Northwest Reel Life April 2023 Volume 2 Issue 10 - Flipbook - Page 11
Flies, a Great Lakes company,
and offer a combo set matched
together and ready to fish. If you
already tie your own flies, you can
pick up a tube fly adapter and tie
your own easily.
Add flash and movement to your
squids. When rigging a squid
skirt with an insert or a tube fly,
such as the Luhr Jensen Flash
Fly (unrigged version, as they
are smaller than the pre-rigged
Flash Fly) to be fished behind a
dodger or flasher, be sure to use a
short and stout leader. Try using
30 or even 40-pound test as the
stiff leader will give the lure more
action. The idea is to get the lure
to move in an erratic motion
and make the dodger look like a
feeding salmon with the lure being
a wounded baitfish. It creates the
“bite now” instinct of the feeding
coho and tricks it into thinking the
other salmon, which is the dodger,
missed the baitfish and now it’s
there for a free meal.
Using an insert into a hoochie or
squid skirt adds attraction and
can turn on a bite. The past few
years we have been using the
Luhr Jensen Flash Fly inserts and
putting them into a squid skirt. By
doing this you can make several
different combinations of colors to
attract the fish or add some extra
UV flash for those cloudy days.
You can also add a Mack’s Lure
Wiggle Bill to the front to add extra
movement. Try using an artificial
wounded baitfish lure. Lures that
mimic a wounded baitfish are the
SpinFish by Yakima Bait Company,
Brad’s Super Bait Cut Plug, and
the new Spin Dawg by Simon,
who also makes a Spin Cut Plug
that has a hole at the tip of the
lure making rigging much easier
with no rubber bands or chance
of it coming apart. The Simon
products are solid and have a scent
chamber. Each of these lures is
made of hard plastic and has a
hollow cavity inside where you can
stuff them with scent or mincedup baitfish such as anchovies
or herring. For these lures, use a
longer leader with a bead chain
swivel in the middle since the lure
provides the action that creates
that need to bite reaction by
rotating and spinning.
When using artificial lures such as
spoons, squid skirts, and the hollow
cavity lures, scent is crucial. Unlike
when you use a real baitfish that
has oils being released and the
fish know it is an actual herring,
the use of artificial lures is only a
visual attraction unless you scent
it up. The cavity lures like the
SpinFish offer a way to fill them
with various baits to create a scent
trail. One common bait is to mix
canned tuna fish with your favorite
scents. Because the lure holds the
minced-up bait, one of the better
scent mediums to use is one of the
many water-soluble scents from
Pro-Cure. When the scent leaks out
of the lure, it mixes with the water
and stays at the same depth as the
lure, creating a large scent trail for
the fish.
Oil-based scents such as Pro-Cure's
super sauces, gels, and oils hold
a scent well and last a long time,
but the scent will not mix well
with water. This means when it is
washed off the scent trail starts to
float. Water-soluble oils wash off
lures and squid skirts too quickly
which is why you should use oilbased scents for these lures, but it
will not gum up or ruin the action
of a tube fly, just be sure to apply
frequently.
AUG 2023 | 11