I was wondering what spoons work well for kings. I have used krocodiles for silvers(the silver with red stripe) and pot of golds for steelhead(bronze and silver w/red stripe) but have not fished spoons for kings. Which colors and styles work well?

My lucky lure has been a 4.0 all silver w/scales Coyote.

Hey EZ I was just wondering if you have experimented with other lures while on your great luck tour OH BTW if you could Email me some of that luck it would be much appreciated

I am Just curious at how well fish can see down there It has gotta be darker than a dirt road in the olympic national park at night
Do you use scent?


I KNOW WHAT WOMAN WANT

BUT WHAT DO SALMON WANT???

I will be the guy sleeping at the ticket stand to be the first one at that movie.

I usually use a little herring oil on my spoons. The water at Redondo is surprisingly clear right now. I can see my downrigger ball down 15'.

EZ...

Still waiting for my EMAIL!!!

Were all of your fish on the same spoon?

Mini,

Spoons are very effective for returning Kings. I generally turn to the larger 4 - 6 inch spoons like, Fishlander, Northport Nailers or a Diamond.

Light starts to filter out as soon as it hits the water and by 30 feet it is fairly dark. At 50 feet, it is pretty close to pitch dark. So it is always best to use glow in the dark colors or colors at present a dark silhouette (black, white, purple, green, blue). Salmon can't see much more than a few (2-3) feet in the depth and it get worse the deeper they go. Plenty of scent is always a plus. The chrome spoon Easy has been doing good on is getting its sparkle from the flasher....

Remember.... Sight, smell, sound.... If you are solely relying one of these triggers, you'll be pressed to catch fish. Two triggers, you'll catch fish frequently. If you have all three of these working for you, you're gunna a lot of fish.

as some one who is a diver i can tell u it is not pitch dark at 50 ft. it really varies with the time of year,plancton(sp) blooms,river run off etc. have dove down to 100ft or more with the need for a light.

Anyone who dives knows that different colors of light start to filter out the deeper you go. At fifty feet there is still plenty of light. It is not until you get to 120-150+ that sunlight begins to noticably decrease. Heh, maybe that has something to do with the fact that most bait and salmon are taken at and above this range.

thanks EZ, I will stop by ol walmart and get some, thanks also for the tip on herring oil, I'm so use to using shrimp oil for steelhead it didn't cross my mind.

Minibear - it's on its way.

Yes, all my kings and a humpie were caught on the same type of spoon.

4.0 glo cop-car.

Water is approximately 800 times denser than air which forces light to travel at a much slower speed. It also scatters the light as it loses color and intensity.

Now we have to consider the color qualities of light. Direct light from the sun is called white light. Though it appears to have no color, it is actually composed of all the colors in the spectrum. If you were to project it through a prism, you would see it break up into bands of color. Each color is a wavelength of light. Most people will remember this experiment from chemistry class at school.

When we descend below the surface, water absorbs the wavelengths of light selectively, one by one as depth increases. Though exact absorption rates will vary depending upon water conditions, you can assume that red will disappear at a depth of around 15 to 20 feet, orange at between 25 to 30 feet, yellow at 45 to 60 feet, green at 70 feet and at 100 feet, everything will appear blue or grayish green. At extreme depths all the light will be absorbed and everything will appear deep blue or black.

What about white?

White loses it color as well. Even at 50 feet white takes on a grey hue. Deeper the depth the white becomes dark blue to black.

Guys tossing white Darts from shore/pier seem to have a better ratio in general.
The depths guys that fish from land tend not to go beyond 50-75 feet usually. Whites still has a better contrast to its enviromet underwater at this depth.

Progressive color loss is not a function of depth but is dependent on the distance light travels through water in any direction. The greater the distance light has to travel through water, the more color will be absorbed.

Also rough seas will reflect more light than calm waters as a result of adding many more reflective surfaces on the edges of the waves.

Good info Divers. I am taking notes.

Thanks Divers for adding some perspective..

You guys are absolutely correct! For you it isn't dark, but for a salmon it is a different story... My bubble... I guess I needed to clarify a little better...

... light as a (King) salmon sees it. His world is near dark at 30 feet because of the way his vision is set up to absorb and deflect light. And it is extremely poor vision (acutity) for that matter too. This is the main reason he hunts for food via sound along is lateral line. If Kings had to soley rely on sight, we would have some small, thin fish! For salmon, it would be very similar to someone walking in to a dark room with a little light creeping through a crack in the curtains. You certainly could see, but how about distinguishing colors?

I threw those numbers (feet) out there because this is the general consensus on where it is believed a (King) salmon threshold begins when it comes to light sensitivity. He won't break this threshold unless it is absolutely necessary. E.g., to feed.

I pose this .... With sunlight starting to decrease in water at the 120-150 foot range, and with salmon being light sensitive, wouldn't that mean we need to fish a lot deeper than the normal 60-150 foot range for blackmouth? Or ocean fishing at 40-80 depths?

Other species of salmon have different thresholds. The main reason would be migration routes to the sea. Silvers, chums, pinks, sockeyes all travel close to the shoreline in shallow water when migrating.

One of the reasons we fish suspended for returning Kings at depths greater than 40 feet is there routes... which is below their sunlight intensity levels. You certainly can fish shallower at periods of darkness or "gray light." Gray light is just prior or after twilight. You can even fish off the mouth of the Pew all day at 30-60 feet because of surface silt blocking the light.

I couldn't imagine trying a catch a salmon with a visual acutity of a human! Could you? A salmon's vision is 180 degrees out from our vision...

awesome post.

So all of our different squid colors, depending on water/atmospheric conditions, are most effectively fished at specific depths depending on color and glow qualities????