Fish on at Freshwater Bay for Team Cut Plug

[Todd Busby Cut Plug]

This 14.1 lb dandy hit a Q Cove chartreuse flasher and the famous cop car spoon. After 30 fish caught on this spoon this year, I had to finally hang it up, it is hammered!

Fishing 2011 14lbking.JPG (34.54 KiB) Viewed 8346 times

Coleman, the 11 year old fishing machine and my hunting partner Bob and I headed for Sekiu on Thursday morning in the Ocean Sport 33' from Everett. A few miles west of Port Angeles, we stopped off for a quick troll just west of Fresh Water Bay, about 30 miles east of Sekiu. We immediately hooked up a 14 lb king, 5 pound coho, a couple native kings and 5 pinks. Started fishing at 9:30 am in 110' of water with a green coho killer, cop car spoon and my favorite: 6 ounces of lead and a cut plug herring. We fished for about 3 hours and headed to Sekiu. The local report was poor for coho and kings but hot for pinks. We headed out for the evening Slip Point bite but gave up fighting the huge wind in 30 minutes. After talking to the dissapointed guys at the dock, we decided to head back to Fresh Water Bay area for the Friday morning bite. We caught a 28 pound king, a coho, a steelhead, a halibut, a ling cod and too many pinks! Other releases other than the halibut and ling cod included a 20 lb native king that hit the herring, several smaller kings and way too many pinks!

1/3 of the fish hit the Cannon downriggers with bottom track set for 4 feet off the bottom, 1/3 hit fish at 70' down and 1/2 hit herring on the surface.

It was an awesome fishing trip.

[Nelly]

Looks like a great trip!
The foggy, forrested background looks more like SE Ak or Vancouver Island in May or June than the Straits in August. I guess that's just the stubborn summer that we're living with!
I am bothered by one thing though, I don't know if I like you telling everyone about Cannon's Bottom Track.
I thought that was our little secret...

[Salmonhawk]

Nice report, great job!

[Todd Busby Cut Plug]

It was a great trip for sure. I'm starting to really enjoy trips up the strait. It's not as much fun as chasing mule deer, but it's close. Can't wait for solid silver numbers to show.

[Brandon]

Bottom track? Please explain...

[Todd Busby Cut Plug]

My Cannon downriggers track the bottom and automatically adjust to be a specific (settable) distance off the bottom. Most of the time, after first light, when the kings go back down to the bottom, I fish my gear within 4 feet of the bottom. It's an awesome feature that keeps my gear working in the exact distance from the bottom, even as the bottom changes rapidly. Our 28 pound king hit in an area where a rock structure came up about 10 feet from the bottom. The Cannon downrigger automatically came up 10 feet instead of getting hung up against the rock wall. I was in about 90 feet of water at the time. The ball quickly rose up and WHAM! The big battle was on. With old technology, I would have snapped off my ball as soon it hit the structure. If you like to fish the bottom and I mean on the bottom, the new Cannon 10 digitroll TS is the "getter". We were using bottom track when the 35 lb halibut hit as well. If you want to catch fish at the bottom, you better get the 10 TS Cannon. Probably why we caught Mr Lingcod as well!

Nelly, you got something to add?

[Brandon]

You got my attention. So say for example your trollin at 100 ft and then the bottom drops off to 120 ft. Your cannon adjusts and starts droppin down to stay within that 4ft of the bottom. What does your reel do? Do you have to be standing there payin attention to flip the bail?

[Todd Busby Cut Plug]

Brandon,

You are correct. If I'm trolling at 100 feet and the bar drops to 120 feet, the Cannon will lower or raise depending on the depth change. You have to pay attention to the reel. Typically, you can get away without doing much to the reel unless you see depth changes of 20 feet or more. You have to pay attention to your reel but it works out really nice. Keeping the bait in the strike zone longer is key. Amazing technology. Scotty has nothing on the market to compete with the new Cannons. Some might complain about the cost of the Cannons but I'm not going to loose nearly as many down rigger balls, flashers and spoons as the next guy. The new Cannons accept a 20 lb ball also! I fish a 15 lb ball. A 15 lb ball is around $38. If you loose a downrigger ball, assembly, flasher and spoon, you just lost $70 and you are no longer fishing. Easy math for me, buy the Cannon!

Good luck Brandon

[Brandon]

Damn thats pretty cool. I live on the bottom. Thanks for explaining that to me man.

[Robbo]

Solid work there Todd! Those Ocean Sports are nuts! A guy here in Craig has a 34 footer and it chews up the ocean no matter what state it's in. Not the most manuerable boat in the fleet, but fun to see it running in the heavy stuff. Great trolling boat.

Glad you guys are catching all those stinks down that'r way I ordered 8 more cases of bait for August thinking we would get hammered by pinks and there are very few around. I think we caught a total of 3 today and on a year that was supposed to have record abundance I would've expected 50 times that many. Maybe they slid offshore or something and bypassed us.