So That's How They Do it....

[Seafever]

Often wondered how a salmon could prey on Herring in total darkness (night).

I know that salmon can and do feed at night.

I also heard of a famous fisherman who would go fishing from 8p.m at night until 6 a.m. the following day.
He caught lots of fish. He had a saying:- "If you can see your bait...you're too late".

Was watching a show couple of days ago on Nat Geo channel about a research ship off the Azores looking for Giant Squid ...at night.

They were using special cameras made by Canon...called "starlight" cameras...which will pick up very small amounts of light.

Well....the ocean looks like Las Vegas down there at night.....with all the phosphoresence created when a fish or any object swimming through the water, even down deep.

A swimming fish leaves a bright trail of phosphor light.....so a salmon would have no trouble zeroing in on a school of Herring.......or anything else...like a squid.

If you get a chance to see that episode it is well worth it.

 

[Rum Buddies]

I believe its accepted that salmon are not typically nocturnal.

If you fish the morning after a full moon(and clear night) you'll usually find fishing slow, the salmon can feed by moon light in this case. On the flip side I'd take this to suggest that on a completely dark night they would prefer not to feed as their still hungry come morning time. Sight is just too big a factor in how they hunt prey to waste energy chasing bait in the dark IMO.

The phosphorences theory would explain why the old school green glow works so well in low light conditions for salmon but I believe the majority of salmon feeding takes place from sunrise to sunset give or take a couple hours on each end.

Just take a look at the size of a salmon's eye, its not particularly large compared to say a yellow eye snapper that spends most of its time very deep in very dark water. Fish with small eyes tend to hunt during the day and in shallow water.

 

[salty-dog]

That bioluminescence is the reason why green lures work so well. Though we see it, we do not see it as well as fish do. When on the prowl for food, fish will follow the "comet trail" left in the wake of other sealife to the source. Think of it as a sort of neon sign screaming " food found here".

In the more southernly regions of both coastlines, the bioluminescence is much brighter than found around here, but I have fished at night and a few times found it glowed very brightly.

As for night fishing, it is very productive due to the bioluminescence. Before moving here, I spent many nights anchored a few miles off shore and the results were consistently about 10 times better. On very dark nights out there, you could not see the fish, but you could see the "comet trail" left behind. That was always the best guide to catching the big boys. More than once, I knew a shark had got its dinner because there would be a comet trail of one, then another- but larger, then BAM ! The entire area would burst in bright green and only one comet trail would leave the scene.

Also, shrimping there is vastly different than here. Whereas traps are dropped and soaked before pulling, there the shrimp boats pull large nets and they skim the bottom. As those nets break the water, there was almost always a bright green area that let us know how far back the nets were. As the nets filled, the green would turn from a lighter shade to a very dark shade of green.

 

[Seafever]

P/Swiss:- according to this article Chinook bite all night.....

http://www.salmonuniversity.com/ol_Chinook_Rudnick.html

 

[Karma-Kazi]

A few weeks back I started to play around with adding lead heads to some of my larger hootchies. Don't ask why us as fishermen tinker like this its only habit. I know lead would obviously lessen the action of the hootchie to a degree. This was actually what I was going for at first. I had herd that there are times when Chinook will hit a bait that does not get whipped by the flasher but just twitches slightly. So I started with a 1/4 oz lead egg weight and 36" of leader. I shortened the leader until I got a minor 4-5 inch twitch side to side (Aprrox 25-28"). I was shocked at the result. The extra drag on the hootchie seemed to make the leader line go taught. It made a sort of corkscrew of biolumenesence trailing back nearly 3 ft behind the lure. As the day progressed and sun came over the hills the biolumenesence turned to a trail of air bubbles behind the lure.
Ive heard that fish key in on this and cant wait to try it shallow for coho when they show up!


I fished it for a few hours and countless depths for only one strike so far. But its not far out of reach for the next day I feel like trying somthing new!

Just somthing I thought you guys might like to know.

-KK

 

[Seafever]

KK...were you fishing in the dark?

Guys have used hoochies with old-school dodgers to also get the effect you describe........and it has been very effective, that side to side twitching motion instead of rotation.....

Sound like you're onto something possibly.......cheers.......