Sprink Chinook! Finally Got The Skunk Off....

[Sharphooks]

We lowly sportfishermen are held to ridiculous gear regulations these days. All winter long in our most productive rivers—-no fishing from boats (with drones in the sky to bust people thinking of trying to fish from their boats)

Meanwhile, for half of every week, the FN’s are allowed jet boats and wall to wall gill nets in the same river system...go figure

The single barbless hook thing has never particularly bugged me, probably because when I’ve been using that method, I had no intention of keeping the fish (usually wild steehead) . But now, when I’d fall on my sword to be able to catch and eat a HATCHERY spring chinook, the single barbless hook method has been a curse for me. Three trips to the river...the first two trips I think I hooked 5 to 7 fish and LOST EVERY ONE OF THEM. My favorite moment was being in the middle of the FN fleet and seeing them round-haul 10 to 20 spring chinook in each set....right after I lost mine, one of the FN guys offered me a “nuisance” wild steelhead (about 18 pounds) for $ 50 and curled his upper lip when I said .....no thanks.....

Anyway, you gotta keep trying so this week I went back to my favorite river (right after a nice rain and knowing the FN gill nets wouldn’t go into the river until the next day) . Walked into the hole where I keep hooking and losing fish and within 10 minutes, hook another slab of a springer—-it’s in the air 3 times and spits my hook back at me. I’m now at the point where I’m so pessimistic about hanging on to these fish I just shut up and keep fishing.

So just for grins, I reel the spoon in that I hooked the springer on and tie on a small diving plug. Generally, these track better with treble hooks but I figure with a single hook I might have the shred of a chance as long as it dives and tracks in a straight line....

Instant take-down! Twenty minutes later (these fish are fresh in on a tide, hung with sea lice, and fight like nuts) I get the fish on the beach!

Wow, I’m a happy camper...for me, there is no better eating fish then a spring chinook!

So this one is a female with skeins of roe...there’s no bait ban in the part of the river I’m fishing so I clip a small nugget off one of the skeins and....next cast...another springer!

This one has an adipose fin so I turn it loose. I walk back up to the exact same spot, make the exact same cast with another nugget of roe on my hook and...another springer!

This one I’m just about to get on the beach when my dog goes nuts, scares the fish back into the river...and the hook pulls out...

But wow, the drive back home sure felt better with an 18 pound springer in the cooler And knowing I just hooked and landed 3 of these things in a row...felt good to get the skunk off!

 

[wishiniwasfishin1]

Great story! And if you can't land 'em I'm pretty sure no one can...
The regs are baffling sometimes.

 

[sly_karma]

Frustrating at times for sure, but I do admire the sheer simplicity of the barbless hook as a conservation measure.

 

[Sharphooks]

Frustrating at times for sure, but I do admire the sheer simplicity of the barbless hook as a conservation measure.

I agree barbless makes sense, especially when hooking piles of wild cutthroat while pursuing those chinook...but I’m thinking at this point that there’s something about a barbless hook on a spoon that is a bit too strong of a conservation method...my suspicion is that the spoons I’ve been using (3/4 oz Lil Cleo) are so heavy (I’m fishing them in a white water chute) that when the chinook goes airborne and shakes its head, the weight of the spoon is enough to dislodge the hook...interesting that when I hooked two of them on roe with a 3/0 barbless under a float, they came to the beach lickety-split

 

[winephart]

You may want to try rigging those single barbless hooks like a stinger hook. Use some super heavy braid to rig the hook so it runs 1/2 inch back of the spoon.
Hook becomes harder to throw and the spoon /hook combo can't ratchet around , so less chance of gill injuries on fish you decide you want to release.

 

[mikep]

Spoon......small swivel......hook. This should fix your problem with hooking and holding. BC has been barbless in freshwater forever so you need to take a page from our book and make some technical changes to your gear. I used to use this setup swinging spoons on the Thompson and it really helped the hookup ratio. You don't need to go huge on the hook, a 3/0 would be more than appropriate. They get too much leverage rolling around with that big spoon in their mouth this stops that. You can also use a small loop of spectra but I like swivel better. Man I miss swinging the 2/5 oz mor-tac spoons.