THE FISHING

TRAVEL INFO

It’s a normal day catching King after King while back trolling plugs in the strong flows of the mighty Nushagak River. You might be having a great day free drifting eggs down the middle of the river with Kings on nonstop. All of a sudden the catching seems to be slowing down, the plugs are not wiggling as hard and your bait seems to be drifting under the boat. What just happened you ask yourself, as you look around you start to notice that the beaches on the side of the river are slowly disappearing. The Tide is changing and the Alaska tides are very big backing the river up to as much as 30 miles upriver. As the tide change takes place it disperses the fish all throughout the river, the fish no longer use the travel lanes and the only way to get your plugs to work is to troll them around like you are in a lake. This is a very hit and miss time of the day and since the tide change takes about three hours to fully change, most camps just give into having slow fishing for this time and just wait for the current to come back. We at Alaska Kingfishers don’t accept slow fishing so we have developed a technique that allows us to fish effectively during the tide change. By downstream trolling large Toman Thumpers Spinners we are able to effectively cover the water and find those fish that are spread out moving up river in the slow slack tide water.

Rigging We rig all of our rods with a 25 pound Maxima main line with a Weight slider, an 8mm bead and a vision bead chain swivel. Our leaders are normally 40 pound Maxima to fight abrasion of catching so many fish. When pulling plugs we would have a 4’ leader with a hotshot clip on the end of the leader to attach the plug to. When switching over to spinners it is as easy as unclipping your plug and clipping on your favorite spinner. On the weight slider add a 12 inch dropper with 1 ½ oz tear drop sinker and you are ready to start catching fish again.

Getting ready to fish You can’t just hook your spinner on your snap and expect to catch lots of fish. You must first tune your spinner to make it effectively spin attracting the fish to it. To tune your spinner grab the shaft with your thumb and pointer finger spinning it back and forth between them. Your spinner should spin perfectly and have no wobble to it. If it wobbles your spinner is out of balance and needs to be tuned. Either the shaft is bent or your hook is out of balance. If the shaft is bent try to bend it back straight with your fingers testing it every once in a while for balance. If your hooks are out of balance you can spin the hooks in the tubing to readjust the hook placement. Once your spinner is spinning perfectly then you are ready to fish.

Fishing the SpinnerTo fish the spinner you must let out the right amount of line to fish effectively. I find that thirty to fifty feet is that right amount based on water depth. Once you have let out your line and you trolling downstream with the slow current you want to count the number of times your rod tip throbs or beats. You are looking for 120 beats per minute or 20 beats in 10 seconds. Try to keep this speed going for the most effective action. The Bite

You are going to have one of two different kinds of Bites. The first bite is the one that most people get without any problem. As you are trolling along all of a sudden the rod is try to be ripped from your hand in a very aggressive manner. These bites are usually pretty easy to detect. The second bite is a little more difficult to detect and is known as a slack line bite. This happens when the fish bites the spinner and moves forward with it giving your rod tip a slack line. When fishing and feeling your rod tip throb with the spinner action you will get a sudden slack line for a few seconds and then your spinner will start to work again, you just missed a fish. This is called the slack line bite, the best way to feel for these bites is to be holding on to your rod and the second you feel your rod go slack then set the hook. If you are in tune with your rod then you will get many more fish per day by detecting all the slack line bites.

Colors

There are a great variety of colors on the market and with lure tape you can make your own color combinations. Some of the factory colors that seem to work the best are Red/White, Pink/White, Chartreuse/Green Dot, Rainbow tip and Half Red/Half Brass/Blue Dot. You can try all kinds of colors these are just a few that we have picked as our favorites.

So next time you are catching fish like crazy and the tide comes in and slows down the current and the fishing try switching over to some spinners and you will be amazed what you might find. Alaska Kingfishers has been doing this for over 20 years and we now have clients that come up just so they can fish spinners on the tide change. Good Luck, catch fish but more importantly have fun.

We are located at: PO Box 53 Forks, WA and, AK 98331 | (360) 374-3148 (800) 577-8781 phone | (360) 374-8650 fax | e-mail us here.
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