Salt Water Flies for Kings

I've used large gaudy flies for river kings using a 10 weight flyrod from shore...had several on too... but I'm talking about streamers that match baitfish feeder kings are targeting. When compared with a hoochie a feathered fly has so much more action (especially at slow speeds).  Anyone frequently troll large streamers for Kings? If so what patterns do you use?

I've read about using/making Mylar "tube" flies to imitate Sand Lances for feeder Kings but wondered if anyone has played around with Large Deceiver Flies behind flashers etc... I even built a few Mylar tube flies for last weekend's tournament but didn't have the confidence to tie one on yet and stuck with Herring. 

Some advantages I can see are you can more easily shape and color flies to "match" food items kings are targeting. Add all the brightness desired or darken flies for shallow/deeper trolling. Build multiple sizes for fall bait fish verses spring...

Anyone else already cover this topic?

I have used flies both the typical baitfish imitating flies like the deceiver as well as the mylar tube flies I tied myself.  Seemed to be very effective as I have caught fish on both.  So why don't I use them more often?

Reason #1 (the worst reason but probably about 75% of why)
I am a "Bait guy" ever since I was a kid.  It's only been in the past ten years or so where looking at underwater shots and trying different things, that I have slowly started to gain more confidence in lures/flies. 

Reason #2
I don't like the hooks on any of the commercially tied flies I have seen.  I have tied a few flies myself and when I do, I tie them on 3/0 to 6/0 Gamatsu octopus or Big River Bait (BRB) hooks.  I like the bigger hooks, but the lighter hooks get better action.

Reason #3
In order to impart more action, I think its almost necessary to use a traditional dodger that swings side to side to give the fly that nice darting action.  Those types of dodgers have more drag and the dodger to fly leader length needs to be shorter not only to impart better action but also since you need to have the weight separated from the sinker, it means its harder for me (since I like shorter rods) to keep the entire leader length shorter than the rod length. 

at any rate,
I plan to run various lures and flies this May off Whiskey Gulch for salmon and more this fall for kings when the fish are shallower since I am slwoly starting to abandon my downrigger fishing.  I didn't use lures/flies during a tournament because my belief is that in most cases, the most effective lure is the lure you have the most confidence in.  And for me that is 'bait."  But once again, after years of watching fish under the ice and now on my underwater camera set up, I think the action s every bit as important to get that strike.

The sense I get is that IF you can attract the fish into the general area using scent or sound/vibration, the lure with action is going to beat out a dead bait 9 times out of 10.  Therefore, I plan to use Kwikfishes and other lures for halibut this year.  I am also going to try and run magwarts and rapalas for kings when they are more abundant 

I'd love to hear if others are using more artificials.  I'd like to lower my bait expense which is substantial over the course of the year. 

Rudy,
Thanks again for your input on this topic!
Your commentary induced two additional questions:
1. Do you leave standard trebles on your  Kwikfishes and megawarts or switch them out with appropriately sized single hooks?
2. Is your move away from downriggers do to safety or effectiveness from a kayak?

On the stroll out to the 60 feet of water line I drag a T spoon type traditional SE commercial troll spinner or a kwikfish with a herring fillet rubber band strapped to it.

I keep wanting to try some of the larger bass and Muskie lures for kings especially the subsurface dart type pencil plugs.

Last year I was using a 32 oz Muskie soft plastic rainbow trout for lings and it was impressive, articulated body was outfishing bait with both of them jigged side by side.

Rudy,
Thanks again for your input on this topic!
Your commentary induced two additional questions:
1. Do you leave standard trebles on your  Kwikfishes and megawarts or switch them out with appropriately sized single hooks?
2. Is your move away from downriggers do to safety or effectiveness from a kayak?

We switched the trebles out for singles.  Two trebles on a flopping fish in a kayak was just too dang scary!!!

The number one reason for the switch away from Downriggers...laziness X2...meaning at least initially I need to deal with not only mine but my son's (which he doesn't have yet).  When I have used downriggers, they have been uber effective.  But there has only been one or two situations in the past few years where the downriggers were required equipment.  This past season there were two or three days,  Jake Graves and Lawngjon were literally hammering 20 fish to our one.  The saving grace, the one we caught was a nice fish.  The days we were getting out fished, I bet the average size of the deeper fish was one (1) pound.  So we didnt mind.  We definitely would have cared if the fish that were deep were 20 pounders!  The other time was a few years back that for whatever reason the silvers out of Seward were 80 to 100 ft down.

So until I see otherwise, the downrigger is going to be relegated to an underwater camera mount.  The issue with Kat is something I need to think about as well.  Mainly because I plan on using a downrigger mounted gopro this year to get some better halibut video...which means I will be trolling close to the bottom. 

So I guess I think that downriggers are super effective.  But for a lazy guy like me, the Return on Investment of effort means a downrigger is not a part of my "Normal" equipment.   

