Hot Weather vs. Hot Fishing By Lance Merz

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1 August 2017 Salmon season is upon us and as most anglers, rivers have been inundated with boats where the Sockeye and summer run Chinooks can be found in abundance. What happens though, when it becomes too hot to fish? We ve all done it before; scorched ourselves on the water waiting to catch our limits. Just as we are trying to beat the heat, so are the fish. High water temperatures in the rivers this year have made it a challenge to catch these fish who rely heavily on oxygen levels in the water as well as water levels. So how do you fish them? Each year of fishing has its own challenges, in and of itself. It always seems that a different color, rigging, bait, speed, or location is something that we have to take into consideration. These higher water temperatures play an instrumental role in how fish react to all of the above. So what can we do to catch them? My best answer is to spend time on the water and not be afraid to try different things. If you are fishing for salmon using a flasher with a three to four foot herring rig, don t be afraid to try something different. A perfect example of this is when I was recently fishing for Sockeye. Normally when fishing for these fish, less is more. A simple dodger with a leader tied to two 2/0 hooks with some beads and Hot Weather vs. Hot Fishing By Lance Merz Mack s Lures very own Dawn Wooten holding up a Sockeye during a recent fishing trip. a Smile Blade usually does the trick. What I ve found however is that this year, things have changed. I now have four downriggers on my boat, which has been a fantastic tool when fishing for Kokanee. This year however, I have put my downriggers away and decided to use lead. Of the times I ve been fishing this year it seems that the bite is more subtle. Eliminating a downrigger can make a big difference, and in my opinion, it has. My change to this subtle presentation is really quite simple. First, I ll put on either a 1.5 or 1.1 Mack s Lure UV Glo Burst Smile Blade with a 4mm glow bead just under the blade. Next, I will attach three to four ounces of lead (depending on the depth you are fishing) to the line. Then, I ll attach a bead chain swivel and put on a Mack s Lure Hot Wing and attach it directly to a Double D Dodger. The Hot Wing is lightweight and doesn t affect the action of the dodger at all. It provides more attraction in the water, which is exactly what you need when the fish aren t biting, more attraction. This type of attractor is much different from that of others in that it has 80% less drag when in the water. This allows more sensitivity when you re playing a fish from the boat. The hot wing blades themselves counterrotate from each other, providing extra flash. A pink shrimp Mack s Lure Cha Cha Sockeye squidder has been my lure of choice tipped on the top hook with a piece of coon shrimp. As far as scent goes, Pro- Cure s Bloody Tuna has been my scent of choice. Fishing for Sockeye has been a challenge, but limits can still be obtained. Photo courtesy of Moon s Guide Service. The bottom line of this article is to not be afraid to try different things. I know that we all have our favorite lure, but thinking outside the box may help you catch more fish. Don t be afraid to set that traditional flasher aside and try using a 7.6 Double D Dodger with Mack s Lure s Hot Wings on top. It could make all the difference in the world. Page 1

2 Stan s Space Will It Ever Be Broken? By Hall-of-Fame Angler Stan Fagerstrom Part 2 It finally happened for me a few years ago at El Salto Lake down in Mexico. The bass didn t hit hard, and I just felt a couple of firm pulls. I didn t have to guess whether or not a fish was there. I set the hook and got a look at her when she came boiling up to the surface with a savage shake of her massive head. There she finally is, I gasped to my partner, now if we can just get her into the boat. Well, we did eventually get that fish up close to the boat. I darn near choked when I eyeballed the largest bass I d ever caught. She weighed almost 12- pounds. It was my first largemouth of more than 10-pounds. doubt Ray had ever been asked more questions while we were together that I did. I loved every minute of it. For some time Ray had the distinction of having caught the second biggest largemouth ever taken on hook and line. Easley, a lifetime angler, moved to California from Arkansas when he was 13. He hooked his big one in California s Casitas Lake. The date was March 4, It was about 3 p.m., Easley recalled. I was with two other guys. It was raining lightly and we were in an area of Lake Casitas called Deep Cat. There was a long ridge running out from the deeper part of the lake and I knew it held big bass. Easley and his pals anchored their boat and fished about 20 minutes when the big one came along. One of Easley s buddies wasn t sure how to fish the live crawdads they were using for bait. Ray set his rod aside to show his friend how to go about rigging a crawdad. was a big fish as soon as I set the hook. The giant bass ran right at the boat (something it s not uncommon for a big bass to do) and Easley thought it might be a big catfish. The fish ran on up to the shallow water, Easley says, then the line started to come up and it surfaced. It just stuck its big head out of the water and sloshed back and forth. Even the largest bass doesn t fight like a salmon, steelhead or certain other fresh water fish. They