Seeking Wisdom On Trolling Cowichan In The Winter

[Uzi1996]

I’ve fished cowichan lots in the spring/summer months with good luck cant recall a time I got skunked but I’ve just started trying to fish it in the winter months. How do you fish the lake in the cold months what’s the best methods for catching fish? I’m talking trolling I have a 14’ tinner
thanks
uzi

 

[sly_karma]

Wear neoprene waders. They're warm all day, but you'll especially love them when you're launching and retrieving the boat.

 

[Texadafisher]

I’ve fished cowichan lots in the spring/summer months with good luck cant recall a time I got skunked but I’ve just started trying to fish it in the winter months. How do you fish the lake in the cold months what’s the best methods for catching fish? I’m talking trolling I have a 14’ tinner
thanks
uzi

My favorite way to fish in the winter is trolling tomics, no weight, way behind the boat. I hug the shoreline and usually do quite well with big cutty's. Apex's and Flatfish are also very productive on Cowichan

 

[Fins -n- Skins]

Wow it sure was busy yesterday as it seems the word is out. Instagram does not help. Most people are doing what Texada said but saw a few guys with the downriggers out.

 

[Uzi1996]

Managed to make it out a couple days ago and we got into the fish. Some at cottonwood some directly across. The way I see fishing the lakes is there is no secret spots. I’ll tell you exactly what we were doing I really don’t care. We were running plugs 3” mother of pearl and 4” skunk with the 4” doing 90% of the damage. On top with 100+ pulls out trolling 15-30’ of water. What interested me is the fish we were catching were puking up 6” fish, juvenile Kokanee? Juvenile trout? Has anyone ever tried to run a rubber baitrix 6” anchovy in teaser head? Maybe even just coyote spoons. Also noticed guys running riggers maybe easier than going 100+ pulls out

 

[eroyd]

Managed to make it out a couple days ago and we got into the fish. Some at cottonwood some directly across. The way I see fishing the lakes is there is no secret spots. I’ll tell you exactly what we were doing I really don’t care. We were running plugs 3” mother of pearl and 4” skunk with the 4” doing 90% of the damage. On top with 100+ pulls out trolling 15-30’ of water. What interested me is the fish we were catching were puking up 6” fish, juvenile Kokanee? Juvenile trout? Has anyone ever tried to run a rubber baitrix 6” anchovy in teaser head? Maybe even just coyote spoons. Also noticed guys running riggers maybe easier than going 100+ pulls out

I know a couple of guys that do their best trolling 4" Tomic plugs, fast, unweighted far behind the boat. Pins pulled.

 

[Uzi1996]

Does anyone have any experience using Downriggers on this lake? How do you set up your gear? Some days it feels like they don’t want to bite no matter what I throw at them up top but I often wonder with temp swings if the fish simply are in a different depth. Still Talking Winter time here I know with trout it’s all about depth

 

[outback]

Does anyone have any experience using Downriggers on this lake? How do you set up your gear? Some days it feels like they don’t want to bite no matter what I throw at them up top but I often wonder with temp swings if the fish simply are in a different depth. Still Talking Winter time here I know with trout it’s all about depth

Very similar to salmon in the ocean - just use smaller release clips. If you are not familar watch a couple DR tutorials on youtube and adjust to trout accordingly.

By no means an expert - but my experience with cutthroat is that they follow the food, and will be "there one day gone the next". They are typically pretty aggressive feeders. In my experience, if you are not catching them, they are not there. That being said, my experience on the cowichan is that they move in cycles. Work an area for a while, play with lure types, then try deeper or move all together.

 

[Uzi1996]

Very similar to salmon in the ocean - just use smaller release clips. If you are not familar watch a couple DR tutorials on youtube and adjust to trout accordingly.

By no means an expert - but my experience with cutthroat is that they follow the food, and will be "there one day gone the next". They are typically pretty aggressive feeders. In my experience, if you are not catching them, they are not there. That being said, my experience on the cowichan is that they move in cycles. Work an area for a while, play with lure types, then try deeper or move all together.

Thanks for the help, I recently put two riggers on the tinner got the smaller trippers and what not basically did what you said ran the gear as I would salmon. Was out two days in February only caught one fish each day but funny enough it was on my downriggers 50’ to be exact both fish so I was happy to see that they work