Re: Salmon on the fly SF CA Coast

Posted by Bob V on 2012-03-19 19:02:37 in reply to Salmon on the fly SF CA Coast posted by Paul on 2012-03-19 13:24:55

I have spent a lot of hours along the Marin coast in July and August fishing for Kings, mostly unsuccessful, using 10 weight set-ups with lead core and a variety of weighted and un-weighted flies (lareg & small). I have done a lot of blind casting, long countdowns and erraatic, slow retrieves while on the same drift that is working for those mooching with bait. I also have done a lot of casting and long-countdowns, then trolled the fly using my boat, moving in short bursts using my Lenco electrics....one can cover a lot of water this way and move the fly up and down the water column effectively depending on boat control. Sadly, both methods have been seldom effective for me. Something about king salmon...don't seem inclined to grab a retrieved, suspended fly or jigged fly the way one would envision. Like Dan said, I have had them follow all the way to boat and not eat on many occasions. My personal opinion that Salmon use their sense of smell in a big way when feeding in the ocean. Anyone who has mooched with dead drifted anchovies knows that salmon usually do a "drive by" before they eat..they check out the mooched dead chovy only to return within seconds for the eat (if it smells right). My guess is they do this with fly offerings also, but are far less interested due to a lack of scent on the offering. As a testiment to this, there are times when you can take conventional spinning gear and mooch with 1/4 oz hair razor and worm tail for kings. However, I have only had sucess when you cut about 1" of an achovy tail and put it on the hook...otherwise, they reject it most of the time. The same has to be true of flies. I think you could greatly increase your odds with ocean kings by crushing up a bunch of anchovies in a mason jar and soaking your flies overnight before fishing or maybe find the right spray on scent product.

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