have tremendous power for the first couple of surges, but their fight is short lived. I d like to tell you how I fought that huge fish for 30 minutes, Easley says, but it didn t happen that way. The fish made one big circle around the boat. One of my friends got set to net the fish, but the poor guy was shaking so bad he could hardly stand up. I got the fish alongside the boat and he reached down to pick it up with the net. Then the net broke right at the handle. That s a darn nice bass I m holding before I put her right back where she came from. Big as that fish was, you d have to get one twice as large to set a new largemouth bass record. Now consider how a guy named Ray Easley must have felt when he boated one twice that size. If you read my previous Stan s Corner column you know I promised to tell you how he felt. I can do that because I had opportunity once to share a hotel room overnight oncewith this good guy from Fullerton, California. I Spend most of your fishing life in the Pacific Northwest, and I did, and you re lucky if you ever see a 10-pound lartgemouth bass. I ve only got a couple of lures that have caught largemouth bass of more than 10-pounds for me. The one you re looking at has. It s a Mack s Lure Stan s Spin spinnerbait. Have you shown it to the big ones in your favorite lakes yet? The big one picked up my crawdad while I was talking, Ray told me. I was telling my pal how you had to let the fish take the bait and run off three or four feet before you did anything. About that time my line started moving. I knew it Largemouth bass like the one Dr. Chris Minnick is holding here are just awfully darn hard to come by. That might have been the end of the story. So many fish, big bass especially, are lost during the netting process. That s due in part to the way a bass jerks its head around if given the slightest slack in the line. My buddy let the net back down Continued on Page 3 Page 2

3 Continued from Page 2 in the water, Easley says. Then he reached down with both hands and sort of scooped the fish into the net and flopped it into the boat. I asked Easley what was the first thing he said when the fish was finally in the boat. It was Oh s t! Easley replied. I knew that fish was really big. And really big it turned out to be. When the fish was weighed later in the day it tipped the scales to 21 pounds, 3 ounces. That s not far off the record size bass anglers have been trying to beat for more than half a century. My long time friend Bruce Holt, of Kalama, Washington, has fished bass hot spots all over the world. He took this 13-pound, 5-ounce beauty out of Mexico s El Salto Lake. A couple of bass larger than Easley s have been caught in since. They also fell just short of the 22 pound, 4 ounce mark. One of them was a 21-pound, 12- ounce whopper. It was also caught at Lake Castaic in Maybe the record will be broken one of these days. It could happen. I don t know if it will turn out to be worth a million dollars. I do know whoever catches it does run a risk. What is it? It s possibly having to change their drawers once they eyeball a bass of a record size up close to the boat! Sonic BaitFish (SBF) Tips & Techniques Burning the Sonic BaitFish (SBF) By Captain Pete Rosko Pete Rosko No, this is not a fire drill but a specialized technique to trigger more strikes on fast drifts, especially during blustery conditions, when fish migrate towards the surface. It is especially effective with fork-tailed species and all salmon species. The only times this technique will not work are when there is little water and wind movement, and debris in the water. In my September 2015 issue, the article was titled, horizontal jigging and trolling techniques to increase your catches with the SBF. In that issue I included two paragraphs which I am repeating now because they hold true and are critical for increasing your catch rate. 1) Casting a Sonic BaitFish (SBF), on a tight line, is a deadly technique for triggering strikes in shallow water and for suspended fish in deeper water. It is a highlyeffective search bait! A tight line causes the SBF to dart & flutter more lively in a zig-zag pattern, causing it to fall more slowly. Slowing the fall enables the lure to remain suspended longer in the strike zone. A tight line also detects strikes more easily and improves hook-sets. Note: It s the downward flutter of the lure that triggers most strikes. That is the main reason for alternating each turn of your reel handle with a short lift of your rod when retrieving. All predator fish are programmed to strike a falling metal jig as it resembles an injured prey and a easy meal. So mimic that in your retrieve to get that downward flutter. 2) I personally have consistently out-fished other techniques that went dead while this tight line casting technique never missed a beat. The increased lure vibration, of a lively darting SBF, is the main fish attractant. More line tension on the lure is supplied by longer casts. This line tension increases lure action. For best efficiency, use spinning gear. Once your cast lure hits the water, point your rod tip directly where the lure hit the water, not sideways to it, for best line control. Immediately point your rod at a 10 to 11 o clock position then constantly alternate an upward rod twitch (one inch on rod tip movement causes the SBF to move 6-8 inches) with one full turn of your reel handle as you retrieve the SBF. This rod action further increases the erratic action of the lure. Always cast directly downwind (NOT SIDEWAYS) for best line control, better lure action and more strikes. Note: The only time you do not cast downwind is when the tide is moving faster against the wind. You want to cast your lure on the side of your drifting boat that causes the most resistance to the lure. Your line angle should range between 70 and 80 degrees to the water s surface. This keeps the lure suspended longer and with more action. If the lure keeps sinking to the bottom, or less than 70 degrees, switch to a lighter lure. If that fails, your boat s drift speed is not fast enough to be effective with this special technique. Switch either to trolling or to vertical jigging instead. Minimize any bow in your line as Continued on Page 4 Page 3

