I've spent a week in late August in Barkley Sound for the last 5 years so I have some insight. I'm not a local, but you may find this helpful.
We've found that the Springs in Barkley Sound like a faster troll. There have been several days at Pill Point where we outfished the boats around us 2 to 1 simply by trolling faster. Everybody was using the same stuff, but the troll speed seemed to be the difference. We're lapping people with our trolling speed and slaying. It's pretty funny actually.
90% of the time we fish with 60" leaders, @ 2.5 to 3 mph, between 25-50 feet deep. Don't bother trying to drag the bottom in Barkley. The fish are all in the top 50 feet of the water.
We've experimented quite a bit with flasher colors and it doesn't seem to make much difference. We usually settle on purple, green, or chartreuse, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.
For the first couple of years we trolled anchovies in teaser heads pretty much exclusively. The last 2-3 years we've started using Coyote spoons. We're now at the point where we may not use any meat at all this year. Why bother messing around with meat when the spoons work so well?
The killer Coyote spoon last year was the "grey ghost". It's a very unassuming little spoon that is just bare grey metal. No flash to it at all. In fact, it's kind of difficult to believe that it catches fish at all! Our guide at Murphy sportfishing put us onto it and it slayed when we were fishing with him in June 2005. It was awesome in August 2006. Hard to find but worked amazingly well in both 4.0 and 5.0 sizes.
The other spoons that we've had success with are the army truck, cop car, and the pearl ones (name?). I think that the chrome and green are also pretty good bets.
To be honest, when the bite is on they all seem to work pretty well.
There is a definite first light bite that lasts for 20-40 minutes. If you sleep in you are likely missing out on 1-3 fish in the box.
If there is one thing that will guarantee success it is watching the guide boats. Go where they go. If you see 4 - 5 guides go flying by then its not a bad idea to follow. Binoculars are good for seeing what they are using. Monitoring the VHF and listening to guide banter is also a great idea.
