Advanced Spinner Techniques for Salmon
by JD Richey
So, let’s just say you’re heading deep into the Alaska bush on a week-long float
trip where you might encounter trout, Dollies, several species of salmon,
steelhead, grayling, pike and maybe even lakers or sheefish…and you can only
take one lure with you. What’s it going
to be?
For me, it’s got to be a spinner. While
they don’t necessarily resemble any one specific type of forage, fish of all
persuasions find these lures irresistible. They’re
also quite simple to use—but I think what really makes spinners rise above the
rest is their versatility. You can fish
’em in flat water, in the salt and in everything from tiny creeks to brawling
rivers. You can work them deep and slow
or burn them near the surface and they can be cast, swung, trolled or even
back-trolled. In short, spinners will catch anything in Alaska in just about any
situation.
There are times when the fish are chewing like mad and all it takes to get bit
is getting your lure into the water, but there are plenty of other instances in
which you’d be well-served having some more advanced techniques in your back
pocket. Let’s now take a look at some of my favorites…
The Basic Swing
Just as you can’t get to the Show without first learning the basics in the Minor
Leagues, you can’t master advanced spinner fishing without having a firm grip on
the basic swing. When fishing in moving
water for trout, steelies and salmon, the swing is going to be your most common
presentation.
As a general rule, salmon and trout hold near the bottom, so you want the
spinner to run deep and stay there as long as possible—which is best achieved by
fishing it “on the swing.” To get a
proper swing going, start by positioning yourself slightly upstream of where you
think the fish are holding. Cast the
spinner across and a couple degrees downstream of where you’re standing.
Allow it to sink near the bottom and
then engage the reel. All you’re trying
to do here is to get the blade spinning so that it has enough lift to stay out
of the rocks. A spinner is much more
attractive to the fish when the blade is slowly turning, so reel just fast
enough to keep the blade from stalling out.
As the spinner works through the run on an arc-shaped swing, follow your line
with the rod tip. Most bites will occur when the lure is somewhere between
the apex of the arc—when it’s about 45 degrees below you—and the end of the
drift. When the lure gets directly downstream of you, it will start to lift in
the water column because of it now being more in of a direct downstream current.
Fish are also prone to grab the lure as
it starts this ascent, so let it hang straight below you for a few seconds
before you reel back in.
To methodically cover a piece of water, take a step or two downstream and cast
again. Repeat until you’ve fished an
area from the head to the tailout.
The Coho Flutter
When you find silvers down near tidewater on a river, they’ll often be in what I
like to call “piranha mode”—that wonderful state of aggressiveness that makes
them lash out at just about anything you put in their collective faces.
As they move upriver in freshwater,
however, their moodiness index goes way up and they can sometimes be as
difficult a fish to tempt into striking a lure as there is.
To get temperamental silvers to play, I often employ the “Coho Flutter”
technique, which simply adds a little variation to a spinner’s action—and that
quick deviation from the norm is usually all it takes to get fish excited.
This method starts with the basic
spinner swing, and then periodically through the retrieve, I’ll give the reel
handle 2 to 4 quick cranks to get the spinner to rise up in the water column.
Immediately thereafter, I’ll stop reeling and let the lure flutter towards the
bottom.
Most strikes come as the spinner is on the fall. If none come, I’ll start
cranking again to get the blade turning so it doesn’t hang up.
Once the lure has swung downstream
several feet, I’ll try the flutter again. I’m
not sure if the tumbling, flashing action of the lure appeals to some
deeply-seated predatory instinct or simply that a change in action catches the
fish’s attention—whatever the reason, I’ve turned a lot of tough days into great
ones using this technique.
The Wake Bait
You’ve no doubt heard about the effectiveness of the ’ Wog for tidewater
silvers. It’s a big, gaudy dry fly tied from deer hair and dyed bright pink
that, when fished on the surface, can elicit violent topwater strikes.
Well, the technique works well with
spinners fished on conventional gear, too! Silvers
will smash a spinner buzzed just under the surface film—and I’ve also caught a
bazillion chrome humpies and chums this way.
You need a few basic elements to make surface fishing all come together.
First off, it only works well on
fresh-from-the-salt fish in the very lower end of a river system.
