Born out of desperation, my journey into the land of fishing with cut-bait has been a surprisingly rewarding trip.  Mitigating circumstances forced to move into this unknown, because Manistee during the early summer of 2003 was not producing Kings in any significant numbers.  I always knew the original Salmon trollers on the west coast preferred natural bait, over artificial  lures.  Now, I know why!

If you're anything like me, I was more then skeptical in the beginning. I had tried cut-bait off and on for 3 previous seasons with only limited results. My cut-bait program was lots of trial and error, as I tried to build a workable knowledge base.  Breaking new ground by myself without any outside help was a daunting task!

Getting with the Program

In my 36 years of fishing the Great Lakes for Salmon and Trout the one thing that was over looked by the entire fleet from Lake Huron and Lake Michigan was the olfactory senses (ability to smell) of our quarry.  Our entire fishery was predicated on fooling the fish into biting by using hues of colors way too numerous to mention.   Any artificial bait known to mankind made out of hair, rubber, plastic, or metal came in a multitude of colors and patterns.  Last week's "hot color" often died and another costly trip to the tackle store meant buying this week's new color that was sure to wreck devastation on any fish swimming within a quarter of a mile of your vessel!  Sound familiar?......you bet it does!  I'm sure your overflowing tackle collection is a testament to this all to well known fact.

Well, Mr. Fellow J. Fishermen that has all changed, because I fished 5 basic color combinations from the third week of July until the end of September.  Black, blue, green, white and ice with chrome was the lasting reel-deal for me.   While each of the afore mentioned colors had a certain time when they out fished the other colors, the basic premise of these 5 patterns remained unflinching winners day in, and day out.  The time frame of mid-July through September signals when attractors come into their own and cut-bait fishing is apt to be most advantageous.  Although, my thoughts at this time is that it will work throughout the entire season.

I took fish from 8 feet down (in the harbor) to depths of 135 feet on cut-bait and never lost confidence in my bait program.  Catching fish to the top 30 feet of the water column on attractors has been a problem since the lakes start clearing in the later eighties.  I only lengthened the leads off the cannonball when trolling shallow.  Let's say I was trolling the harbor at a 11 down.  Then I stretched the lead back to 50 feet, compared to a 10 foot lead at a 135 feet down.

Simply put, unless you live next to the a toxic landfill, ate too many paint chips as a kid, have missing chromosomes, attend family reunions to pick-up chicks, or if you're a drone pilot.....your trek into the land of cut-bait should be fairly effortless.  This is the least complicated way I know to fill a fish box with a bunch of Salmon in a big hurry.

Dry Technical Content

A fishes olfaction is said to be the oldest sense in evolutionary terms.  Salmon being an anadromous specie, meaning that it returns to it's birthing tributary to reproduce.  Much investigation has been in trying to come up with a solution as to how a Salmon locates it's natal stream, or uses it's homing instinct.  Some have put forth the theory that the earth's magnetic alignments and minute electric current aids in their astonishing navigational skills.  Some have even claimed the Salmon's olfactory perception is almost based on a supernatural rational, because of their keen ability to detect extreme negligible variances in one river from another.

Another hypothesis is when young Salmon undergo a transformation, or the smolting process (imprinting) and leave their natal tributary, small trace amounts of pheromones are released, which adult fish key in on later.  These pheromones are released by the fishes thyroid as it under goes behavioral and physiological metamorphosis called smoltification.  This enables them to live in salt water, changing from their former fresh water parenting streams.  Please keep in mind, our Salmon in the Great Lakes are transplants from salt water i.e. the Pacific Ocean.  Some experts have even put forth estimates that Salmon can sniff out parts per trillion.  

While I'm a long ways from ever being expert on Salmon, but I do know from my extensive research for this article, their capability to distinguish scent is at a highly honed level.  So, using the natural fragrance of a herring fillet should be stacking the odds in your favor.  Something akin to flashing a jelly donut in front of a cop might be a better analogy. 

If you think that you'll try one cut-bait rig, you're dead-set to go down the wrong path.  You have to load your spread with bait.  I believe this provides a better scent signature and draws fish into your spread.  In know for a reel-fact in the summer of 2003 most of the fish we took action from never were marked on my Raytheon L750 graph.  So, were these fish looking for a meal before closing in on sight distance from my offerings?  I'm pretty sure they were, because of the doubles and triples we had during the middle of the day (meaning straight up noon).  

Please let me clarify this last statement, because once the Salmon showed up in mass, I was never off the dock until noon.  Unless, my guests were missing more they caught and this happened more times then needs mentioning.  My mindset on what my customers catch?....... is what they caught, without too much assistance.   Not me or my deckhand was hooking the fish for them.  If my guests are gonna look good in the dockside catch photos, they're gonna earn it!  Besides, I don't like cleaning fish that much, and the more they lose is the less that has to be cleaned.

Capt John's "Reel Flashers"

I spent most the 2003 season into research and design for my new product to be introduced in 2004 called, Capt. John's "On-Line Reel-Flasher."  I had fished with other rotating products and found a lot of room to improve on.  While the existing products caught fish, I found a 3 to 1 advantage with my prototypes.  I bent the tail-fin in ever imaginable design, until I came up
with a superior product. Click here to purchase Capt. John's  "On-Line Reel-Flashers"

Reel Cost Factors?

