Rookie Luck

[Nork]

My co-worker bought a boat last year and has been equipping it to fish for salmon as money permits. He doesn't have a fish finder or gps yet but I have a portable Eagle 320 and iFinder H20 I use for ice fishing. So I offered to bring my electronics along if he took me out. We went out last week to see how the equipment set up in his boat, downriggers, dipsies, electronics. We didn't expect to catch anything and we didn't. We tried going after fish the night before last since we now we knew how things worked and reacted. With some help from a friend on a location we tried our luck at actually trying to catch something. We headed out after work and after about a half an hour, we had our first hook up. Turned out to be an 8 lb'er. A little while later, we hooked into another one. Much smaller but hey, we each got to reel one in. Before the end of the night, we hooked into a much bigger fish. Took my buddy about 15 minutes to get this one to the boat. The fish looked twice as big as the 8 lb'er. It got close enough to the boat for us to get a good look at it, dove down below the boat and ran the line into the troller motor prop. What a bummer. All three fish came on that same lure. We don't even know the name of it. (this is a rookie report). Colors were similar to a monkey puke. Don't know how to post pics but I'll find out before the next post. Anyways, a lot of the knowledge we picked up has come from this site. Thanks to all who report and I'm sure we'll have lots of questions in the future now that "we're hooked." Here's the first of many questions...should we have killed the trolling motor when the fish got closer?

Nork

[The Bait Shop Guy]

Welcome to the addiction known as salmon fishing!

In general, you want to keep the boat in gear and moving forward. If the fish starts heading for the prop, do all you can with the rod to keep the line clear, or gun the engine to pull away from the fish. Sometime they just plain go nuts and there is nothing you can do to prevent a cut-off. We've all been there. It's just part of the "fun."

[Double Tap]

I also made the fatal rookie mistake of killing the trolling motor after hooking a nice one. Had all the other lines pulled in and figured I'd stop the 9.9 and enjoy the fight with no obstructions. Wrong.. When the fish got close it swam straight for the motors and that was all she wrote. This year she's probably a 25lber!
Also-downriggers I've found are the easiest way to fish for salmon thus far. I use rubber bands on everything-including my downriggers. After I learned (from this site) to crank down my rods (they really won't break), I have had almost no false releases and excellent hook ups. Congratulations on getting hooked and best of luck.

[DooFighter]

Yep, load up those rods. Slack is not your friend.

When fighting a fish to the boat, and especially when trying to net, having an experienced driver can really make a difference. Not only does the pilot have to drive the boat, but also keep the fish BEHIND the boat. There are lots of different situations, but I don't think losing power is ever what you want. If the fish is pulling starboard, turn the boat port and vica versa, sometimes it takes extra throttle to keep a big fish out of other lines and the prop. This is the one downside to having an autopilot, I can't bark orders to the driver while I'm standing at the stern with the net in my hand.

With long lines, I'll often times slow the boat so the rod person can gain on them more easily, however there is a fine line between gaining and gettin them in and bringing a fish to the boat green (not tired out). Often times the weight of long lines will have tired the fish out a part in and of itself. Rigger fish, whole different story, set drags light as long as they are not tailing off to the side and threatening dipsys or boards and let them run.