Hookin’ up on the “Hoochie Hook”! 8

Marine Area 9 opened up on Sunday January 16th and the weather forecast was calling for south winds 10-20kts. Instead of pushing the forecast I decided to stay home and watch the Seahawks playoff game.

In retrospect, it would have been less painful to ride whitecaps in a cartopper.

Monday was a national holiday and I had the family on stand-by, ready to hit the water. Gale warnings….killin me.

Finally, I had a chance to head out Wednesday and the weather was flat calm and sunny and clear. I just wish I could have said the same about the water!

Brown river water clear out to Whidbey Island, completely covering Possession Bar. Check out the downrigger cable disappearing in the first 4 inches of water!

My friend Nick Kester of All Star Charters had gear in the water for all of five minutes before his "Secret Weapon" got ripped off the clip!

This chunky blackmouth hit the deck and was well fed despite the fact that we marked very little bait during our afternoon trip.

"Secret Weapon" ? Well, that deserves an explanation. The practice of rigging spoons with swivels and split rings to increase hooking effiency and reduce the leverage the fish can use to throw the hook is just plain smart. Good fishermen have been doing it for years and it also reduces stress on your spoons while the fish thrashes around in the net. Once I get a "hot spoon" I like to keep it fishing and the less it gets bent in a big king's mouth, the longer I can fish it!

We've all been fishing spoons and squid or hoochies for quite some time and thanks to the "Mad Salmon Scientist" Kelly Morrison of Silver Horde we now can fish both at once!

While it's not rocket science to put these together, here's a step by step so you can avoid the common mistakes. First, cut the welded ring on the hook end of the Kingfisher spoon.

Give the ring a twist and the hook is free!

Snip the end of the hoochie to allow a #5 barrel swivel to easily slide through and allow rotation of the swivel.

Slide the swivel up the bottom of the hoochie,

…and pop the swivels eye out the top of the hoochie. Make sure that you don't cut too large a hole in the hooch since you want it to stay riding high on the swivel.

Open up a #4 split ring and slide it on the spoon which will help keep the ring open to accept the "hoochified" swivel.

Grab a 3/0 open eye siwash hook and pinch it on the back end of the swivel and you're good to go… once you pinch the barb of the hook that is…!

You can assemble all sorts of color combinations and the hoochie also allows you to use scent like Lunker Lotion with your spoons!

Our winter chinook or "Blackmouth" fishery is just getting underway and will be open in Area 9 until April 15. The wind can't blow forever so get out there and good luck!