I've heard it said by a some, "I don't want to have to buy bait every time I go fishing."  This is a cop-out coming from folks that have a major investment in a boat suitable for Great Lakes fishing.  The few extra bucks I spend on bait is "no big deal" when I compare it to the 100k I have in a fishing inventory and boats.  Besides, I'm not in the tackle stores every other day chasing some hard to find quirky lure.  I figure in the 2 months that I concentrated my efforts on trolling with meat, I spent less than 10 bucks a day on meat.  Now, what's 10 bucks a day when you compare it to 1 mile a gallon and gas costs better then 2 bucks at the marina pump?

In my line of thinking the worst thing about using meat for fish bait is remembering to get it out of the freezer, or refrigerator every morning. I cured my short memory (especially at 4:15am) by leaving a note next to my personals bag which I haul to the boat every day.  If I forgot to get some bait out of the freezer the night before, I'd set the package on the defroster and during my 15 minute ride into Manistee and the fillets generally thawed enough for use.  

This article was written in the fall of 2003 and have since learned making my own meat from Fish On Bait Companies (Green Label size) is far more effective and less costly.

You're gonna hear statements like, I'm not buying bait every time I go fishing, or handling the herring fillets make my hands smell.  Well, let me clue you in, because these are worse then flimsy, unintelligent comments.   Factor in the all-to-expensive assortment of tackle you already own and handling any fish makes your hands smell like fish!  Me?....... I like the way cut-bait makes my fish box fill-up, and yes, my hands and fish box are supposed to smell like fish.  Or, in my case getting paid, is a whole lot harder when the fish box isn't full.  And if my paws don't have the strong odor on fish on them, I'm doing something wrong!

Proper speed is an conundrum, because what the fish wanted at a faster clip yesterday, might have no bearing on results for today.  In using bait during the 2003 season I took fish from 1 mph to over 3, and little just under 2 mph (1.5 to 1.8) is what I used most.  Keeping in mind, slow speed does not spin a large Coyote Flasher.  So, in other words, a wide latitude of speeds were employed and they all worked just fine. 

I mentioned miles per hour, but a 15 to 30 degree cable angle is what I'm really after, because cable angles never lie, break or need batteries.  The smell factor I'm sure made up for several mistakes on my part, because I could still be off and take strike with amazing regularity.  The only time I concentrated on a slow troll is when the fish were deeper then 80 feet.  Slow means less carry back at the deeper depths.

Speed is a difficult, perplexing issue under the best of circumstances.  Here's a general rule of thumb I kinda live by; if I'm over wads of fish, slow is better, because it keeps your offering in front of the fishes field of vision longer.  If you're not taking many hits and you're in an area skimpy on fish, then "faster" covers more water and might take you to a better spot with more haste.  Click here for Capt. John's complete article on boat speeds

In all honesty, I never worked too hard on a diver program, because my simple 3 rigger spread was working remarkably well.  In the past many seasons (before 2003), I relied on my divers more and more after the morning wore on.  With bait, for the most part it only took from 7am to about 9am to pull 12 to 15 Kings (mostly on the riggers), which aboard my boat is a limit for the size of groups I generally run.  Now, when I say 7am, I mean being on the water and dropping lines, not the "leaving the dock" time, which in most cases was 5:30am to 6:00am depending on the group of anglers and if it was weekday, or weekend.  Weekends required a earlier leave time, because of the heavy traffic Manistee receives during "Tuna Wars" in August and the first part of September.

I never ran my wire divers and used Cortland's Spectron 35 pound super braid in the salt and pepper finish.  I believe Cortland calls it black-spot, but I don't think the color  makes any difference.  One thing worthy of note, is that I had to let the fish chew on the bait.  Making sure the line was being pulled against the drag, before I wanted the diver pole removed from the rodholder.  If we did miss a bite?  The diver rod would have to be tripped, reeled in and reset after making sure the bait-rig hadn't been slid up the leader, which in most cases it was.

I need to emphasize, I ran a 5 foot leader from the diver to the flasher, because the 3 fly-rigs were about 5 feet long, so 5' and 5' equals a 10 foot distance to the fish.  My whole diver program was a radical departure from the past many seasons, when I stressed at least a 10 foot leader to the flasher and another 2 or 3 feet back was the fly.  Plus, I'd always being running 2 divers per side, but the bait stuff worked to good and most of the time keeping a single diver per side in the water was chore.  So, unless you're a glutton for punishment, tone down your diver program to a total of 2 and you'll save yourself many tangled lines.  Explaining all the nuances of depths divers attain is way to complex of an issue for me to explain here.
                                      Click here for more info about divers

Missing Out?
Page 2 is reserved for the esteemed members of our private message board only!

This info has been available to our private message board members since about December
of 2003.  Out private message board is the reel deal and worth far more then the 10 bucks to join.  Where can you find such detailed information on the internet?  The check for 10 dollars
is more for identification, then the dough.  I want to know who I'm sharing the inside stuff with and locking our message board was driven as a security measure from pirates and a$$holes
that seem to plague public message boards!  Also, the water-mark behind the text is another
security measure.

This article previously had only been available to our private message board members.
If you wanna know,.....what they do?  I recommend you joining to most informational
message board on the internet.   To join?......use the below link to find the required 
registration form: http://www.michigansportsman.com/Message_Board_Registration.htm

Click here to purchase Capt. John's  "On-Line Reel-Flashers"

I've enclosed a poll from early October 2003.  I predict this poll to 
rank cut-bait by at least second next season (2004), if not first.