Flasher check
Flasher check
Get in the habit of looking down the edge of your flashers. Leaning in a bucket over time, or twisted around a fish, they get u shape sometimes. Not good, it still will roll, but inconsistently, and it won't fish very well. You don't really notice unless you look down the edge. You could boil em and try to bend it back, but probably best to replace. I have always stored my gear in buckets, but have found that this has been warping some of mine. An old timer told me once that he used to put a tiny little black dot on the top of his coho spoons when they caught. Said you'd regularly find one that looked perfectly normal, that would go 3-4 times without a fish, and he chuck it on the spot. I havn't practiced this, but it did make me be aware of whether a piece of gear is keeping up. Happens alot with plugs. Don't know why. Think i'm going to try the dot trick on my flashers for a while and see how many duds I've been pulling around, blaming the lure.
Re: Flasher check
You don't replace your king flashers after every big king or halibut and you still catch? What brand are you using?
Re: Flasher check
Hotspots. And no, I use the same flasher over after a big fish. I always take it down a few feet and watch to make sure its rolling, but I've been known to drag them till the sticker peels. I'll say this, where I am, up in the rock piles near or on bottom, they don't usually have a long life anyway. Lots of lings and rockfish trashing em. I have to say that I've had a lotta big days where a bunch of fish, big, and small have come off the same flashers and I can't remember very many instances where a big fish had tweeked them. Halibut have, but not kings so much. I have noticed it happening from leaning them at an angle in a bucket with more weight pushing down has warped them over time. Then again, I am a snubber guy, and your not, so that might make a difference.
I am going to start replacing them more often, but sometimes I sort of like it when the gear is seasoned a little bit. Seems like it fishes better to me sometimes, when it's a little beat up.
I am going to start replacing them more often, but sometimes I sort of like it when the gear is seasoned a little bit. Seems like it fishes better to me sometimes, when it's a little beat up.
Re: Flasher check
I would love to see the day when the kings were so big I had to run snubbers again. It is interesting how some flashers, spoons, plugs, will be hot and others that look exactly the same to our eyes won't catch near as well. And how the hot one will get bent just a little and stop producing like it was. An amazing business for sure.
I mostly use Chrome Nootka's which are susceptible to flattening out.
I mostly use Chrome Nootka's which are susceptible to flattening out.
Re: Flasher check
I use Hotspots, and like them because they seem consistent. The problems with them is the silver comes off after a long while and then it becomes white and I use the ones with glow on one side and that pearly stuff comes off. When that happens I figure some day I'll fish Dogs with them and get new ones. I do have one that won't always turn over and that must be bent. I'll have to pay attention next time. Plugs are strange, some fish and some don't. My wife fishes with me and she has a 7" Tomic 700 I think and it out catches any and all of the other plugs. I know it is the same plug because she broke the tail off of it many fish ago. I thought maybe that was difference so I broke the tail off another couple of similar plugs but they didn't catch any better than the average. Odd but true.
Re: Flasher check
FYI
*I/we tried "boiling" to bend some bent hotspots back to being straight but the foil on the mylar stick-on peeled off. So instead of kicking the dog, I chewed out the deckhand. He told me he would never boil flashers again.
*I/we tried "boiling" to bend some bent hotspots back to being straight but the foil on the mylar stick-on peeled off. So instead of kicking the dog, I chewed out the deckhand. He told me he would never boil flashers again.
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Re: Flasher check
Salty, that is the first mention of nootkas... most everyone down here uses hotspots.. I have some nootkas and will throw them out there knowing I'm in good company!
Re: Flasher check
Lone eagle,
I do have a bunch of Nootka's and used to use them quite a bit. But, I was jesting, I seldom use them anymore.
I do have a bunch of Nootka's and used to use them quite a bit. But, I was jesting, I seldom use them anymore.
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Re: Flasher check
well maybe on a slow day I'll run em just for fun, Our season opens on Tuesday. That time so soon