The Way A Chinook Hits A Lure........?

[Seafever]

Every Chinook I have ever cut open, the fish it had swallowed for dinner was swallowed headfirst.

In fact any kind if fish I've caught that had swallowed a baitfish , it is always head first.

Spoon , hoochy, bait.

It would fairly difficult for a Chinook to hit these head-on and swallow them...because the leader line is in the way and as soon as you yank on it it's going to pull the lure from headfirst in the fishes mouth to the opposite direction.

In many videos of fish hitting lures, they will follow for awhile and then swing around in a big arc and hit the lure from the side but not head on.

Hitting the lure from the side might explain why the hook ends up in the corner of the mouth.

The first strike might be to wound the lure.....as they would when chasing actual bait.

Cripple it and then zoom in to get it head first while it's injured.

I have had fish where the hook on the back of the lure is caught in the forward lower lip of a Chinook, fishing hoochies and spoons.

But I get the sense that the Chinook was trying to catch it by the tail, disable it, and then go for the headfirst swallow.

Or it was going to catch it....spit it out for a split second and then reposition it for a headfirst gulp.

They never swallow the baitfish tailfirst.

So maybe "shortbiters" are just trying to yank the tail of the bait and disable it....

Oldschoolers always thought that Chinook hit the bait head-on......but we know from videos over time that this isn't the norm.

There was a post today about a person experiencing strange hits on his bait, where half the bait was gone on a strike and then fish gone........

I think he switched to single hooks after trebles with no luck....

It would interesting to see videos of all three type hits.....spoon,hoochy, and bait and see if there's a noticeable pattern there between the three lures.

Sidehit....or tail-yanker.....or head-on munch-and cripple.......

 

[IronNoggin]

Sidehit....or tail-yanker.....or head-on munch-and cripple.......

I've had the pleasure of watching springs in a feeding frenzy in reasonably shallow water many times. In those encounters, it was extremely rare to see them actually consume any of the baitfish with the first strike. Generally when targeting a single herring (or whatever) the first "nip" is towards the tail section, effectively crippling the prey. Even when smashing their way through a large bait ball, the object appears to be to wound as many as possible rather than engulf them. Then, they leisurely circle back and "sip" the wounded baitfish in head first - much more gently than I would have assumed. Always damn interesting to see!

Cheers,
Nog

 

[Rockfish]

I've had the pleasure of watching springs in a feeding frenzy in reasonably shallow water many times. In those encounters, it was extremely rare to see them actually consume any of the baitfish with the first strike. Generally when targeting a single herring (or whatever) the first "nip" is towards the tail section, effectively crippling the prey. Even when smashing their way through a large bait ball, the object appears to be to wound as many as possible rather than engulf them. Then, they leisurely circle back and "sip" the wounded baitfish in head first - much more gently than I would have assumed. Always damn interesting to see!

Cheers,
Nog

Amazing to have been able to acquire that kind of experience and knowledge.

 

[Finished Business]

most definitely, thanks for sharing Nog....hows your week looking??

 

[trendsetter]

Go to youtube and search for "gopro salmon strike". Tons of people have filmed the strikes salmon make. Pretty interesting stuff.

 

[fish stalker]

seafever you should ask for a go pro for your bday. your a guy would definitely love it and learn (and share!) from it.

Do to the fish in the stomach contents have there tails nipped?

 

[IronNoggin]

most definitely, thanks for sharing Nog....hows your week looking??

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) it appears I will only have a couple days "down" before I have to run back to the coast. Will know more later this eve or tomorrow, and give you a buzz...

Do to the fish in the stomach contents have there tails nipped?

If you look closely at any fresh baitfish in spring's bellies, the vast majority will have a nip mark 2/3 to 3/4 of the way towards the tail, but in front of that. Instant cripple nip.

Cheers,
Nog

 

[TheRock]

Reminds me of when the bait came in thick one summer in a small bay in a residential area in Gordon Head (Victoria) we would go down to the bay in the evening at high tide and the bay would be black with thick bait and you could see the springs swirling on the surface when they thrash through the bait... others were there with casting lures try to catch a spring but never seen them ever hook one.. Having experienced fishing as a kid down off the dock piers at the once Meat Packers down by Ogden Point/Break water in Victoria where we used to fish in a special way..
Decided to try that technique again... got a sharp 3 prong hook and a small weight and casted it out let it sink into the bait ball and gave it a few jerks to hook a few bait fish. Reeled it in and you have the injured bait on the hook dancing and shivering injured. Then I took a large trout bobber and clipped it on the line 5 feet up the main line and cast it out where the bait was.... and wait. As the springs circled back to pick off the injured bait it sure didn’t take long before the bobber disappeared and was zipping back and forth under water... On light casting gear it was an incredible fight playing out a nice spring in a small calm bay. Ended up landing it and took a nice 17lb. spring home for dinner that night. It was incredible watching the springs thrash through the bait injuring them, then un noticed they would circle back and pick up the injured ones..

 

[vanisland]

Interesting post SF, im guessing you were referring to my post in the Nanaimo reports section. Ive never missed so many hookups ever on chovie teaser head. What your saying makes sense tho, theres obviously a reason that spoons have the hook trailing behind it. Im thinking about re rigging my teaser head so I have a trailer hook that extends just past the tail. Even when I used a single treble hook set as far back as possible, i was still missing hookups.

 

[Seafever]

There is a way to run the hook right through the end of the chovy and it won't mess up the roll and it will still be in the teaser head.

There also some guys that cut the tail off the chovy and run the hook through back there so the hook sticks out past the end of the chovy.

The way the hook is put in there in this method is not the same as just sticking it hrough sidemeat or letting it flop around loose as a trailer.

There were some videos around on this but I'll be darned if I can remember where they are...

There was a thread about this subject on here around a year ago too......

The way I'm describing, you put the hook in the back and then pull the line up so the shank disappears inside the meat and then you "toothpick" the head so it won't slip.

Looks very clean and neat when done and the hook is right at the back.

I don't run bait much at all..

Hopefully some others will chime in with pics of how I described.....because I know there are many out there doing it.

 

[Karlo]

The obvious solution would be to rig your anchovy with the hook in the head, and troll backwards.

But seriously, in many years of traveling by kayak in what's now Gwaii Hanas NP in Haida Gwaii, I caught a lot of spring salmon on light spinning gear, and the most enjoyable method was to paddle along the edge of the kelp patches watching for a burst of needlefish flying into the air, then dropping a small pearl Buzz Bomb as close as possible into the splash to get a salmon as he circled back for the cripples. It's pretty exciting playing a 15-25# spring on a 7' medium- action rod and 10#-test line around kelp beds from a kayak.

I started adding a teaser of flounder or salmon belly-strip to the hook on the Buzz Bomb, and found that if you didn't get action on the cast, jigging it sporadically then letting it simply hang for a few minutes was also very effective. The fish must come back to an area where they've ambushed bait for a while after the attack, looking for weakened prey, and anything meaty is acceptable.

Seeing the video helps explain why when you throw the motor into neutral after a hook-up on one side, it's not uncommon to get a doubleheader strike on the other side as the bait slows and even stops before you pick it up to get it out of the way. All the more reason to zig zag and vary speed.

 

[Seafever]

I haven't tried rigging an anchovy backward in a teaser head...

But I have tried reversing the hooks on a jig so that the head is at the hook end.

It works......although it does change the action on some jigs.