Northwest Fishing Reports

Any one care to help me with this. It's seems like a somewhat perplexing task I have to deal with while trolling for Chinooks.

I've landed big kings with short leaders 26" on a coho killers. Unfortunately had to throw it back because of the extra fin

While I've caught smaller kings on long leaders 35"-40".

I understand the leader length is different for each application, example spoon, hoochie, bait, ect.

If you have some experiences you would care to share that would be great. It's just my fishing time so precious. I just want to maximize the time I have on the water.

Also trolling speed would be helpful.

Thanks again!

For Reel

When I fish hoochies for chinook I use 36 to 38 inch inch leaders. The biggest chinook I caught last season (a 25 pounder) came on that length. I do have a buddy though the fishes 42 to 45 inch leaders and he catches just as many and just as big of fish. . For spoons and cut plugs I go longer like about 60 inches. But for all of those I troll about 2.5 to 3 mph. Hope this helps.

It does help and thank you!

I'm just trying to narrow it down to be more successful. Like I said in the past work takes up a great deal of my time so I want to maximize all my time on the water.

fishing magician wrote:When I fish hoochies for chinook I use 36 to 38 inch inch leaders. The biggest chinook I caught last season (a 25 pounder) came on that length. I do have a buddy though the fishes 42 to 45 inch leaders and he catches just as many and just as big of fish. . For spoons and cut plugs I go longer like about 60 inches. But for all of those I troll about 2.5 to 3 mph. Hope this helps.

i've caught kings trolling leaders as short as 15". for cutplugs i just use whatever the leader came tied with. i do most of my chinook trolling with ace hi and tomic plugs though connected to the swivel. i don't have a speedometer just troll as slow as my 25hp yamaha goes.

i've caught kings trolling leaders as short as 15". for cutplugs i just use whatever the leader came tied with. i do most of my chinook trolling with ace hi and tomic plugs though connected to the swivel. i don't have a speedometer just troll as slow as my 25hp yamaha goes.

As stated above for hoochies or lures that don't have their own action you want to run a shorter leader. Start at 36" and adjust from there.

For lures that DO have their own action, set them back further so that the flasher doesn't mute out their play. Spoons, cut plugs, and Ace-Hi flies can all go slightly longer than a hoochie . I run about 45" for my spoons, I like to keep it far enough away from the flasher so it wobbles correctly, but close enough that as the flasher whips around it will "pull" the spoon faster on each rotation of the flasher. That erratic action (similar to speeding up, slowing down, or turning the boat) will entice bites when fish are following but unwilling to commit.

...

I use much heavier line on hoochie leaders (50# mono) along with a shorter leader overall to get more action. The stiffer line seems to allows the flasher to generate more action.

gfakkema wrote: After you have found the right action, measure the leader to give you a ballpark to shoot for when tying on a new lure (assuming the same lure and flasher combo).

This seems to be very important as well. If I have 1 rod that is catching all the fish I will mirror that setup on the other side of the boat including matching the exact leader length of the rig that is working.

I have run the same setup on both sides, but had leaders varying by a few inches, and had one rig outfish the other.

Good discussion by all! I thank everyone for their input.