Mack's Sport Shop and Alaskan Gifts on Kodiak Island Alaska

ROTTEN WEATHER SILVERS

Without a glance at the weather forecast, we could tell a storm was approaching.

Nope. We weren’t looking at the sky.

We were watching the silvers in our favorite lake.

Over the span of a couple of hours they abandoned the shallows and headed for the deepest parts of the lake.

And sulked.

And sulked some more.

When storms move in silver salmon can be tough to catch. It can be done, but you have to give up any preconceived notions about how they are “supposed” to behave.

Fishing in your favorite hotspots using the same old techniques is just not going to work as well. If at all.

Over lots of years of watching silver salmon, I’m convinced that a falling barometer triggers the change in behavior with approaching storms. That’s because they get finicky long before the storm actually arrives, and begin to perk up again once the barometer starts to climb, but before the storm has actually parted.

The stormy weather sulks are not confined to lakes, either. I’ve seen the same thing in rivers and in the ocean.

There’s no debate in my mind about what is happening.

But there’s still the question of how to change your tactics once you see it yourself.

That’s easy.

Fish slow and fish deep.

But especially in rivers, you also have to keep track of the changing state of the water level.

Let’s go into these factors and more in some detail and see if we can’t add some bad weather tactics to your silver salmon kit.

As already noted, going slow and deep is the solution, but how you go about that can make a big difference in results.

Let’s look at lakes first.

If you’re fly fishing, it won’t do most of the time simply to switch to a sink-tip fly line. In fact the sink-tip is going to be a disadvantage. It causes you to move the fly too fast in order to keep it from settling further into weed beds on the bottom of the lake. Remember that you have to fish both deep AND slow?

You’re much better off to use a floating line and adjust the length of your leader to compensate for water depth. In our recent experience we ended up using 14 foot leaders in order to reach the fish!

Yet the one member of our party that insisted on using a sink-tip went fishless with the same fly patterns. At leas till he wised up and got rid of the sink-tip.

You need to use weighted flies along with the long leader and floating line, and those can be a bugger to cast. The simple answer is to get closer to the fish.

But simply switching gear and using slow retrieves isn’t going to be the whole solution. You also have to change how you fish.

In my long experience something like 90% of strikes come as the fly sinks rather than as you retrieve it. It’s best to throw a really straight line and watch for a twitch as the fly sinks. Set the hook!

And in a departure from my “slow” rule, I usually have the best luck on retrieves if I strip in three or four fast pulls to cause the fly to rise back toward the surface, then stop to allow it to sink slowly again. All but a very few of your strikes will come as the fly settles rather than while you are stripping.

And when the fish are deep, it always pays to experiment with darker fly patterns. If they were hitting purple in the shallows, try black. If they were hitting pink before the storm, switch to a dark pink or even a rose color. And if they were hitting chartreuse, switch to dark green.

I can’t explain why that works, but I can certainly verify that it does.

Those insights aren’t restricted to fly fishing, by the way.

If you’re using spinning tackle, you’ll get most of your strikes as your lure sinks toward bottom rather than as you retrieve it. And without a doubt all-black spinners are going to produce better than your usual bright colors.

But don’t get too fascinated with your spinner box when silver salmon move deep. Instead you’re likely to catch even more fish when you open a new compartment in your tackle box.

Try a switch to small lead-headed marabou jigs. These sink very slowly, almost like a fly, and that soft marabou provides lots more action than hardware.

The most awesome fishing demonstration I’ve ever seen was pulled off by an experienced jig angler from Washington. He carefully measured the depth of the water where the fish were laying, then added a bobber to his line to suspend the jig about a foot above the sunken weed beds.

Then he cast to the fish and waited for strikes as the jig sank. If none were forthcoming he let the jig hang for a minute or two then lifted his rod to move the jig toward him half a rod length. Then he sat back and waited while the jig sank again.

In using that rig he was coming close to what happens with a fly outfit, but due to the bobber he was able to let the jig hang right among the fish lots longer than is possible with even a floating fly line.

In rivers the same issues of finding deeper water and fishing deep hold true, but with the added complication of changing water levels.

In general salmon move upstream and hit little as water levels are rising. But once water levels crest and start to fall, they settle into holes and runs and finally start to hit. That’s an age-old lesson learned by West Coast steelhead and salmon anglers, and it applies just as well in Kodiak rivers.

Jigs under bobbers are also dandy in rivers, just like weighted flies on floating fly lines. As in lakes, darker colors work better, especially if the river isn’t clear.

But as we all know cured salmon roe is the king of producers for silver salmon in rivers. It’s true in high water as well as low, but you have to be more careful about fishing depth in high water, especially if the water is murky.

Unless I know a stretch of river really well, I almost always have better luck using a bobber with roe in high water. That allows me to set the depth I fish careful in relation to the depth the fish are holding.

In saltwater you can expect silvers to be put off by stormy weather, whether or not the sea conditions will allow you to get near them in a boat.

If you have been catching them at 20 feet in good weather, they’re likely to be hanging out at 60 feet or deeper in bad weather. If they were deep even in good weather I don’t expect them to move much deeper, but I do expect to slow my trolling speed from 3.5 knots down to 2 or even less.

And I expect to do better mooching or jigging as I do trolling. If I can locate the fish using my fathometer, I can be almost certain of catching more fish if I shut off the motor and lower jigs or mooched herring to the same water depth as the fish.

It looks as though we may have tough weather for the next few days, so you may have more opportunities than you would like to test these fishing methods. But even if you elect to stay home and watch bad television, remember these stunts.

Because the day will surely come when you have houseguests more intent on catching fish than the comfort of a warm house during their short visit.

And speaking of that, it’s high time I put on my waders! About one more hour indoors and our houseguests are likely to revolt.

For more info on this or any other subject contact the store directly

Thanks

Jesse Glamann