Back in the day when you could buy live herring and you fished them with light limber mooching rods, single action reels without drags, and an ounce of lead out from Halfmoon Bay at Mary Is. it was an absolute blast! Unfortunately, those days are gone....no live bait, very few fish in the Strait, and too many seals. It's only a fond memory now.
Mooching live herring, what memories !
I remember when I was a kid in the 80's, we would head over to Sister's just east of Qualicum. Cruise around the island and find the pools of herring, get the old rake out and rake your own bait. Set up the old power mooch and it was double and triple headers all day long!
The good old herring rake was a must for fishing that area of Qualicum and Bowser....I still have mine at my parent's house. You'd rake your herring, put a wiggler on the hook, strip your line to the bottom of the boat, wait for the coho to ball the herring up, charge over to them in the boat, cast into the fray, and strip it in. Almost every cast was a hookup, frequently grilse but a ton of adults.
The most exciting exciting part was when the balls of herring would try and take refuge under your boat to hide from the salmon and you'd have these frenzied coho chasing every herring in sight bashing into the sides of your boat.....it was wild.
It was this type of fishing that led into trying to get them on the fly.
Anyone have a time machine??? Cuz those were the good ol' days!
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Topic: favorite way to catch coho (Read 6275 times)