Once you get above tidewater, your
chances of getting salmon to rise to the lure drop dramatically.
You’ll also need a pretty good pile of
fish in the area you’re fishing. I think
the combination of fresh salmon moving out of the vastness of the ocean into the
confines of a shallow river, along with the overcrowding aspect, is what makes
these fish crazy enough to attack lures on the surface. Ideally, you’d also like
to find a spot that has at least a little current to it.
Once you locate a likely looking zone, position yourself upstream of the fish.
You’re going to use the basic swing approach here, only you want to keep the
lure running just under the surface—ideally, the blade will throw a wake as it
goes. To accomplish this, you’ll have to
cast at more of a down-and-across angle than the basic swing requires.
Just how much depends on the speed of
the current: The lighter the current,
the greater the downstream angle needs to be and vice-versa.
When waking a spinner, you have to retrieve it much more quickly than when
fishing other methods to keep it high in the water column.
The use of lighter lures outfitted with
wide Colorado blades will help you stay up in the strike zone.
Bites can come anywhere along the swing,
though they typically come as the lure is moving laterally across the pool on
the final third of the swing.
When a fish crunches your lure, it’s important to ignore what your eyes and ears
are telling you. You’ll see the spray
and hear the splash, but if you set the hook at that moment, you’ll miss about
80 percent of your grabs. You need
to allow the fish to grab the lure and swim back towards the bottom before you
set up on him. Trust instead your arm—wait until you feel the weight of the fish
load the rod up and then hit ’em.
Back-Trolling
On larger rivers, it’s often difficult to keep a spinner down where it needs to
be. In that situation, back-trolling a
spinner from a boat is deadly. This
works especially well on big migrating kings in off-colored, fast-moving
streams.
To rig up, you need to begin with a weightless spinner like a Luhr Jensen
Clearwater Flash—or you can make your own. To
do this, take a 6-foot section of 60-pound mono and tie a 2/0 to 5/0 Owner
Octopus hook (or two where legal) to the end. Next,
slide two large Corkies down onto the leader and then three to five plastic
beads after that. Finally, slide a
plastic quick-change clevis on top of the beads and snap a No. 4-7 Hidlebrant
Colorado blade into the clevis and you’re in business.
Tie a three-way swivel to your mainline and then tie the leader to your spinner
3- to 5 feet down to your spinner. Off
the dropper end of the swivel, run a 12- to 24-inch dropper line and attach a
Jet Diver to it (size depends on how deep and fast the water you’re fishing
is).
With the boat slowly backing downstream, carefully let the rig out so that it
doesn’t tangle or snag. When it gets 30-
to 50 feet behind the boat, click the reel into gear and then put the rods in
the holders. Keep a close eye on your
rod tips—you’ll want to make sure that you can see a slight pulsating that
indicates the blade of the spinner is working. You
can efficiently work your gear down travel lanes this way—spots that a spinner
cast from shore would only intermittently come in contact with.
Most bites on this rig are extremely savage in nature, but there are occasions
when strikes are less obvious. Every now
and then a salmon will grab the lure and then simply keep swimming upstream with
it. Your only clues may be that the
spinner blade stops transmitting vibrations up the line and that the rod trip
straightens up a bit. In either case, you need to work fast—crank down a few
turns on the reel and then set the hook as hard as you can.
Spinner 101
Wander down the aisles of your local tackle shop and you’ll quickly notice that
there is no shortage of spinner varieties out there. There are so many, in fact,
that picking a few can be a bit intimidating. To
make the best possible selection, consider the species of salmon you’re after,
how you plan to fish them and the conditions of the river.
Generally, spinners outfitted with French-style blades are my go-to lures.
They seem to spin best in the widest
range of situations but you may also consider lures with Colorado blades when
you need a little more “lift” or the longer willow-leaf style when you need to
get really deep in slower waters.
For Kings, I generally run No. 5 to 6 blades, though I will scale that back to
No. 3 and 4 in small streams with gin-clear water.
My all-time favorite color for king
fishing is a chartreuse body/silver blade, followed closely by metallic blue
body/silver blade. Most of my Coho
fishing is done with No. 4 blades, but again, it sometimes pays to scale things
back a bit when the water’s low and clear. Silvers
really seem to like hot pink spinners with silver blades and models with orange
bodies and gold blades. When the fish
are down low in the river system, the addition of a pink hoochie skirt to the
spinner can really turn silvers on. When
they get staler upstream, try a dark black or purple lure.
