Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: CohoJake on October 03, 2014, 01:50:29 PM
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Ok, so I tried searching past threads for this and had no luck. I know that having coho steal roe from my hook is not a problem I alone have. I am wondering what people's opinions are about whether, after putting the roe chunk in the bait loop (or before), do you put the tip of the hook through the roe chunk? I can't see what the fish are doing, but I imagine a good part of the time they are avoiding my hook completely. Thoughts?
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Stop wasting roe.
I find big gobs of roe often get shredded in the cast and impact into the water. Let change of hook up as the hook gets lost in the roe. Little scavenger roe thieves go to town on drifting big chunks of roe. I think the bigger the roe offering the quicker it disappears. Different with bar fishing though - at least for me.
Seriously, I find little bites of roe much more productive. nothing bigger than the tip section of my thumb is my max. If I use a roe sack, no bigger than 5 mature Spring eggs per sack but never less than 3 for me. For super clear mid day water, I will use a single jensen egg.
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Stop wasting roe.
I find big gobs of roe often get shredded in the cast and impact into the water. Let change of hook up as the hook gets lost in the roe. Little scavenger roe thieves go to town on drifting big chunks of roe. I think the bigger the roe offering the quicker it disappears. Different with bar fishing though - at least for me.
Seriously, I find little bites of roe much more productive. nothing bigger than the tip section of my thumb is my max. If I use a roe sack, no bigger than 5 mature Spring eggs per sack but never less than 3 for me. For super clear mid day water, I will use a single jensen egg.
I also find little bites of roe more productive, but that doesn't mean the fish don't miraculously avoid my hook on a regular basis. I think by "Let change of hook up as the hook gets lost in roe" you mean leave the hook tip out, yes?
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I also find little bites of roe more productive, but that doesn't mean the fish don't miraculously avoid my hook on a regular basis. I think by "Let change of hook up as the hook gets lost in roe" you mean leave the hook tip out, yes?
Fish avoid your bait because your presentation isn't right. I used to think scent had a lot to do with it but after testing (not on purpose - to be honest) with gasoline splashed on my hands after a careless fill up, coho and springs took my offerings. Why - because of the presentation. I know on days when I felt my reel dragging or knowingly making sloppy drifts or too deep, the hook up rate was zip. Adjust the float short- well off the bottom, short drifts with minimal amount of line on the water and the hook up rates went right up to what was expected.
The other thing to consider is you may not be recognizing light takes. This tends to happen with lead heavier than you need and when the fish a feeling a little skittish. I know from first hand experience, once the bite goes soft, its very difficulty to detect light takes if you don't have near perfect line management.
Sloppy presentations will not get you much fish but there are always exceptions.
Oh ya, big roe needs big hooks. I like using #4's and 2's so my presentations are always small ???. (let me clarify this - my fishing presentations are small )
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Fish avoid your bait because your presentation isn't right. I used to think scent had a lot to do with it but after testing (not on purpose - to be honest) with gasoline splashed on my hands after a careless fill up, coho and springs took my offerings. Why - because of the presentation. I know on days when I felt my reel dragging or knowingly making sloppy drifts or too deep, the hook up rate was zip. Adjust the float short- well off the bottom, short drifts with minimal amount of line on the water and the hook up rates went right up to what was expected.
The other thing to consider is you may not be recognizing light takes. This tends to happen with lead heavier than you need and when the fish a feeling a little skittish. I know from first hand experience, once the bite goes soft, its very difficulty to detect light takes if you don't have near perfect line management.
Sloppy presentations will not get you much fish but there are always exceptions.
Oh ya, big roe needs big hooks. I like using #4's and 2's so my presentations are always small ???. (let me clarify this - my fishing presentations are small )
Great post. Should be a sticky.
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Try using a small tuft of wood above your roe. The wool may momentarily get caught in their teeth on the take giving u an extra half second or so which may result in a favorable hookset and fish to the beach. Works for me!
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Great advice. I also feel if the fish are not aggressively taking your presentation. You need to adjust to match. Lighter weight. Shorter float. Keep it tight. It works. Also wool is a great compliment to most presentations.