Just as a side note...I am starting to feel the same way about flashers....

Again thank you for your input! I find your thought on flashers very interesting as I noticed you and your son were not running them...that coupled with atleast 15 tangles on my flasher as I tried to lower or raise equipment in the current with a paddle yak...

Since I have almost no saltwater salmon experience outside of a half doz charters I'm all ears!

There will likely never come a time when we know what the fish think.  Dang it.  Lol

What has me going on the flashers is that over the past few years every time I have not used one, Ive caught a fish.  I dont use flashers when I use an ultralight or a barbie rod. I didnt this weekend because i wanted less drag to get deeper.

I think flashers have their place.  I use small dodgers when vertical jigging through the ice.  I think the fish sees it as competition and strike more aggressively.  I also feel like i can use much smaller baits that i would not feel confident that a fish coukd detect from further out. 

My best example was trolling bare red gamakatsu hooks trying for red salmon.  Didnt catch a red salmon but we caught everything else.  Flounder, cod. Baby ling cod, rockfish.  I was amazed.

But I think this year, my son and I are going to take turns trying different gear and see if we can come to some conclusion. Bait vs lure.  Sinker vs diver. Flasher vs no flasher.  Trolling vs mooching.  Going to be a busy year!


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Does anyone else remember when the most common trolling technique of Ninilchik/Deep Creek/Anchor Point was dragging T-Spoon spinners behind a banana sinker. We used to slay a lot of big kings (sometimes limits in July) and the T-spoon was our weapon.

My Sandlance pattern and juvenile herring.



These fish were taken off the Bluffs a few days before the derby last week. You see what they bit?





These are my secret weapons for this Spring. (Do they remind you of anything?)  I have 2 of the top and 1 of the bottom enroute in the mail right now. 4 3/4" long...perfect match the hatch.   I'll be adding a salted hooligan fillet wrap and blend in with the hooligan run along the beach. Only these are rattle plugs so they will stand out. Also suspending so they neither sink nor float. I've got word from trusted sources that Kodiak waters frequently produce feeder kings hitting 30 pounds. The east side of the island has the largest concentration of Capelin in the entire Gulf of Alaska to feed them.  So every run out to check the crab pots or heading out to the fishing grounds as Rdrash does, I'll be dragging one of these. I can see these things being effective even on halibut while trolling the beach. COME ON SPRING~!



Easyyakker -
Yep indeed for the second run. Hardware didn't work worth a hoot on the early run fish though. They preferred bait. Troll speed for T Spoons is very critical. My neighbor was getting the skunk one day while other boats had nets in the air. He finally dropped a bucket overboard to slow his speed and limited his boat in two hours. All July fish.

Two questions Klondike kid. First, are those Repala's and second do you replace the hooks and rings with stronger ones? I do it on the Silver  Quickfish and crank baits I use.  My king box is all bright chrome, but I have never caught one out in the salt only the river systems and I will not keep one on the Kenai.  It would be a waste and counterproductive to an already endangered run and like most of us up here I still have one shelf full from last year that I need to go through. Another one that worked extremely well was the chartreuse/silver Kodiak custom.  My daughter and I caught 3-4 off of them last year and hooked into a bunch of others, and that is all my friend uses. Reel them in slowly at a pace where if you reel any slower they stop spinning.  you will know what I mean when you see it.  just make sure to replace the hook it bends pretty easily, my friends wife bent a hook and lost a decent king trying to bank it.  I like the 2/0 big river bait hooks and the heavy rings, because you never know what is going to hit.       

 https://www.kodiakcustom.com/skirt-spinner/

KK,
Please forgive my ignorance but when you refer to T spoons do you mean just any "Trolling Spoon" or are you referring to - "Luhr Jensen's Teespoon Spinners"?

KK,
Please forgive my ignorance but when you refer to T spoons do you mean just any "Trolling Spoon" or are you referring to - "Luhr Jensen's Teespoon Spinners"?

All we used in the 80's and 90's

Thank you again KK! Also, I really like your Sand Lance imitation pictures! I've been invited to attend a veterans fly tying club in Wasilla on Tues nights and wanted to "tie" that activity into Kayak Fishing Salt Water! Will recommend a "Deceiver/streamer tying night" this month and bring a picture of your flies.  May even recruit a few more for the "Plastic Navy" here in SC Alaska while I'm there.

Jonathan

Rdrash - HA, just figured out your moniker. Doh. I had your "syllables" in the wrong place.
 My biggest Kenai King was from the bank below Fall In Hole using the largest T Spoon with 1 1/4 oz beaded keel sinker in front of it. I might add, the best evening on the Kenai ever for coho was at Poachers Cove with a 2 T mini T Spoon and a 1/4 oz beaded keel sinker off the island on my 8# trout gear. There were some bruisers over 16 pounds moving through that wouldn't leave that spinner alone. My 3 fish topped 50# with 3 onshore witnesses there for cheering me on. They had a bet on how light my line was.

