springs on surface not biting

dfrase

dfrase

Active Member
out last night on ECVI and there were huge bait balls around... saw several nice springs, high teeners most likely, jumping out of water and chasing bait under boat. could not hook any all night which was quite frustrating. tried every spoon and hootchie in the box and multiple flashers. going to try some chovs this eve. tried fast and slow. had riggers everywhere from 20-100ft

anyone have any advice for these situations?

cheers,
dfrase
 
Thats when the buzz bombs come out. Like Gungadin says cast in and let it sink. I also find fish to the edge of the ball let it sink and jerk the action back in. I am sure they hammer the bait on the way through and pick the stunned stragglers away from the ball.
 
Try taking the flashers off and running plain spoons and plugs it seems to work for lunkers in the tyee pool
 
You KNOW what I'm gonna say...
Drag Jughead thru them at about 3.5 mph. No flasher. You'll have the whole school following your boat. Every once in a while, while trolling, toss a Buzz Bomb or Zinger over the side... :cool: You'll get 'em.
Make sure you have fresh knots on your gear. Please take video.
 
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Well I tried it with the buzzbombs and couldnt get them to bite. I found this last year casting from shore up near french creek on a beach. I could wade out and they were right in front of me surfacing but couldnt get them to bite. Guys in boats saw them and came in and trolled threw coulndt get a bite either.
 
I dragged two Juggies around yesterday......they had the Qualicum Killer hoochies in them. I was unable to conjure up any hits on them....

but they worked pretty good without the juggy and just trolled normal.......

Not knocking juggies....as I am still trying to "dial them in".......
 
AJ.....I was going about 3 mph average on the GPS.......with the current.

I was using hoochies (Qualicum Killer)...I didn't try any other hoochy or bait with the Juggy

One was by itself and the other was about 6ft behind a flasher....

I also tried those LED inserts in hoochies (without jughead) when the sun went down a bit....didn't get any hits on those either.....But that's not your department...I just said that for comparison.

I think I got out a little late to fish anyway....all the action is in the a.m. on the morning tide right now.

However my significant other will not get her buns out of bed to go fishing early in the morning...she's an "after-luncher".....

I am still going to use Juggies anyway......I will try other hoochies or real bait.........:D
 
I was fishing off hornby. tried the buzz bombs after the trolling wasnt working and nada again. No action on springs so i dropped them deeper and picked up some nice lings.

second night out i took chovies and they werent doing much. Water melon spoon got popped a few times and brought up plenty of 1-3lbers.

All good tho, glass calm waters were a great way to end the summer up there.
 
Seafever said:
AJ.....I was going about 3 mph average on the GPS.......with the current.

I was using hoochies (Qualicum Killer)...I didn't try any other hoochy or bait with the Juggy

One was by itself and the other was about 6ft behind a flasher....

I also tried those LED inserts in hoochies (without jughead) when the sun went down a bit....didn't get any hits on those either.....But that's not your department...I just said that for comparison.

I think I got out a little late to fish anyway....all the action is in the a.m. on the morning tide right now.

However my significant other will not get her buns out of bed to go fishing early in the morning...she's an "after-luncher".....

I am still going to use Juggies anyway......I will try other hoochies or real bait.........:D
Click to expand...

If I can make a suggestion, which worked for us up in Rivers Inlet last week, try using a White/Glow Head on White Hoochie or Green Glow head with a Green Spatter-back Hoochie and add a twinkle skirt to them with one 5/0 Gammy Hook. We were trolling at about 2.3-3.0 mph.

Using more than one hook seems to affect the action from truly working its best. Finally, if your using them without a flasher get them 9-10 behind the rigger line. You can use a rotating flasher off the cannonball if you need to use something for flash.

For Flasher use, 7-8 feet seems to work best behind the flasher with the flasher 8-10 feet off the ball.

Hope that helps,

Cheers
 
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Feeling Nauti...interesting idea...how did you thread your line through the head AND through the hoochie?

Might just have to give it a go...always game for trying something new :)
 
fishwish said:
Feeling Nauti...interesting idea...how did you thread your line through the head AND through the hoochie?

Might just have to give it a go...always game for trying something new :)
Click to expand...

I can answer this one, just rig your hoochie as you normally do then run your leader thru the hole in the bill only.
The install video link is below... Jughead Installs - a few different ways to rig your Jughead, including hoochies.
Hope this helps...
 
JH1B.jpgJH2B.jpg
FishWhisperer said:
I can answer this one, just rig your hoochie as you normally do then run your leader thru the hole in the bill only.
The install video link is below... Jughead Installs - a few different ways to rig your Jughead, including hoochies.
Hope this helps...
Click to expand...

The only thing I did differently than in AJ's Video's is I used 5 glow and clear beads above the 5/0 Gammy hook instead of a stainless steel 5 bead swivel, and I added a larger bead at hoochie head in front of the hoochie then I added the JugHead.

I use a 40lb leader here in Vancouver, mostly because of the dogfish, but it doesn't hurt the action as I used 40 in rivers Inlet as well. I use a 6 bead Stainless Steel Swivel at the rod end when rigging it to the main line.

Hope that helps. Cheers
 
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the problem with just Zingers and Buzz Bombs, is that they have no real "flash". Years since I fished Tribune Bay, Chrome Island, Norris and Flora, but I have run into your problem plenty of times and scratched my head, until this " TAKE REFLECTIVE MIRROR TAPE, PUT IT ON ONE SIDE OF THE ZINGER OR BUZZ BOMB, LACQUER IT ON WITH CLEAR NAIL POLISH * critical to keep the tape on*, and then work the edges of the herring boil. When this Zinger falls, it looks like lightning in the water.

We had people 10 feet away using what they thought was the exact same thing get totally skunked, while we boated small ones and fed the seals the big ones.

Drewski
 
When I fish on the north coast, all I do is jig with a silver/black gibbs minnow. Seems to work well and has some nice flash.
 
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