Spring Kings Scent Striker Setup
Attract spring kings using Scent Striker to improve your catch rates. First, check off the three points of the Bait Set-up Triangle to ready your trolling gear.
Second, remember that more than one lure setup is necessary when you prepare to fish. To illustrate the point, we've included a picture of our gear roll that stands at the ready for each salmon trip. If one rig does not get a salmon's attention, another setup might. Try a different spoon, spinner, or colored hoochie if the one you initially troll does not work. However, don't forget that riggings should attract through sight, smell, and sound!
To demonstrate, say your first spring kings rig selection is a larger-sized lure with a glow-in-the-dark feature chosen because of the typical Southeast, Alaska cloud cover and dark early morning conditions. However, none of the first offers got a bite after a couple hours on the troll. Most likely, salmon were on the hunt for smaller fry along the shoreline, and larger lure profiles were not appealing.
Winner-Winner Spring Kings Dinner
In this instance, the combination that wins for Spring Kings this time is a smaller green-glow hoochie, with fluorescent chartreuse Scent Striker Originals under the skirt and a heaping serving of DBS fish attractant added, trolled behind a green moonbeam flasher.
Why did this combination work for spring kings? The answer is the age-old term Magictific. You know, the alchemy of magic and science. The science behind the salmon bite is sight, smell, and sound. The part of the bite trigger that makes one salmon strike at a precise moment while other nearby salmon ignore your bait is the unexplainable magic part.
Bait Set-up Triangle Boxes Checked for Spring Kings
The light conditions on this day were dark and dingy. Also, the water was full of algae bloom since the week before was sunny and bright. The limited downwelling light penetrated the water's surface, so light, contrasting colors were the best choice. A lighter green/double glow hoochie fit the bill for the next gear deployment strategy. Now the "sight" box on the Bait Set-up Triangle is checked.
Next, we left the the Dinner Bell Smell behind the trolled hoochie with three Scent Striker Originals in fluorescent chartreuse. The Originals were slid onto the 40-pound fluorocarbon leader in front of the egg-looped snelled 6/0 Gamakatsu Octopus hook that included an eight-millimeter plastic spacer bead between them. To add scent to the Originals we slid the hoochie up the leader, exposing the fluorescence chartreuse Originals, and dipped them in DBS Striker-Formula. Now the "smell" box is checked.
As I have said, equally important is sound. And sound is particle motion and wave compressions picked up by the ear, swim bladder, and lateral line of salmon. Furthermore, a trolled flasher deflects water particles and generates wave compressions that provide a sound signature telling a nearby salmon that others are feeding. The theory is that the whop-whop of the flasher mimics another Spring king salmon darting for food, and they too should take a bite. The flasher becomes one of your bait setup's primary sound sources. With the "sound" box checked, the Bait Set-up Triangle is complete. Next it's time to get gear in the water.
The results? A 19.5-pound spring king bit our green-glow hoochie, flasher, and Scent Striker combination at twenty-five feet down. Now, go catch a king like that and light up the grill!
Happy fishing and fish box filling, Don Habeger Founder