How fast should i troll for salmon

Most people troll at 1. How do you know if you are at the right speed? Sure, you can look at your GPS speed over ground readings, but you see your downrigger lines are almost straight at 2 mph. Here is a simple trick: Remember the days with steel downrigger lines, when you could hear the humming sound when you were trolling at the correct speed?

With lb cannon balls, the general rule is a degree angle between the downrigger arm and line. If you are looking for coho salmon, you want to troll faster, which means the downrigger angle will be greater. It can vary from 45 to 60 degrees on the downrigger for lb cannon balls and 30 degrees to 60 degrees on 18 lb cannon balls. All downrigger wire and braided cables give you blowback when trolling. You can use blowback to your advantage to find more fish.

When you troll with the tide, you can control how fast the lure is travelling, judging by the blowback angle. When you troll against the tide, the tide current is already providing the lure action, but it causes more blowback. The more you try to push ahead trolling faster , the more blowback angle you will have. Try playing around with downrigger angles with the tide; that might improve your success rate in finding salmon. Now with these angles, how do you know your lure is fishing at the right depth?

Do you think your lure is at feet when your downrigger is at feet with blowback angle? When you have a downrigger angle, your lure depth will be slightly above your downrigger counter depth.

We will use the cosine math rule learned in high school to calculate our lure fishing depth. Take the cosine of your downrigger angle and multiply with the downrigger counter depth. That number is roughly your lure fishing depth. To be fishing at feet, you need to put your downrigger at feet and troll at a degree angle.

The reverse equation is fishing lure depth divided by cosine of downrigger angle…. I want to discuss one of the most-believed but most fallacious adages of all time in salmon fishing. Here it is. Before the days of downriggers, to troll below 30 feet took a considerable amount of lead on the line or a planer, like a Deep Six or a Pink Lady.

I remember as a kid fishing with a pound of lead on my line in the form of a slip sinker, attempting to get down to where the big one were. The problem was, the faster the speed of the boat, the shallower the lines would fish.

So if the fish happened to be swimming deep that day, it was necessary to slow the boat down and allow the lines to settle to a greater depth. We would putt-putt along, and every once in awhile, would catch a king salmon. We were ecstatic to have landed a king, and the logic seemed to hold true. Slow and deep for kings. The smaller diameter line coupled with a 15 pound cannon ball greatly reduces the amount of water drag, allowing me to troll deeper and faster than ever before.

Since I no longer need to go slowly in order to fish deep, my options are greatly increased. Learn how to jig for kokanee here.

The opposite is true in the summer. You could slow down to 1 MPH in the winter and speed up to 1. Kokanee will be deeper in the summer and winter and shallower in the spring. The water temperature they prefer is just under 54 degrees Fahrenheit. If you want to learn more about where to find fish using contours you can click here. Learn more here.