind the cannonball. If you can run two rods, run one short lead the other long. If the fish consistently it one over they other, adapt your presentation.



The largest salmon I've caught this year nailed a spoon about 10 ft behind the ball, with only 14 ft of cable out. Chinooks and Coho will come right up into the prop wash to hit a spoon at times. Other days you need to get as far away from the boat as you can to get a hit. Planer boards and jet divers will be the ticket on those days.



The CannonLink is nice, but you'd be better off investing in some sort of speed and temp gauge to let you know what's going with the water where your lures are. ideally having both would be fantastic, but I'd go with a Fish Hawk or Cannon Speed N Temp first.



tight lines,



iceman


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Python

The CannonLink is nice, but you'd be better off investing in some sort of speed and temp gauge to let you know what's going with the water where your lures are. ideally having both would be fantastic, but I'd go with a Fish Hawk or Cannon Speed N Temp first.

Yeah - I was looking at the speed/temp sensors yesterday, both the fish hawk and cannon (again discontinued).

I deff want to find the cannonlink and a second rigger first. A speed and temp sensor will probably be following that purchase then im pretty much all rigged up.

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filletandrelease

Another point on rigger leads you say in your original post that you have one rigger and are running a stacker. always keep your leads short (<20')on the high line to avoid tangles especially when you catch a fish on the low line

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Pro fisherman-Stud Muffin

we actually run a cheater on the fishing line not the downrigger(your stacker), just use a snap swivel on the end of a leader with a spoon attached and clip it to your line. it will fall to bow in line so half way down.


so 1 rod 2 lines , a litlle faster than setting 2 clips 2 rods . plus it saves another rod for a dipsy, as you are allowed 4 hooks per rod so you can fish 3 lures/deths by yourself on 2 rods with only one rigger. and little to no tangles as lures so far apart

so now you dipsy one at 80ft way the f !#$ out ther behind the boat and out the side set the ball at 60 and fish the cheater at 30.


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Guest Munshaw

Yeah I don't fish the line nearly that far back from the ball. I find the smaller salmon out there just *rocket* to the surface for the most part. Typically fishing 20-40 feet down, I'll set one leader back 15 feet, and the other 25-30, just to vary the distance. In my head, if a fish misses one lure, when it turns it'll see the other coming up behind. Who knows. Also, the fish are generally so small that pulling on 60-90 feet of mono would result in a lot of drown fish (as in, wouldn't trip the release).



I usually don't start fishing until I've hit about 50-70 feet of water, and head deeper from there. Also, I've learned to almost completely ignore the graph with respect to "marking fish" as much as salmon goes. There's so many different things in that bay, I doubt but a fraction of them are game fish. That was on the advice of the local commercial fisherman. Hasn't lead me astray. I spent many days trying to catch uncatchable fish.



I've also caught salmon there as shallow as 10 feet of water when the wind of blowing *off* shore...



Spoons seem to consistantly work the best, though I've caught them on flasher/fly combo, J-plugs, cut herring etc. I'll usually run one or two "odd ball" techniques off my dipsies once I get my downriggers all set up and the wind isn't blowing too bad to overcomplicate things.



I also fish cheaters as described above. So for two guys in the boat, you have a total of 4 lures on the downriggers, plus two dipsy rods, for 6 lures total.


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PRO V

I would agree with Munshaw in regards to marking fish, picked up two salmon tonight with nothing showing on the sonar, most of the salmon that i catch seem to come out of left field. 25-35 feet seemed to be the magic number tonight for salmon & lakers.



Mike



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Python

Thanks for the update, i ended up going out to little trout bay last weekend and was fishing that area, javis bay and all the islands out there.. managed to catch 7 lake trout in a coved area off an island.. wasn't salmon but was nice to not get skunked and be able to reel something in.



I caught all of them on one lure, the purple one - if you were to scroll up and look at my pic, its the top left spoon.






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AB

You will find that purple and black combinations can be deadly, Nasty Boy used to have one in Black/Raspberry that was the hot ticket several years ago.

Straight Black can produce as well, especially on a higher line when the salmon and trout are "siloette hunting in low light hours.

Glad to here its starting to come together for you!

iceman

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fishman1

Number one spoon in black bay is the orange monkey puke( bottom left of your box) this is without a doubt!!!

Longer the lead behind your ball will result in more misses as there will be more slack upon release.

You are fishing too far back into the bay, launch at squaw bay and fish towards the main lake end.

There is no real science in salmon fishing, don't think you are doing anything wrong, you are catching lake trout now, salmon will come.

