rogerdodger
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mikeredding said:
yeah, go figure. last year we were figuring out all sorts of ways to lose fish :sad:; this year we are 12 for 13 in Sept/Oct.
the one thing that I changed right before our chinook fishing went from cold to hot was to adjust my herring rig to have the back hook trailing just slightly behind the herring's tail. this is nothing new to more experienced people but I am convinced it really helped our catch rate: all but one fish has been cleanly hooked in the jaw on the trailing hook, some back in the corner, others forward in the front of the jaw. (Igor's 42" buck inhaled everything, both hooks were in the back of its mouth). Even the big one that I lost was hooked real good, I have the bent 4-0 back hook as a momento of my drag overtightening error.
For several of our fish, early in the fight when they came up near the boat, I could see the whole herring still on the forward hook just in front of the fish, it always came off later in the fight or at netting but I concluded many of our fish are getting hooked while striking near the bait...
I started a thread on this called "Tidewater tail striking" on Sept. 10 and added a youtube link that I had watched. I will admit, on Sept. 5 when I put my first rig in the water with the loose trailing hook, spinning around by the tail, I did not like the way it looked. 20minutes later I had a big hen in the cooler, and a couple hours later had my first ever limit. I quickly changed my opinion of that loose trailing hook...
