Salmon Trolling
I think reels with slow to medium retrieves are the best for salmon trolling. Throughout the day you will need to drag that sinker back to the boat to inspect your baits. With high speed gear ratio reels of 5:1 or faster, the torque put on the gears can really put unneeded wear on the gears. Reels such as a Penn Senator 2/0, 3/0, and 4/0 or equivelant, are the best reels for this. The most critical step is to make sure you have good line on the spool and it's tightly wound on. I like 20 lb. test, but 25 lb. is OK. Mount the reel on a Calstar 700L, or a cut down 800L, if you want a rod that can land a big fish anytime. However a Calstar 270 or 196 are great in the spring since they are parabolic they work well when we have a good chop. The teminal tackle shouldn't be too creative. When trolling the success of the boat will be determined by the presentation of the baits. So trolling a bunch of junk ...wont always work. Dog whistle style sinker releases and a 6' leader will be the best set up 95% of the time. Longer leaders are fine if you know how to land a big fish with it, but remember, with a long leader it will make it even more difficult to land a big fish because it will be tougher to get him closer to the boat, with long leaders it has to be a combination of high sticking and timing coupled with knowing how the fish will react, and of course, your control of it. One thing you can do that will increase your catch would be to use flouracarbon leader material, in 40-50 lb. test, any less and you are taking a risk. And I like to tie a ball bearing swivel between the two sections of leader material. The ball bearing swivel will enable the bait to easily rotate even at the slowest troll speeds.
Salmon Mooching
To me, when mooching, the same type of rod that you use for trolling, should be used when mooching. But using 20 lb. test is highly recommended. Some guys like to use their light steelhead rod on the boat, which is fine. The trouble with the rod is it's length, when we mooch its in the summer months, so large boatloads of anglers are on board. With the long length, it makes it a lot tougher to manuever around people to follow your fish. Those rods are fine on lighter loads or on a skiff, but if there are over twenty on the boat, I'd leave it back at the car. For leader material I recommend a 15-20 lb. flouracarbon leader, make them anywhere from 6-10 ft. long. On the hookside, I can only recommend one hook, and that would be the Owner "California legal" barbless wide gap circle hook. I would have to say that those hooks are more lethal than a J-hook, if they are fished properly. Sizes 4/0-6/0 are the best sizes, snell the hook onto your leader. The weight should be anywhere from a 2-12 oz. banana sinker. On large loads, I highly recommend it, because with sliders, the sinker drops down off the snap, and when lines cross, and wrap, they become impossible to get un wrapped, but with a banana sinker, whichevr direction a fish runs, we just have to reverse the rotation, and it will come free
