Salmon fishing with plugs

[Softtake]

Plugs rigged with large single siwash hooks as they come new out of the box are very bad medicine on Chinook eyes. Over the last two summers I've fished pretty well exclusively with plugs in Northern Georgia strait. The first year I fished with 5 ' Tomics right out of the box with large single siwash hooks . The number of eye hooked fish I caught was very disturbing. The majority of the fish landed had serious eyes injuries. Last summer I fished exclusively with plugs that I re-rigged with dual 3/0 octopus style singles. The number of fish hooked in the eye was dramatically reduced to only a very few fish and hooking and landing percentages did not appear to be significantly affected. Here is a link to a good discussion of how to fish plugs and it shows how Scott Betts rigs his plugs with two octopus style singles in order to minimize damage . https://www.vancouversalmonfishing....ouver-salmon-fishing-report-december-20-2019/
Its likely we will be fishing another season of slot limit regulations in some areas so fish are going to be caught and released. In order to minimize the damage to the fish we release, I would strongly encourage all anglers who fish with plugs to consider re-rigging their plugs with smaller octopus style hooks.

 

[Aces]

Hmm, easier to unhook, but plugs draw a LOT of blood. I downsized most of my hooks to reduce injury to fish I wasn't going to keep, still lots of blood, just less.

Yes, reducing the size of the hook helps with mortality but cuts down on the hook ups slightly. It’s the responsible way to go!

 

[Softtake]

Reducing the size of the single siwash does not reduce eye damage significantly because eye damage is a function of hook shaft length and all siwash hooks are longer in the shank. This was the first thing I tried in my quest to reduce eye damage and I still got lots of it even though my replacement siwash hooks were significantly smaller.