Holland Evening of 8/3, 6 for 6

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Strategizing about the lines to run this evening – decided to run a throw-back all rigger spread as warm water was 75’ down at the Port Sheldon buoy and the heavy SW 1-2' chop and occasional 3' group of rollers would render dipseys meaningless.  Fin Warrior has 4 riggers, the aft riggers would be run low and the side riggers with paddles and something on the business end.  Question would be where to start since I could only put 3 down fishing solo.  Opted for 2 aft and 1 side rigger spread.  Dropped down in 130 FOW at 5:00pm off the sliders and headed north.  Alewife and Mongolian beef spoons went down deep and a green paddle/green fly out to the side.  Nothing happening.  Swapped out the spoons for UV blue jeans & UV green jeans and a blue paddle/blue fly out to the other side.  Nothing happening.  Changed course to west to get out to my favorite depth for these times, 170FOW.  I was the only boat out that deep so it was great.  Swapped UV green jeans for UV green dolphin – the latter was a mag spoon and had killed it down deep on SWR several years back.  In 172 FOW trolling north, after 90min into the evening, on a deep rigger, the UV mag blue jeans on a 12lb test line got bit, producing to my surprise, a coho.  Next, on the other deep rigger, the UV green dolphin down 105 produced another surprise, a steelhead.  OK some fish are biting the low lines so I put down a blue/silver paddle, blue/silver meat rig in place of the dodger fly on the upper outer rigger to improve the interest.  Unfortunately, no further action.  It was about 7:30 and the storm was coming in so I decided to vector NE into shallower water for the evening bite.  About 45min after the last strike, in 152 FOW, the meat rig produced a coho.  The line on the bait head got twisted to snot, so I gave that up, grabbed the other rod at the ready and put a paddle and Lucky Charm Brads Cut Plug down without any tuna – just got it in the water in a hurry.  Made another course change to SE to head back to port.  About 20min later, the light line with the UV blue jeans produced a small king.  I tried to release it but doubt it made it.  Skies were getting dark at this point so I did not put the light line back down and ripped the Brad’s cut plug.  A good eater coho was on the business end well hooked so I kept it.  Down to one line left in the water, SWR.  I am putting the balls away staring at this rod and bang, it goes off.  The joy of fishing on when pulling lines.  It was a king, about 6lbs or more.  I worked hard to shake it off at the back of the boat and to my surprise, I was successful.  So, 1 for 2 on catch and release for the day.  All lines were up and I headed in to beat the storm.  I have not caught a coho all year and caught 3 on this trip.  All the fish had adipose fins.  I did not find big fish but am very happy with the coho catch.  No reports on 68 - Big Red coming this weekend.  Data below.

#	Time	Fish	FOW	Latitude	Troll	Rod	Bait Depth	Bait
1	6:30PM	Coho (N)	172	42o47.900'	N	DR - 12lb test	102B	UV mag Blue Jeans
2	6:55PM	Steelhead 8lb (N)	170	42o48.890'	N	DR - SWR	105B	UV mag Green Dolphin
3	7:42PM	Coho (N)	152	42o50.950'	NE	DR	95B	Blue Silver meat head
4	8:04PM	King (N) 5lb	128	42o51.075'	SE	DR - 12lb test	106B	UV mag Blue Jeans
5	8:15PM	Coho (N)	114	42o50.718'	SE	DR	95B	Brads Cut Plug - Lucky Charm
6	8:18PM	King (N) 6lb	104	?	SE	DR - SWR	108B	UV mag Green Dolphin

 

[farfrumwurken]

Amazing detail. Thanks for sharing. 

[littleboat]

Good strategy. Good eater cohos. You did well considering all the bouncing around you were in
That's probably the most dangerous part of solo fishing. Too easy to get hurt or fall over. I know I have to really think how move around even in a small boat. Stay safe.

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