Just got off the phone with Shane after talking about what else....trolling flies in the Inlet. 99% of the time he has a full boat in the summer so he is always running 4 downriggers. With chums, sockeye, pinks, silvers and kings all available in the peak of summer he always runs a fly or two behind his flashers. He said he easily catches over 100 salmon of all species on those flies every summer. So that is some encouraging confirmation of success on trolled flies.

I will add about the herring fly I used head cement to hold the tail in shape plus the thread to cinch it down.  And there is a lead wrap on the shank underneath the tinsel body as I had intended this to be a fly rod cast offering needing some penetration into the depths. So for trolling the body lead would not be needed.

I will side step to some new information he gave me about another experience that might be fruitful for consideration. One day he landed a sockeye and immediately opened its belly to see what it was feeding on so he could match the hatch. The fish had a belly full of mobile plankton critters that were round and the size of a pea or trout bead and opaque. And had a single flagellate tail on it for swimming. He has never encountered that organism since. But back to the fishing trip, he slipped an orange bead on the leader above a bare red hook and started trolling that. And it caught fish. Back on the Kenai I have caught over 100 sockeye on a tiny red corkie and #10 hook.  There is something going on out there in the ocean that is small, round and tasty for sockeye. 

Once the Kasilof and Kenai red run starts moving up the beaches dragging a corkie might become a go to rig especially behind a lazy small dodger. I'll be giving it a try down around Deep Creek where the water is clear enough for trolling and you can key on the jumpers for lining up with the location the school is traveling.

Rdrash - HA, just figured out your moniker. Doh. I had your "syllables" in the wrong place.
 My biggest Kenai King was from the bank below Fall In Hole using the largest T Spoon with 1 1/4 oz beaded keel sinker in front of it. I might add, the best evening on the Kenai ever for coho was at Poachers Cove with a 2 T mini T Spoon and a 1/4 oz beaded keel sinker off the island on my 8# trout gear. There were some bruisers over 16 pounds moving through that wouldn't leave that spinner alone. My 3 fish topped 50# with 3 onshore witnesses there for cheering me on. They had a bet on how light my line was.

Just got off the phone with Shane after talking about what else....trolling flies in the Inlet. 99% of the time he has a full boat in the summer so he is always running 4 downriggers. With chums, sockeye, pinks, silvers and kings all available in the peak of summer he always runs a fly or two behind his flashers. He said he easily catches over 100 salmon of all species on those flies every summer. So that is some encouraging confirmation of success on trolled flies.

I will add about the herring fly I used head cement to hold the tail in shape plus the thread to cinch it down.  And there is a lead wrap on the shank underneath the tinsel body as I had intended this to be a fly rod cast offering needing some penetration into the depths. So for trolling the body lead would not be needed.

I will side step to some new information he gave me about another experience that might be fruitful for consideration. One day he landed a sockeye and immediately opened its belly to see what it was feeding on so he could match the hatch. The fish had a belly full of mobile plankton critters that were round and the size of a pea or trout bead and opaque. And had a single flagellate tail on it for swimming. He has never encountered that organism since. But back to the fishing trip, he slipped an orange bead on the leader above a bare red hook and started trolling that. And it caught fish. Back on the Kenai I have caught over 100 sockeye on a tiny red corkie and #10 hook.  There is something going on out there in the ocean that is small, round and tasty for sockeye. 

Once the Kasilof and Kenai red run starts moving up the beaches dragging a corkie might become a go to rig especially behind a lazy small dodger. I'll be giving it a try down around Deep Creek where the water is clear enough for trolling and you can key on the jumpers for lining up with the location the school is traveling.

Ahh...the quest for saltwater sockeyes. 

KK, you probably have seen this before  Kintama Reserach's sockeye tracking in the inlet.  I have to laugh KINTAMA:  Kin=Gold,  Tama=Balls.  Gold Balls translated into Japanese for the most common usage...Testicles.  Someone has a sense of humor. You may have to change the map settings. 
http://kintama.com/animator/CookInlet2013/

If the straight lines are not point to point, i.e. it depends on where the receivers are.  But the animation shows the sockeye bypassing the shore area by Whiskey Gulch.  I will say is that as many years I have been on the water off Whiskey Gulch in July, I have only had one or two days where I would see more than 4 or 5 jumpers.  I've carried the bare red hooks and dodgers, tiny flat fish, mini-hoochies on the salt but I have never deployed them as I have never marked massive schools of salmon or seen large number of jumpers when fishing off Whiskey gulch. 

I have trolled the dodger and bare hook set up in resurrection bay and I think I mentioned it but I caught everything but sockeyes.  I may try it more off the outlet of Skilak lake this year. 

Okay, need to dig the vehicles out.  I got stuck in my own driveway with a rental car.  Argh.