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Fishing Report July 2010
MOOCHING
By
Hank Pennington
Downriggers are the hallmark of Kodiak’s saltwater salmon fishing. They certainly work, but in most other ports they aren’t such a prevailing favorite.
Why not?
Because elsewhere in the range of Pacific salmon a technique called mooching is even more popular?
Have you heard of it?
And more important, have you tried it?
While I have downriggers, I only use them when the fish are really scattered, especially in deeper water.
But when the salmon are more concentrated, my catch rate while mooching is much higher than trolling. My hooks just spend a lot more time right in front of the salmon, and the strikes come fast.
Maybe I should define what I mean by mooching before going any further.
Think of it as “slow jigging.” In a nutshell you lower a whole herring, a cut plug of herring, a fly, a hoochie or even some lures to the same depth as the fish, then raise and lower your rod in a slow jigging motion.
There’s more to it than that, and I’ll come back to it. But in the meantime I’ll tell you why I like mooching so much.
For one thing, I do it mostly with the motor shut off. I just like the peace and quiet, hearing the sounds of the ocean and birds around me without the usual boat sounds.
And even more important to me, I love the feel of the strike. You don’t get that with downriggers, and even when trolling with weights rather than a downrigger, you don’t feel the strike unless you have the rod in your hand rather than a rod holder.
And feeling the strike is inherent to successful mooching. You will be surprised just how gently a salmon hits while mooching, and in fact when using whole herring or cut plugs you have to resist the temptation to set the hook the moment you feel a strike.
Very often the salmon will “wound” the bait with a light tap, then come back to eat it. If you set the hook the moment you feel a hit, you’ll miss the fish. Wait till the second time you feel the fish before setting the hook, and your hookup rate will soar.
Rigging to mooch is pretty straight forward, but fine-tuning your setup is important.
In a nutshell you clip your line onto the barrel swivel on one end of those crescent shaped “trolling” sinkers, then connect your leader to the other end with the bead chain. Lower the weight to the depth you want, where the longish leader allows your offering to swim and move as you raise and lower the weight.
The fine-tuning comes in when choosing how much weight to use and how heavy a leader you use in relation to the strength of your line.
I try to use as little weight as possible while still sinking my rig to the right depth. If there’s no current to speak of or if the wind isn’t pushing my boat, I prefer 1- to 2-ounces. If I’m fishing deeper than 60 feet I might go up to 3- or 4- ounces, especially if I’m drifting fast enough that it’s hard to keep my offering more or less below the boat.
I’ve gone as heavy as 6- or 8-ounces when the boat is moving fast or I’m fishing especially deep, but that is a rarity.
I prefer a leader that’s a little stiffer than my line, whether I accomplish that with a stronger leader simply by switching brands. If the leader is a little stiffer, it has less of a tendency to spin around your main line and tangle as you lower it to the right depth.
There’s a point at which the leader becomes too stiff and it interferes with the action of your bait, fly, hoochie or lure.
If I had to put numbers on it, I use 30-pound leader when my line is 20-pound and I use 40-pound leaders when my main line is 30-pound. Lighter line will let you get away with lighter leaders for more action, but if you use leaders as heavy as 50-pound test, you usually lose too much action in your offering.
You can overcome a lot of the tangling issue if you don’t simply let your sinker plummet as fast as it will go. I slow the descent by counting “pulls” or strips of line between my reel and the first guide on my rod, in order to gauge just how deep I’m sending my setup.
But you can use another stunt to help unwind any twisting that has occurred. Once you reach depth allow a few seconds for your leader offering to sink below the weight, then lift your rod in a very long quick pull to help your terminal gear pull and unwind the leader between it and the sinker.
Getting my offering to just the right depth suddenly became easier this year when I replaced my old depth sounder this spring. I don’t know how universal it is among all newer models, but with my Lowrance Elite 5 sounder I can actually see both the weight and a whole herring on the screen below the boat.
It’s now easy as pie to lower my rigs to the same depth as the fish. And amazing enough you can watch the fish sswim up the bait long before it strikes. It’s better than TV!
While mooching in it’s purest form usually involves letting your boat drift, I’ve had great luck mooching while anchored. In truth, you might even call it “anchored trolling” if there’s enough current.
If strong enough, the current passing under your boat gives action to your offering as though you were trolling. If the current is strong enough I sometimes even add one of the plastic flashers to the line and rely on its weight to take it to the right depth. I’ve never had any luck doing this with metal flashers, but the plastic ones spin and rotate nicely, as indicated by the rhythmic throb in a rod, whether you hand-hold it or merely stick it in a rod holder.
Mooching from an anchored boat is a handy option any time you’re fishing for halibut and folks either tire of halibut fishing or catch their limits. Just exchange the halibut rods for salmon rods, and you’re in business.
One word of advice is in order, however. If you get your mooching rig within 10 or 15 feet of bottom, there’s every likelihood that a halibut will swim up and grab it instead of a salmon.
If you’re reconciled to fighting halibut on your salmon gear, a mooching rig fished just off bottom within sight of the halibut below as well as any passing kings is a terrific compromise fishing technique. But if your depth sounder is showing the salmon well off bottom, it’s better to adjust to fishing depth for them and confine your halibut fishing to a dedicated effort.
I have to admit that my favorite form of mooching is with whole small herring or “plug cut” larger herring. Plug cut means cutting off the back part of a herring roughly from the vent to the dorsal fin, with your knife held at an angle so the cut is angled not only from the top to the bottom of the herring, but also a little further forward on one side than the other.
It’s hard to describe, but the results cause the piece of herring to spin provocatively in the water, and in fact often fishes better than a whole herring. While you’re in the sporting goods store, look at a lure called Brad’s Super Bait, and you’ll see exactly what I mean. In fact that’s been a terrific trolling lure for me, and I’m anxious to try it for mooching.
Mooching is not the “be all to end all” of salmon fishing techniques. But it works very well, and sometimes even better than trolling.
It’s great for kings when you find a concentration, but even better for silvers. Even if trolling works just as well, I’ll stand by my claim that mooching is just a whole lot more fun. How long has it been since you felt the electric jolt of a salmon strike in a boat?
Hank Pennington is on our panel of expert outdoor advisors.
For more info on this or any other subject contact the store directly.
Thanks
Jesse Glamann
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