Deep Salmon Breakthrough

“The Stinger Nitro is one of my favorite glow spoons,” Chmura adds. “The Nitro glows for 6 hours on a single charge from a camera flash. I use the Mag and the Sting Ray, the two largest sizes. Increased surface area means more glow. We assume it’s rather dark at such depths. I’ve pulled dodgers and flies and dodgers with meat down there, too. Those fish are coming up to feed, but the lure has to be close enough to see in the dark. Glow versions of the Stinger Nitro and the standard size #4 Luhr Jensen J-Plug have been my best baits downtown.

“I start out on top of The Shelf in an area I call the Firecracker. It consists of two shelves, the first dropping from 50 to about 160 feet. Three miles out, another shelf drops all the way from 350 to 700 feet, then gradually tapers to 900. Fish are on bottom in all these depths all year. It’s very consistent.

“I tell my first mate we’re going downtown. He knows that means 350 feet or deeper. At those depths, scales come off easy on the fish we bring up, but they’re beautiful and in great shape otherwise. If you don’t force them up, I think they’re releasable, though very few kings are released in this business because, as a rule, they’re not releasable. Salmon are worn out, partially drowned, can’t be revived from a moving boat, and seldom go back down. When you’re fishing deep, you can stop the boat. You only have one other line to haul in, if that. If you baby these salmon up, they’re releasable.”

Salmon can dump air, relieving pressure on their swim bladder as they rise, just like lake trout, meaning there is no reason not to accept Chmura’s premise. Bergstedt captured all of his kings for the study by trolling and, obviously, kings can be released and live out the rest of their lives, even after surgery, with a tiny computer tucked snugly in their abdominal cavity.

“On top of these breaks from 300 to 700 feet, steelhead often persist because of currents that run just under the surface,” Chmura points out. “I think those steelhead are in the top 20 feet in the same areas where salmon are 400 feet down. I think they generally merge as they approach shore together in fall, because we start catching them at the same time with the same program in the same areas every fall. They merge when the temp on top begins to equalize with the middle of the water column, and I think both species are in heaven in 49°F water.”

But that’s a different program. And the “downtown” program might be a tad difficult to swallow, which is okay. Centuries passed before Europeans could admit the world is round. Most of them were, however, illiterate, giving rise to the term “Dark Ages.” Obviously, you can read, so don’t try to think like a salmon. Unless you have a brain the size of a pea, it will hurt. And trying to “think like a fish” obviously didn’t help any of the millions of salmon fishermen out there realize how deep salmon are willing to go. We all need to completely reevaluate everything we think we know from time to time. Salmon fishermen don’t deserve any free passes in that regard.