Speeds from 2.5 -3.3 is a decent troll. Salmon are aggressive.

Set your lines mainly 20-40 feet, drown your lures and bobs your uncle!

When you start to troll through the salmon , you will catch them, they are feeding machines.

The reason ou are not catching them? You weren't going thru many, the salmon are few this year, thanks to the 8 day salmon derby, there are fewer every year and sizes down!

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dano

Sometimes a longer lead behind cannonball is necessary, and also don't get stuck on thinking that salmon are only at at certain depth. It's been proven they use the entire water column. There is no such thing as too deep for them. The salmon fishing was amazing last year compared to this season they didn't disappear they are still there , and saying the derby is the reason is complete BS. It's been slow in all the Great Lakes, just got to try a little harder.

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Python

I hope to get out this long weekend and give it another go. I managed to find a Cannonlink and got that rigged up.. pretty unreal how i can now jig the ball between depths at set intervals.. really excited to give it a try now!



I'm going to pickup more blue, black, and purple spoons to add to my collection. Does anyone scent their lures? Should i give that a try .. if so what do you use? :)


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Kaptain Kirk

There wouldn't be any salmon in the Lake if it wasn't for the Effort of the Salmon association,


I believe the derby doesn't affect, the salmon population, sure there are fish caught, but to think it hurts the Fishery.No This year fishing has been a tough summer weather hasn't been that good,and from what i am seeing and hearing that down east its been slow down there too.



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AB

There wouldn't be any salmon in the Lake if it wasn't for the Effort of the Salmon association,

I believe the derby doesn't affect, the salmon population, sure there are fish caught, but to think it hurts the Fishery.No This year fishing has been a tough summer weather hasn't been that good,and from what i am seeing and hearing that down east its been slow down there too.

The Thunder Bay Salmon Association was founded in 1987......Michigan first began stocking around 1967, Minnesota around 1979.

There were salmon in the Nipigon and Michipicoten rivers before any fish raised in the Tbay hatchery hit the lake.

There are other contributing factors to the general decline of the salmon fishery on the whole.

But there is a lot of science that backs up that the idea that stocking hatchery raised fish where there are naturally reproducing populations is not beneficial.

iceman

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Foozer

But there is a lot of science that backs up that the idea that stocking hatchery raised fish where there are naturally reproducing populations is not beneficial.

Damn Straight !!!


Since we can not call female anglers "fisherman" We should just call 'em hookers.....

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pastor norm

I would like to see the science as it pertains to Great Lakes waters.... I know how mass producing stocked salmon has hurt wild stocks on the coast, especially the smaller runs and early runs, though without the stocking programs the fishing will be lousy and likely a rich man's sport.



Are the salmon reducing number of Lake Trout, etc? I do believe the salmon put a significant dent in the forage fish population, especially ciscos and smelts. One of spoons with which we have had success has a "brook trout" finish. Are salmon a threat to Superior coasters or a boon? Salmon eggs are nutritious to trout and rotting salmon carcasses put a lot of nutrient in the river which increases the abundance of insects.



There was a stocking program on the coast which featured genetically large chinook salmon raised in ocean pens, I believe, and not imprinted by a native stream. The mature fish were likely to follow the shorelines with no early urge to hit any particular river and some of the largest fish caught by angler were from this stock. They would show up in the oddest places. I wonder if something like this could be tried here. I will have to look it up again and see if I remember the details correctly.



Also... what would happen if we had a regulation similar to the coast where where only two (or 1 or 3) out of five in a limit could be naturalized fish? Or just reducing the limit to three with a minimum size? It would be great if TBSA could clarify it's goals long term and their specific tactics and stats.




Sometimes what seems bad for the environment at first turns out to be a plus as time goes on. The sewage treatment plant in Calgary, for example, turned the Bow River into blue ribbon water downstream where the effluent helped grow the bugs and grow the trout into trophy sizes. It's a double-edged sword, however, and with the rapid increase of population in the City, the Bow is getting more pressure and pollution from the effluent. Is there something in the Kam and its tributaries that is preventing the success of chinook reproduction --- agricultural runoff? warmer water in the fall?



It would be helpful if our government made up it's mind and decided that the salmon are a boon to the ecosystem and our sport fishery or a threat. I am getting mixed signals.


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dano

The catch limit for salmon will never drop because the MNR/DNR don't want them being a big portion of the fish in Lake Superior anymore. This can be seen with the reduced or no more stocking of salmon south of the border.they figure there is enough natural reproduction and even if there wasn't they don't really care. They would rather have lake trout,since trout were native. Just google this topic. The DNR has actually done some studies on this.

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