mooching vs. trolling

[AKmud]

Lets get some opinions here. I have a friend who is adamant that mooching is more productive than trolling for silvers out of Seward. Anyone have evidence/experience to share? Descriptions of either method would be appreciated too.

Thanks,

 

[Doug from Anchorage]

Troll till you find them

Troll till you find them

I troll untill I find multiple hits, then I mooch. Saves gas, and effort IMO.

 

[Ellamar]

Ditto.....

 

[Alaska Gray]

Troll to locate the silver then mooch. Also I like people tend to like mooching better for the fact they have the rod in there hands and can feel the bite.
Also now with gas prices through the roof mooching I will be doing about 99% mooching then trolling.

 

[Akn6pk]

Both are good!

Both are good!

I am in agreement with above. Have had much success both methods
but with gas prices....

Mooching is much more fun due to actually fishing vs. waiting for
something to happen.

Michael

 

[buzby]

Mooching

Mooching

I have trolled for years out of Seward and a lot of people say mooching is better, but what do you mooch with? Some say Buzz bombs are the only thing to use and others say cut herring to squid jigs??? help

 

[AKmud]

moochin bait

moochin bait

Would any of you guys be willing to share your mooching rig setup details with me? From what I understand it is simply a chunk or whole herring suspended under a weight. Drop it down to where you are seeing fish in the finder and WHAM...there's a fish. Is it really that simple? Does hooligan work?

 

[Akboondocker]

Would any of you guys be willing to share your mooching rig setup details with me? From what I understand it is simply a chunk or whole herring suspended under a weight. Drop it down to where you are seeing fish in the finder and WHAM...there's a fish. Is it really that simple? Does hooligan work?

Yup, it's that simple. Nope, hooligan don't work. I like trolling. Gas is still cheaper than milk.

 

[Alaska Gray]

For mooching I like to use a 4 foot leader off my weight. Some people will go longer or shorter. Just gotta find what works for you. Yes it's very simple way to fish.

 

[fishNphysician]

For those who can't decide, why not do a tried-and-true combination of BOTH... it' s called motor mooching.

Troll slowly until your line goes out at a fairly shallow angle behind the boat. Then cut the motor to neutral and just let the lines fish "auto-pilot". The weight will just free-fall in an arc as your herring spins 4-6 ft behind it, slowly going deeper and deeper.

When the line is hanging nearly vertical with a very steep angle to the water, kick the motor back into gear. The weight and the trailing bait will now rise and speed up in the water column until you kick the motor back into neutral.

It's an extremely effective technique that will draw strikes at any point in the presentation. However the most vicious strikes often come as you either kick the motor in or out of gear. Salmon are notorious for following a monotonously trolled herring for a hundred yards or more, only to strike it the instant the bait "decides" to do something different (fall rise, slow down, speed up).

 

[Californian]

We mooched last time without much success

We mooched last time without much success

Lets get some opinions here. I have a friend who is adamant that mooching is more productive than trolling for silvers out of Seward. Anyone have evidence/experience to share? Descriptions of either method would be appreciated too.

Thanks,

Funny to see this thread started because it's something my friends and I from California were thinking last year when we fished King Salmon at Sitka....Our guide seemed young and relatively inexperienced and had us mooching (3 days) and we caught 2 Kings which were not very big....Later when we returned to the lodge, we were told that another party had caught some large Kings while trolling......So naturally we've been talking about insisting on having our guide take us trolling this time around....Of course, it could've been just the timing, as we were up there in mid-July......

 

[Californian]

We mooched last time without much success

We mooched last time without much success

Lets get some opinions here. I have a friend who is adamant that mooching is more productive than trolling for silvers out of Seward. Anyone have evidence/experience to share? Descriptions of either method would be appreciated too.

Thanks,

Funny to see this thread started because it's something my friends and I from California were thinking last year when we fished King Salmon at Sitka....Our guide seemed young and relatively inexperienced and had us mooching (3 days) and we caught 2 Kings which were not very big....Later when we returned to the lodge, we were told that another party had caught some large Kings while trolling......So naturally we've been talking about insisting on having our guide take us trolling this time around....Of course, it could've been just the timing, as we were up there in mid-July......

 

[Dogboy]

For those who can't decide, why not do a tried-and-true combination of BOTH... it' s called motor mooching.

Troll slowly until your line goes out at a fairly shallow angle behind the boat. Then cut the motor to neutral and just let the lines fish "auto-pilot". The weight will just free-fall in an arc as your herring spins 4-6 ft behind it, slowly going deeper and deeper.

When the line is hanging nearly vertical with a very steep angle to the water, kick the motor back into gear. The weight and the trailing bait will now rise and speed up in the water column until you kick the motor back into neutral.

It's an extremely effective technique that will draw strikes at any point in the presentation. However the most vicious strikes often come as you either kick the motor in or out of gear. Salmon are notorious for following a monotonously trolled herring for a hundred yards or more, only to strike it the instant the bait "decides" to do something different (fall rise, slow down, speed up).

Thanks Keen eye. You have taken me a step further. Already doing it 75%, make sense........D