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.....I cut my roe rectangular off the skein flap and pass the hook(#1) through it twice folding it so the membrane is on the outside before I wrap the bait loop around it..I always use wool with it and try to leave the hook point sticking out...still get robbed lots....coho do that...and as others have said bite detection requires special attention and sometimes a light touch...sometimes you can be too quick to strike...try to keep leaders on the shorter side,this lessens the chance of a fish playing with your bait without you noticing...keep an eye out for strange float behaviour...had one last year that took the bait and came up enough to lift the weight and make my float flop over flat on its side ....
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Reminds me of a time I was sight fishing coho, I saw the coho suck in my roe and spit it out numerous time while swimming with the drift, the float never moved and the roe was gone.
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Yes - I keep saying float fishing for coho is like indicator/chironomid fishing for trout - except coho might even be a bit more difficult! One time last year, my float was flowing naturally when all of a sudden, a coho starts jumping like crazy and almost lands on my float. I figured - oh, that's cool. As my float was now lying sideways, I figured the fish jumping by my float tangled it somehow and I decided to reel in - only to find out that I'm hook on this fish! Turned out to be a bar chrome doe of about 5 - 6 pounds. Very nice.
I like to use pieces of roe that are about the size of a nickel. But sometimes I'll go smaller or larger. I don't bother trying to put the hook though the membrane, but maybe I should. I'm now reminded that when coho fishing in low clear water, the fish are so finicky that I tend to get a lot of poor hook-sets. I haven't really tried putting wool on with roe - sounds like a good idea.
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Yes - I keep saying float fishing for coho is like indicator/chironomid fishing for trout - except coho might even be a bit more difficult!
Totally agree, this was the discussion we had at home last night after spending three mornings in a row to beat these finicky biters. Out of all the fisheries around here, I'd say these early coho salmon are probably the hardest to hook, and land. It's so hard to get up insanely early in the morning (for this lazy sloth anyway ;D ) just to be given a few chances to hook some fish. Each trip most of the float dives come up empty, the hook-set is too soon, too late, too hard, too light. Each time we go home and try to perfect that hook-set by modifying the bait size, hook size, float size. Each time we go back in the morning thinking that today will be the day, and after an hour we're back to square one again. ;D But when the rod arches once awhile when that hook-set is bang on, it feels pretty damn good. It feels even better if the fish stays on until it reaches your feet. Just as addicting as gambling. ;D
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Totally agree, this was the discussion we had at home last night after spending three mornings in a row to beat these finicky biters. Out of all the fisheries around here, I'd say these early coho salmon are probably the hardest to hook, and land. It's so hard to get up insanely early in the morning (for this lazy sloth anyway ;D ) just to be given a few chances to hook some fish. Each trip most of the float dives come up empty, the hook-set is too soon, too late, too hard, too light. Each time we go home and try to perfect that hook-set by modifying the bait size, hook size, float size. Each time we go back in the morning thinking that today will be the day, and after an hour we're back to square one again. ;D But when the rod arches once awhile when that hook-set is bang on, it feels pretty damn good. It feels even better if the fish stays on until it reaches your feet. Just as addicting as gambling. ;D
You just summed up a very familiar part of my fishing. One way I look at it is that fishing can be very influenced by hope. It's hope that makes us fine tune everything, hope that brings us to the water again when last time sucked, and hope that makes us hang in there for that one last cast...again.
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Yeah, great comments. I'm experimenting with different batches of
Roe and even tied some up although I think my cure was a bit on
The runny side. Also went up to the hatchery a couple days ago on the
Chilliwack river and it didn't look like too many
Sitting to be let through. Also they seemed a bit on the dark side.
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I am beginning to see more clearly why some of my coho fishing results have been less than hoped for.
Thanks all, I wish I had read this years ago.
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Help with my roe chunk. I find that when im plunking and use the egg loop to hold the bait (no spreader bar) just leader to swivel, I find that if I try to cast very hard the egg loop gets so tight and cuts the roe chunk in half then I loose the bait. This is when fishing lower fraser/tidal.
I find more bites on roe chunks than sacks but I like the sacks better cleaner. How long does the roe chunk stay on hook should I check every 15 minutes. I also cannot cast far or hard with the roe chunks. Any advice?
