Tomic/J-Plugs for Coho?

[TanTastic84]

I have been doing a bit of reading and have not seen a lot of information about this so I thought I would bring it up to the group.

Do any of you fish for coho using salt water plugs like Tomic or Silver Horde/Luhr Jensen j-plugs? I live in Seattle so I fish Puget Sound exclusively but I wondered if this would be a feasible option in these waters. I know guys who fish the ocean use plugs to try and avoid coho when targeting kings but my thinking is; if you use the smaller plugs like the 4 inchers, then wouldn't coho go after them if there's bait around?

Anyway, what do you all think?

 

[Fish Camp]

I have tried a few ways to fish a tomic plug.Spincasting last week in the nerrows of Q, I cast to a school of coho using a classic 4" 358 ,10 lb test 9' rod@50yards of cast.3rd cast had 10 lb coho on and lost ,first fish i have ever hooked doing this.Every bit of weed ends up on the bill of the lure,I stopped after a few more casts.Line never fouled during casting.

 

[Fishin'Zinn]

Isn't a plug really light for casting?... What kind of setup do you do to achieve that. Pretty cool idea actually!

 

[tubber]

There was an episode of sportfishing bc with Pendlington in Haida Gwai in late August or September. They tied on a 5" Tomic, let out 50 feet of line, then clipped on a 4-8 ounce weight using a short leash on a regular black and yellow scotty clip, then let out some more line. When the coho was under control, they would reel up, unclip and then play man to man with the fish.
I've done this with kokanee and never had a clip fall off or overboard.

 

[Fish Camp]

Trophy 9' 6000 arbor reel add some ten pound test and your set.

 

[Last Chance]

We get coho on the biggest plugs on WCVI. If there is big bait around then give er. But the smaller spoons work better IMHO and there are dummy flashers if you dont want to play a flasher.

 

[thawk]

In coho season I usually pull a small plug on a third rod in the middle with a one oz slip weight. It does well.

 

[Sharphooks]

Two weeks ago up north I ran a 7" Tomic down to 50 meters to try and escape the coho feeding in the top 10 meters of water, hoping I'd get a spring.

Two back to back high teen coho, some of the biggest of the trip

 

[TanTastic84]

Thanks for all the info guys! I'll definitely be trying plugs from here on for coho. It made sense to me to fish them, if there's bait around, then just about anything will work.

 

[barkerfam]

I regularly have a 5" tomic plug on the surface out the back when I am trolling for coho. Have caught many with this technique. Has very little downside as it is easily pulled in if another rod hits.

 

[Slabby20]

Absolutely they will work. It's a blast to catch them on just a plug. The 3" or 4" Tomic 602's are my favorite.

I also played around with a couple of these Pogue plugs too and had good success.

http://www.pogueplugs.com/

 

[TanTastic84]

Absolutely they will work. It's a blast to catch them on just a plug. The 3" or 4" Tomic 602's are my favorite.

I also played around with a couple of these Pogue plugs too and had good success.

http://www.pogueplugs.com/

Awesome! I've seen those Pogue plugs a few times and will probably buy a few of them (man....I can glue all the plugs I have together and have a really decent sized boat). The color schemes look really nice too. Very tempting.

I really appreciate the response! I'm looking forward to a couple of days coho and crab fishing over Labor Day weekend. Come on weather!!!! Hold out next weekend!