The Outdoor Line Forum

I noticed saturday that there was a pretty large mass of Jelly Fish in MA-9. Do you think that once your gear is "slimed" you are doomed? We hit two fish relatively early in the day and battled the Red Slime for much of the afternoon.

After cleaning my gear more times than I can count and not catching more fish I asked myself this question:

Does the scent of a Jelly Fish repel salmon?

Don't know the answer to your question, but it sure is a mess to deal with.

The stinging cells or "nematocysts" of a Puget Sound Lion's Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata) are, without question, salmon repellent.

Salmonids will not take any part of a jellyfish into their mouths as they experience similar discomfort in their mucous membranes as we do on our skin when we encounter nematocysts.

Often when trolling you'll notice your wire suddenly develop a large blowback angle and then quickly return to normal. This can happen with other types of midwater drift but more often than not it's a jellyfish and now you've cut it in half.

While your wire was sawing Mr. Jelly in half, it's stinging cells unquestionably made it to your terminal gear. At this point brother,...you have gear in the water... but you ain't fishin'..

Retrieve your gear, get out the paper towels and get to work removing every speck of that red crap off of your gear.

This is the most important point: After handling jellyfish, wash your hands before rubbing your eyes or going to the bathroom and don't ask me how I learned that!

Those jelly fish are no bueno Ray Ray. Best to pick up and move when you get into them really bad. Salmon won't touch that stuff!