4 Continued from Page 3 it ruins line control and attributes to missed strikes and poor hookups. Side-wind, vs. down-wind, causes line bow and ruins one s presentation. Note: The September, 2015 issue covered consistently-proven horizontal jigging, casting and trolling techniques with the SBF. That issue can be retrieved through the Mack Attack archives. LESSONS FROM THE PAST... During the early years of developing metal jigs, I was primarily focused on vertical jigging because I knew the primary action to produce a strike was the downward flutter. That was learned at a very young age in Ohio while trolling propeller-type spinner worm harnesses for walleyes with my dad. The rods never exchanged our hands for a rod holder. We worked those rods with a continuous, and rhythmic, sideways pull and drop back. We also trolled in a circle and S pattern. On the turn, the inside rod caught most of the walleyes as the spinner harness momentarily hesitated and fluttered downward. On the contrary, the spinner harness on the outside rod sped up and experienced fewer strikes. My first metal jig was being designed in the early 1980 s. It was the Crippled Herring and I was still only thinking vertical jigging. As time went by, trolling professionals contacted me with stories of the Crippled Herring catching more fish than with their conventional trolling lures. It was in the early 1990 s when I started selective trolling as an offshore guide in Florida s Gulf of Mexico. On one trip, my clients traveled a long way to fish for barracuda. Large barracuda are a spectacular sport fish especially when hooked while speed trolling. We were to troll with two rods. One rod would troll the best trolling Rapalas, at that time, and the second rod was rigged with a bright chrome 1 ½ oz Crippled Herring. A large school of pound barracuda was located over an artificial reef in 35 feet of water off Marco Island. The plan was to speed-troll in a tight circle over that reef. It turned out that all of my turns were to the right (starboard) where the Crippled Herring rod was located. The Rapala rod was attached to the port side rod holder. It was one of those trips which are never forgotten. The many strikes experienced were savage and with all fish exploding 8-10 feet out of the water. After one strike, a 40 lb barracuda jumped over my boat s T-top...about a 15 foot vertical leap. At the end of that trip over 30 barracuda were released. Now, this is why I mention this particular charter as all of the strikes were on the inside turn rod rigged with the Crippled Herring. It was the only lure-type that was able to flutter downward after slowing down on its turn. When the Rapala was placed on that same inside rod it still did not get hit because it could not flutter downward. Note: The Crippled Herring was licensed with Luhr Jensen from 1990 to Then, in 2005, Rapala purchased Luhr Jensen and the license to market the Crippled Herring. Many lessons, learned about metal jig behavior, were accidental. One dramatic event took place, almost 30 years ago, in gale force winds off Port Angeles, Washington. I was accidentally speed-drifting with my brother, Bob, in 120 feet of turbulent water and we re basically at the mercy of a wild sea. Salmon fever tossed caution literally to the wind. No jig was heavy enough to stay near bottom. That included our heaviest which was a 5 oz Crippled Herring. In short order, the jig planed off and was speed-swimming just under the waves. It not only was swimming like a bait fish it was also vibrating and darting sideways by as much as 6 feet to either side. The first strike came quickly that almost took the rod out of my brother s muscular arms. Before I could get to the net, I was also slammed by a big Chinook. We lost more fish that day than the limit we took home... all 30 lbs. and larger. That was the beginning of my understanding of what salmon do in rough water conditions. Basically, they migrate towards the surface where large bait masses are concentrated. BACK TO THE PRESENT... When fishing for Chinook salmon, I always carry at least two rods...one a 6 ft. spinning rod and the other a 6 ½ ft. baitcaster. I use the spinning outfit almost exclusively when conditions permit me to cast. This is a 180 degree departure from my early days of vertical jigging with a baitcaster. Maturity has taught me to think out of the box and not be frozen by tunnel vision thinking. As good as the Sonic BaitFish is at vertical jigging, I think it s even better horizontally. In the past four years, it has out-fished conventional troll baits on other boats of skippers with open minds. Two years ago, I begin burning the Sonic BaitFish (a fancier name for flat-line speed-jigging) near surface in fast moving water. It has consistently out-fished vertical jigging with many outings being Continued on Page 5 Page 4