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Hey barklee, when tying your roe knot, how many wraps do you make at the front? If you increase the number of front wraps, you will reduce the tension, pressure on the roe when it is put in place. Decrease the number of wraps = higher tension. You might want to increase the number of front wraps when tying your roe knot and see if this helps. I generally use 8 wraps in front, followed by 7 behind and I rarely have a problem with roe falling off.
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Help with my roe chunk. I find that when im plunking and use the egg loop to hold the bait (no spreader bar) just leader to swivel, I find that if I try to cast very hard the egg loop gets so tight and cuts the roe chunk in half then I loose the bait. Any advice?
Is your casting . Practice on your natural casting for long distance. Don't try to pound it out .
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hanks for advice i will try both
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Good tips here:
I have #4 & #6 hooks. After reading above I'm going to give the #4 a shot.
I also tend to grab the largest piece in the bag. This post has changed my mind.
Not sure I understand exactly how to pass the hook through the roe but I'm going to try that too.
And weight... sounds like I use too much. I use pencil-style lead which I've always wondered about because you can adjust it. Sounds like I'm going back to removable split-shot so I can add or subtract on the fly.
Thanks, informative thread.
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Try using a small tuft of wood above your roe. The wool may momentarily get caught in their teeth on the take giving u an extra half second or so which may result in a favorable hookset and fish to the beach. Works for me!
When using wool with roe, are ya'll putting the wool IN the baitloop, or are you tying it to the leader and sliding it down to the hook eye? I find if I have wool in the baitloop then try to back it off to plut around the new roe chunk, often the wool falls out, needs to be adjusted, etc and just pisses me off. I've tried taking a thin strand (about 1/8 thickness of the wool) and pulling off the main strand of yarn and cutting about 3 inches long (if shorter seems too hard to tie in a knot). From here tie to leader and trim to desired length. I like this method better as you can slide the wool up/down the leader when you add a new chunk of roe to the baitloop.
The only downside of this method is it takes longer to rig up that just using the baitloop, so if I snap off a leader I often cant be bothered to fart around with the wool again, esp if it's raining and I have cold hands. In this case I'll just fish the roe with no wool at all.
Curious how others use the roe + wool combo.
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.....tying TO the baitloop......take the end of the wool(whole strand),tie onto loop ,cut off,trim as needed......no need to cut a piece and fumble with that trying to tie a not....use this knot of wool to grab onto to open the baitloop when re-baiting....... wool with roe is a multi-purpose element ,it is also a visual attractor and scent holder
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Forgive me I don't use baits much, never have the space of it.
But would roe bags not help if you are losing bits from hard casts?or just to help with portion size and keeping it on the hook longer?
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Chunks or sacks for coho?
or can you use both: sack on the hook a little chunk on loop.
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.....tying TO the baitloop......take the end of the wool(whole strand),tie onto loop ,cut off,trim as needed......no need to cut a piece and fumble with that trying to tie a not....use this knot of wool to grab onto to open the baitloop when re-baiting....... wool with roe is a multi-purpose element ,it is also a visual attractor and scent holder
Interesting! Thanks for that Spoonman. I'm going to try that for sure. I'm just curious what color of wool do you generally go with? I think white would work well as it may look a bit like skien (in other words, natural) with the roe. If the water was colored I would think stepping up to pink, chartreuse, etc.
I probablly have 20+ colors of wool in my ziplock but I find I most often gravitate towards pinks of varying shades, and the odd time ill go dark like black/purple. The oranges and reds etc rarely get used.
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Forgive me I don't use baits much, never have the space of it.
But would roe bags not help if you are losing bits from hard casts?or just to help with portion size and keeping it on the hook longer?
IMO skien/loose roe generally catches more fish. Just from my observations. I like to use skien roe in the warmer months as I am constantly rinsing my hands off in the river etc. In the WINTER for steelhead I don't bother with it as I find it way too much of a pain removing gloves and messing with yucky roe, rinsing hands in freezing cold water, etc. For steelhead if I'm fishing roe I use sacks exclusively.
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.......99.9% of the time I use peach/apricot with red hot or orange roe...
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I've used tons of different shades and colors of wool but like spoonman I usually end up using peach. To mix things up dont be afraid to throw on something funky like blue. I've landed more coho this fall on blue than any other color put together. It can pay to be bold haha :P Especially when the fish haven't seen that combination before.