Hughes &-16-17

[Sk8man]

Hughes &-16-17

My son Mark and I left about 6 AM aboard the Admiral Byrd boat and the wind started to pick up as soon as we got outside the launch. We motored out to about 220 ft or so and dropped the 6 lines in and struggled to go against the wind for a while....nothing for the first hour or so. After awhile the wind changed direction and let up a bit . We took a couple kings and 2 steelies in the 200-260 ft range. Three fish off riggers set to 75-80- ft with medium spoons (eg. NK28"s) and one wire dipsey set to 250 with a black flasher and white homemade UV fly took a king. None of the fish were huge but respectable fish with one jumping 6 times before landing. Later on the fish wanted larger spoon and deeper (100 over 240 ft). Had two kings on that got off while Bob was having a couple senior moments and one of them jumped about 5 ft. in the air a couple hundred ft behind the boat. The fleas were light where we fished but when the sun got high and it warmed up the biting flies were terrible and I was thankful that I had anticipated it and wore long pants and shirt the whole time unlike my companions that were slapping them mercilessly. It also may have been one of the cases demonstrating "less is more" as we fished 3 rods on one side of the boat and 5 on the other and most fish came from the three rod side....Bob was convinced it had nothing to do with skill of the guys doing the rigging on the 3 rod side, but I felt it might be that "Les is more" in this case. Fun day although the late morning and afternoon was slow and was without fish. We marked very few fish and only one very small pod of bait. The marked fish were all at the 72-79 ft level and would not bite anything. A couple of fish pics Mark caught. Kept the pictured fish as they weren't thought to be able to recuperate (note the mess in the corner of the boat which gave Bob a chance to curse profusely while gloating about his new water washdown hose).

Edited July 17, 2017 by Sk8man

[Sk8man]

I forgot to add: Don't be reluctant to use Magnum sized spoons....here is what my son found inside the larger king: (It also suggests they are feeding on them over time because of the different levels of decomposition and maybe this late stage adult sized bait is all that is available out there?)

Edited July 17, 2017 by Sk8man

[Gill-T]

Les, age 2, 3 and 4 year olds don't waste time on small alewives.......not worth the effort.  The adult alewives live in the same water Kings prefer so they intersect a lot.

[Lucky13]

And maybe they are hitting so well because of the "hole" in the Population of alewifes caused by the two bad winters.  Three alewifes is not a lot of food in a mature king stomach.