5 Continued from Page 4 the only technique that worked. Best salmon finish was glow white. Most sizes fished were the 3/4 oz first and the 1/2 oz second. General depths fished-over ranged between 35 and 65 feet. The line snap was attached to the nose with a sharp single siwash-style hook on the tail. Please remember that the top-ofthe-back attachment is exclusively for vertical jigging and not anything horizontal! That was the only way to achieve maximum vibration both on the lift and fall. Finally, practice with your SBF in clear water to become familiar with its actions relative to your particular technique. As with anything in life, knowledge leads to greater success. And, as always, thank you for taking the time to become better anglers through the Mack Attack articles. Pete Mack s Lure Sonic BaitFish Gary s Fishing Corner: Beat The Heat By Gary Miralles Gary Miralles Summertime in Norcal can be brutal with temperatures often reaching the 100 degree mark. In these warmer temperatures, it s nice to beat the heat by heading to the mountains to go fishing. Fortunately, there are many high mountain lakes within an hour of the Redding, Calif. area. One such lake is Iron Canyon, a 500 acre timberlined mountain lake sitting at about 3,000 foot elevation. The lake sits about 25 miles north of 299 East. just outside the small community of Big Bend. This quaint PG&E reservoir is loaded with a good population of catchable rainbows, brooks and brown trout. It has two campgrounds suitable for tent and small RV camping and one decent boat launch at the Hawkins Landing Campground. You can catch trout from shore in the summer months by soaking nightcrawlers, but trolling is the best way to fill your ice chest. Fish the main body of the lake from the boat launch to the dam at about 50 feet deep. My favorite setup has always been a Cripplure, Hum Dinger or Pee Wee Wiggle Hoochie set 3-feet behind a Sling Blade. The Sling Blade UV or Precious Metal in orange, gold or copper orange is your best bet. For the Cripplure, I ve had the best luck with red brass, crushed fire, nickel silver or fire tiger glow. When trolling a Hum Dinger, I ve used red brass, orange gold, nickel silver or silver glow. The Pee Wee Wiggle Hoochie in pink, orange or purple UV. I have landed browns up to fourpounds using downriggers and bouncing bar weights over tree stumps on the bottom with a brass crushed fire Cripplure. Rig your release three-feet above your weight and run your lure 10- feet back. With this technique, you do not need to use a Sling Blade. Remember to always pay close attention to your equipment because you can and will get hung up. Call PG&E for lake info and the Pitt Stop store for a current fishing report by calling Good fishing! Page 5

6 HOT DEAL OF THE MONTH Mack s Lure Sling Blade The hottest attractor this season has been the Sling Blade and with salmon season upon us, there s no better time than now to stock up on these flexible dodgers. Use promo code 910SBD at checkout to receive 10% off all 9-inch Sling Blade Dodgers. Enter code: 910SBD Question of the Month Have a question? We d love to answer it! Contact us at MacksLure@MacksLure.com if you have a question you would like to see featured! Q: I know you have products for trolling for sockeye, but I was wondering if you have any cast and retrieve type lures that would work for them that I could use from shore. Thanks. A: As it sounds you are well aware, we do have some killer trolling products which target Sockeye and other salmon species. What a lot of people don t know however, is that the Sonic BaitFish jigging spoon is a tool that can be effectively used to target Sockeye, and other species, from shore. Kokanee are a land locked Sockeye and therefore both species Photo of the Month seem to be triggered to bite by the same fishing methods and colors. With that said, there are a lot of anglers that vertically jig or cast and retrieve the Sonic BaitFish for Kokanee. Since the Sockeye swim up the banks of a river and always seem to be in the top of the water column, (from the surface down to about 20 ). Therefore, I would suggest using a 1/10th, 1/6 or 1/4oz SBF in Hot Pink or Hot Orange. Rig it with the duo-loc snap attached to the nose and fish it slow with small methodical, and erratic, movements (twitching the lure as retrieving it). You could also use the Sonic BaitFish underneath a float. With this method I would use the 1/10 or 1/6th oz. in the same colors mentioned above and fish it on a slip bobber to get it down to the desired depth. Both of these methods are an effective way to target Sockeye when fishing waters where the fish congregate and stack up. The man who created the Sonic BaitFish is named Pete Rosko, who writes articles in this magazine every month. He gives a lot of tips and tricks on how to effectively use the SBF for a lot of fishing scenarios. Also note, that on our website, there are several video s that allow you to see the SBF in action on the water. Video of the Month Check out this video on Lake Wenatchee Sockeye. If you have video s to share, we d love to see them!! Send your video links to: Al@MacksLure. com Troy Schmidt caught this gorgeous kokanee on Baker Lake using Double D Dodger and Smile Blade Kokanee Hoochie. Send your photo s to media@mackslure.com for consideration to be included in a future Mack Attack edition or on Facebook. Page 6