Kings, good fishing - bad fisherman

[Gooch]

Well I finally got the new boat rigged up and went out for the maiden voyage looking for kings. We are supposed to have a terminal fishery starting this year and the fish should be arriving any day. Well we left the dock at 6 and traveled 19 miles to a good drag north of town. I fished a whole herring on a nose clip and my buddy fished a King Katcher fly made locally. When we arrived there was bait and fish all over the sonar so we set up and started. We ended up hooking 12 fish, landed 3 is all in 3 hours of trolling. I don't know what we were doing wrong or if they were short striking or what. Regardless we got a 28#, 24# and a smaller one. We lost a lunker that took drag for 20 seconds straight before it ran at the boat and popped off. Nice day.

Side note, my second chin was in full effect in the photo. Time to switch to lite beer.

[AkKings]

Nice report, looking forward to getting back to P.O.W. in a few weeks!

[Vek]

Not to complicate your life, but sometimes the barb on barbed hooks is awful big and protrubing. The gamakatsu, matzuo, and owner barbs on their standard herring mooch hooks is perfectly proportioned. Mustad and Eagle Claw in some product lines have ginormous barbs, and these must be mashed a bit or filed down in order to penetrate adequately. Based on my own WA and BC experience with barbless hooks, you'd have better luck running barbless with those hookup to landing odds...Something to consider.

[kk alaska]

With kings & bait light drag and do not rush to grab the rod. They will take bait and run with it held lightly in there mouth pick up the rod and apply power when they turn to set in there jaw.

Most tend to try and set hook earlier and faster which compounds errors. If you loose , fish and are still trolling slack your line and feed it line, often will result in a second strike. They love the falling and rolling herring.

I run a trailer hook sometimes on short strikers, if bait still will run right, a proper slow half roll is the key to picking up kings.

Brads super lures should help to keep you fishing longer, and with proper action all the time!

[Akgramps]

Nice fish, what chin.........? LOL never would a looked if U hadnt brought it up......!
Was wondering how the flys worked from Linda? Plan to give em a go in Homer in 10 days or so......
Any tips for using em?

[sodabiscuit12345]

Hey Mike,

Any more news from the area? Very anxious for my trip

thanks