I seem to zig when the fish zag. I am consistent on my Fly length 28". What about lead behind the ball or diver. speed at ball, and what color or size flasher/dodger?
I feel that I am Flasher challenged with my deep spread.
Someone boost my confidence this year and tell me I'm doing the right thing.
I'm to the point that in order to get away from my spoon addiction I might have to just leave them at home and force myself to fish the dodger/flash program!
Flasher fly fishing can be tricky. My advice:
1-don’t give up. When you do figure it out, you’ll know why.
2-keep it simple. I run pretty much 1 flasher: hot spot glow and silver back. Pretty much 3 flies: bullfrog, lbs, and double aqua. Occasionally those 3 patterns with a little mirage opal in them
3-put flashers on all of your riggers and divers from mid-July through early september (assuming you’re Fishing deeper than maybe 65 fow.
4-figure our your go to speed and keep it constant. All the time. Keep all flies the same leader length. The more guesswork you invite into your program, the more difficult it becomes to pintpoint success/failure.
5-did I say don’t give up? It’s the best way to bring in kings to your spread....even if flashers aren’t getting bit, they are working. Trust me.
I do the most damage on chrome flashers with blue bubble tape. Fly is a lbb with uv beads. Next would be chrome flasher with lime green bubble tape with uv fly with green uv beads. The leaders I run are 3 times the flasher length and tied with 50lb floro to give it extra whip. I haven’t done well on white flashers dunno why. The only time I’ve used big spin doctors is with meat but I haven’t ever caught a fish on my 8in spin doctors with flies so I’ve kinda retired those. Also I really like the flashers with the fins they are very speed tolerant.
I ran the big Spin Doctor blades that were 10". I bought the ones that were glow blades and had prism tape on both sides. I had one in purple and one in blue. Ran them 15' from the ball with a fly leader length of 36"
Mainly fished close to the bottom like 5', I had Cannon Digi-Troll IV's with bottom tracking to stay that close.
Mainly caught Lakers on them.
Good Luck
SS
One other point on using flashers. If you can't be there for the pre-dawn early light King bite. I'd be running one downrigger as close to the bottom as you can, like between 5' to 10'. There's a pucker factor involved but the big boys are resting after the first feed.
My deep flashers were nearly always a white blade with glow crushed ice on both sides.
3" Howie flies in LLB or LLB with some glow.
Good Luck
SS
Ok, to answer some of the questions and add to this conversation, I do have a Depth Raider and now feel that I would give up my sonar before I live without the Depth Raider. Awesome tool.
But even with this speed at ball information I seem to struggle to hook up to the bigger kings. I might add that I seldom get the opportunity to fish the early bite. (darn job) But have like most of you out there great action in the last hr of light and 2 hrs after sunset. but here again spoons do the damage not the flashers. I run both divers with wire also, and have 2 riggers off the back side with cores (5&7) on skies and a full core down the shoot. The cores are firing off more often than the riggers and dipseys.
Any color patterns of flasher and fly that are better than others? I normally have 8" flashers with Leprechauns and Bull Frogs 28" behind. I will try tightening them up behind the release to 15 ft.
I appreciate your help and input, it seems that I am not alone in my spoon fetish but I'm determined to expand my arsenal!!
Mac
Keep your trolling direction parallel to the current, check the angle of the downrigger cable it should be straight back. Cutting across the current will change flasher action even if your probe speed is consistent.
The longer the lead from the downrigger ball the smaller the rotation pattern will be for a flasher, just the opposite of what you may think. So longer fly leaders also will decrease the fly action too. I'd never run a flasher more than 30' from the ball, 15' to 20' is about right.
Flashers on leadcore work great too. My best rig was a six color with a Spin Doctor Mountain Dew flasher (chartreuse blade, glow crushed ice tape on one side and chartreuse holographic tape on the other side) with a 3" green crinkle Howie fly with a 21" leader.
Good Luck
SS
Dipsy (wire or braid) paired with flasher fly dominates my king catch. 7 ft lead to the flasher (8") and 27" from flasher to the fly. The pairing of the flasher and the fly is very important. To be honest, it is also a specific combination that dominates the ff catch as well. It is so dominate that I often wonder why I have any other combo. Go to https://poseidonflies.wordpress.com/ and read the discussion on flasher flies for great lakes salmonids. I follow that with the tweaks from Jason's class.
Don't loose the spoons but use them with FF. Often time I think the FF combo brings fish into the spread and as they peel off they hit the spoons if not interested in your flasher/flies.
Run a 11" flasher with a 4" fly with some glow on both for early AM bite first light. That will hit many days w/o question. Early Am you don't need super long leads so say 30 ft behind the ball to start and extend as the day gets bright.
I run 1 11" and 1 8" flasher for early am.
On my lead core i have spoons for later season mix. Coho prime time run 6" orange/red dodger with peanut flies for Coho with some spoons for hot action and run a 4" fly on DR or wire dipsy for a king.
I normally run mostly FF on my DR and Dipsy setup and mix in a spoon. Bonus king during Coho bite will light up the back of the boat in no time.
I run 18" on peanut flies
21 on 4" flies
Peanuts if you run shorter that is fine some go down to 12" and on 4" files some go to 24". Whatever you go with keep them all the same for each type and use your speed to alter the action is key. Also run 40-50 leader on the files to give them more action. I use Seaguar STS Salmon Fluorocarbon Leader Fishing Line, 50-Pound/100-Yard, Clear which is much easier on the wallet then some FL and loop up heavy leader knots on youtube. Three hoops and one thru from the backside and slips down to the hook for easy hook connection for peanut files. For 4" flies just snell the hook(s) I use #1 treble and 4/0 single hook to tournament hook. Guy named Bill has a youtube video that talks about the devil is in the detail and has a multi boat charter fleet.
My buddy got a Fish Hawk last year, so I think we are going to try and wean off just using spoons (we are also spoon addicted). I have tons of F/F gear. I told him that one day we are going to go all in on F/F's and maybe throw in a meat rig or 2 to boot, just to get better at it. We usually average around 2.5-2.9 at the ball because that seems to work better for us when fishing spoons. It will be a learning curve, but I'm determined to get some use out of them.
Back when the kings were smaller and wayyyyyyyyyyy more plentiful, I killed them on F/F set-ups using my own hand tied flies. With less kings around, it requires a lot more thought and planning to be successful with them now.
Mac, not sure if you have a means of measuring your speed at the ball. Without this you could be trolling at the wrong speed. From the posts already on here you will see that 1.9 at ball is ideal. Some go a little faster. With the current down below a half mile or better your flasher could be doing things that are not conducive to catching fish. Personally I also struggle with flashers down deep so this year I invested in a Depth Raider to know what is going on down deep. Good luck this year.
