Re: Salmon on the fly SF CA Coast

Posted by Nick Auyong on 2012-03-20 09:12:48 in reply to Salmon on the fly SF CA Coast posted by Paul on 2012-03-19 13:24:55

Paul- Here's my advice. Target another fish unless you're willing to spend a great, great, great deal of time on the water with little success. I say this after chasing salmon with conventional gear on the central coast for 40 years up to the time salmon seemed to have disappeared around 2000. Here's some of my experiences on why I'm being negative. We found that most of our success was deeper than 20', and we trolled with 16 lb. cannonballs. We trolled with the best possible bait (straight from the bait barge). Used the best flasher, rigs, that commercial guys were using. If there were a lot of salmon around there were also a lot of sea lions in the area. I remember asking a friend how he did as he was pulling his boat out of the water. He replied he got three between 15-20 lbs. I remarked that the limit was two. He held up his three--just the heads. At times, it was only a 50-50 chance landing the fish. - On a fly rod--nil. There's are reason why fresh Pacific salmon is so expensive in the fish markets- they're hard to come by. If you can figure how to do catch these critters, keep us posted.

Follow ups: