bradfromedson, you don't have to use bait to catch fish. It's been 25 years since I have had a piece of bait on my boat trolling for salmon. Sorry for the late reply but I had to work my last 4 days before leaving for the summer to Nootka.
My first year fishing Nootka in the late 80's was a bit different then now. Back then there was no Critter Cove or Moutcha Bay where you could buy frozen bait. So when I left for my 3 to 5 day charter you had frozen bait on ice and lots of brined bait that you worked on for days. On the first and second day the bait was in great shape and you could catch lots of fish. On day 3 the bellies were starting to fall out and it's hard to get a good roll with the guts hanging out. After that it was a struggle trying to catch fish so I decided to make a change.
I talked to a lot of guys that were commercial trolling for salmon on the West Coast. Made a few trips on a buddy’s troller fishing the Highway with plugs and spoons to learn the art of lure fishing. There was a saying they used, keep the gear in the water, not on the deck baiting each hook. Every year the commercial troll fleet have several openings on the West Coast where they can only use 6" plugs. They put a lot of fish in the boat or they don't get paid so plugs catch fish.
After that I decided to switch to strictly lures with no bait on my boat. When you’re fishing deep water on the Hwy it is a must to use lures. At 150 feet down and you see the rod get a bite and not stick, you just keep trolling and wait for the next fish to bite and stay on. With bait you better bring it up as your bait is shredded most often.
For the last 25 years I have had at least one Tomic plug on the downrigger and depending on the fish have gone up to 3 plugs. Some days that's what the fish want so you need to change it up. I like using the Tubby plugs as they have a lot more action on them. At times the fish want a smaller plug so a classic will work better. That's what the commercial trollers mainly use.
Most often I will have a plug on my side and a 6" Tomic spoon on the other side. I don't use anything smaller than a 6" spoon as I say big lures equal big fish. You can troll plugs and spoons together at the same speed. My target speed is 2.8 to 3.2 mph so if I see 3.0 mph I'm very happy.
So when I say 3.0 mph that is not to say your GPS has to say that to be going the right speed. If there was no wind and no current then 3.0 is perfect. If you add the wind in your face or at your back things change. If the current is coming in or going out, things change. And of course you can have both of them working for or against you. I have a paddle wheel on my boat for speed and use the GPS alongside it. You can be going 4.1 mph on the GPS and 2.3 mph on the paddle wheel and you speed is perfect. Then you turn around and go the other way and it all changes. Now the GPS is going slower than the paddle wheel. On a slack tide with no wind then they both say the same thing.
All that said about speed there is only one true way to measure speed. It is all about the angle of the downrigger line going thru the water. On my boat when I sit in my chair on the starboard side I look at the downrigger line on the port side and set my speed. You have to have the cannon ball at the same depth as the deeper you go the more blow back you get. So when I set my speed I am at 50' always for now. The angle of the line crosses the back knob on my swivel base and I know I'm dragging the lure thru the water at the right speed. Then I let the ball down to whatever depth I want. If I drop the ball down to 150' I then look at the angle and it could now cross my back cleat. As long as I'm going the same direction the next time I go down I can drop it to 150' and know the right speed when the downrigger line crosses my back cleat.
Fishing plugs can be very productive and the catch ratio is about 90% success. On my plugs I pull the pins out and run the line thru and use a big hook. When the fish takes a run only the hook is in the mouth. The plug will drag behind due to the resistance and it’s very hard for the fish to shake the hook out because that’s all he has in his mouth. By using big hooks the hook always gets in the mouth around the jaw and is pretty much locked in. I have seen a fish take 300feet of line strait out the back of the boat like a freight train. The fish turns and swims by the boat just as fast with the fisherman still looking backwards with 100 feet of slack in the line. That fish will still stay on as the line drag caused by the line being pulled thru the water will keep the hook in his mouth.
In 1989 I met Cam Sr., Cameron, Dean and Laura Forbes as we all worked in the Gold River pulp mill. That was the start of a family friendship that grew as Sr. had a place in Nootka and I built a lodge in Tuttle Cove across from them. Cameron got his foreshore lease and Critter started to take shape in 1993. A few years later Catherine became part of the family and soon I became very involved in Critter Cove.
In 2002 Catherine & Cameron Forbes bought Tomic Lures from Tom Moss. Tom started his lure making business more than 60 years ago when he carved wooden plugs by hand and painted them in his basement. His plugs went thru dozens of changes until he was producing thousands of plugs for the West Coast commercial troll fleet. I have been in the basement of many old commercial boys that still have thousands of plugs stacked up with dust all over them. Even with thousands of plugs most of them still had a few favorites that became famous on the coast.
Soon I became the Tomic guy, spending lots of time in the shop and designing and testing new things. It was such an improvement when they moved the shop to Gold River and you could send them a description of a color or call them up and ask for something to be painted a certain pattern. As you can see by the website
http://tomiclure.com/recommended-colours/ there are thousands of colors and hundreds of personal custom colors that people have dreamt up and had painted. It’s not just Tomic lures that they will paint, some guys have brought an old lure from Great Gamp’s basement and had touched up to look new.
In 2009 at the first Critter Cove Fishing for Hearts derby my son Mitchel and I entered the derby. On the second day we headed out to the Bajo Hwy and the wind was blowing 20 knots from the South. It made it impossible to fish the normal pattern so I turned my back to the wind and trolled North towards the Esperanza Hwy. We caught and thru back more than 20 Springs and 30 Coho until we reached the Pins on the Hwy. The biggest Spring was 30 pounds and I knew it was not big enough. The wind calmed down and we trolled thru a school of bait and the downriggers shook and the rods were pounding. After we went thru my rod was vibrating so I pulled it up. There was a 9” Pilchard on the hook. I pulled it into the boat and had a good look at it as it was the first one I had seen in Nootka. The black dots were amazing, as they were all a different size and perfectly round. At that time I had a 639 spoon on so I dried it off and copied the spots from the Pilchard onto the spoon with a Jiffy marker. That is now the Codfather #639.
Now it was time to start doing laps working the bait. Within 5 minutes BANG, fish on. After 30 minutes we netted a 40 ponder and put it in the cooler. For the next 2 hours we kept a 36 ponder and thru back a half dozen nice ones. It was getting close to time to leave as we had to get back to Critter for the weigh in at 2000 hrs and it was a 2 hour ride back. All of a sudden BANG another fish and I knew it was big and full of life. My son wheeled it in record time 20 minutes and it was 42 pounds. In the cooler it went and blasted back to the dock at Critter. We arrived at 1950 just in time to **** the guy that already spent the winnings with his 30 pound fish thinking he won.
You can now go into Harbor Chandler or PNT and see dozens of plugs and spoons with Pilchard dots on them now since my derby winning design. Rob from PNT has come up with dozens of custom designs that catch lots of fish also. The Mike Pilchard #546 was another one I designed and have caught thousands of fish on along with lots of other fisherman. So it’s a great opportunity if you thinks of a new pattern get it painted and try it, it could be the next best thing.
Sorry for the rant, back to speed. The cardinal sin in trolling lures is going to slow. If you’re not catching fish, speed up. You MUST never troll a cut plug herring on one side and a plug or spoon on the other side at 1 to 1.5 mph and expect to catch fish.
Good luck this summer folks.
Ps: see you on the dock pescador July 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] along with Gordon J and however else is out at Critter.
