We put a few hours in trolling for king salmon yesterday, and it produced nicely! Our first tow yielded nothing while trolling with the tide. We marked some bait and a few decent fish, so we made a turn, and headed back against the tide. It took about 30 minutes to troll to our eastern point, and as we made the turn, wham! The outside rod sped up, and enticed a beauty to strike. Many times, salmon will follow a bait until something changes, and then they will strike. The first fish of the morning was about 23lbs!
It wasn’t 5 minutes after landing that beauty that I hooked into my smaller 28″ king salmon that weighed about 9lbs. It tore the line out of the downrigger clip, and put on quite a show for a smaller fish. In the net, and to the ice it went.
The next 2 hours were pretty tough. We marked salmon and baitfish, but could not get any to turn for us. We kept fresh baits in the water and trolled through the tide. About an hour after the switch, Derrick hooked up again, and this salmon wasn’t coming in easy. It immediately peeled line out, and our first look at this king was about 80-100 yards out. It was dancing on the surface, trying to shake the hooks, but it couldn’t. The fish ran straight at the boat, but we were able to keep the line tight the whole time, and ultimately landed another beauty…21lbs!
As you can see, we found a bonus! The 21lb fish was a white or ivory king. The meat is completely white, and excellent eating. Some people find it milder, some find less of a metallic taste, and some just like it because it is rare in most areas. If you come catch one, it will be up to you to decide why you like the white king salmon!