When doggies are on the menu, size 4 spinners are a good choice.
While chartreuse is the color you most
often hear associated with chum, I think hot and metallic pinks are much more
productive. Speaking of pink, humpies
are super suckers for it, too. Just be
sure to drop down to a size 2 or 3 spinner when fishing for them in most
situations.
There are, of course, exceptions to all the above lure choices.
When fishing in muddy or glacial water,
it pays to use fluorescent UV-treated lures. If
the water’s extremely cold, you will sometimes have to wake the fish up by
running a lure that’s one or two sizes larger than what you’d normally throw.
And if you’re fishing on a stream that’s
low and clear and/or is subject to a lot of fishing pressure, going smaller is
always a good bet.
Gearing up
As with most fishing, the better the tackle you use, the more effective an
angler you’re going to be and that’s certainly the case with spinner fishing.
While spinning gear is fine for this
style of fishing, I strongly prefer fishing with conventional tackle.
Level-wind reels are much less
susceptible to line twist and I like the fact that I can add my thumb for extra
drag when necessary. I can also extend
my swings with a baitcaster by slowly playing out (under tension) extra line
towards the end of the drift.
Spinner fishing requires a very specific type of rod—one with plenty of backbone
to allow for positive hook-sets and wrestling big fish out of fast water.
But it also needs a sensitive side.
The best spinner rods feature soft tips,
which give the fish a chance to grab the lure without feeling a lot of
resistance.
It’s impossible to suggest a rod that’s suitable for all spinner fishing, but I
do have one that I use more than all others combined and that’s Lamiglas’
X10MTC, which is a 10-foot powerhouse that can whip everything from silvers to
big kings. I pair it up with a Shimano
Curado 301 loaded with 30-pound braided line and then add a 6-foot section of
20- to 40-pound fluorocarbon leader to the end.
SPINNER TACKLE BOX
There are lots of spinners you can choose from these days…here are a few of my
favorites to get you started.
KINGS
For swinging deep runs, I use Mepps No. 6 Long Cast spinners in the silver
body/chartreuse fin color scheme along with Kodiak Custom Tackle’s size 6 G.I.
Spinners in silver/green. Panther
Martin’s 1-ounce Stainless Steel Salmon Spinner in metallic blue is also a good
one. For back-trolling and regular
trolling, Luhr Jensen’s Size 8 Clearwater Flash in Gatorade/Green works well.
SILVERS
A good all-around Coho spinner is the ½-ounce Worden’s Vibric in the Sunny Boy
(orange body/silver blade pattern) and of course you can’t go wrong with a pink
No. 4 Super Vibrax from Blue Fox. Kodiak
Custom Tackle’s size 4 hot pink G.I. Skirt Spinner is just the ticket when the
fish want squid patterns. When the
silvers get upriver and are staler, the Vibric in “Blood Hound,” or a Super
Vibrax in the “Red-Tipped Silver Flake” paint scheme are the way to go.
In trolling situations, Spinner Dave’s
size 5 B10 in hammered gold with the fluorescent tip is a killer.
CHUMS & PINKS
You don’t have to get too fancy here…Pink No. 2 and 3 Mepps Aglia Brites or
Gibbs’ Sil-Vex Spinners in cerise/pearl will cover you for humpies. Chums will
eat Kodiak’s No. 4 G.I. spinners in green or pink.
STEELHEAD
When the water’s really cold, I’ll throw a No. 5 silver-plated Pen Tac spinner
for steelies and then use a size 4 copper/yellow Mepps Aglia under normal
conditions.
TROUT/DOLLIES/GRAYLING
A number 6 silver blade/yellow body/red dots Panther Martin is murder on
Dollies. Rainbows and cutts will go for the same thing, though sometimes they
seem to prefer the black-bodied models. You’ll
catch grayling all day long on a No. 1 or 2 1/32-ounce brown Rooster Tail.
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JD Richey is a contributing editor for Fish
Alaska magazine. He can be reached through his website,
www.fishwithjd.com .