You guys are awesome at helping newbies get on the fish; telling us how deep to drop the riggers or how many colors of lead to let out, but my question is how deep to fish? (total water column)
Example: I fished last Wed. and marked fish around 15-25 feet down. I set one rigger for 15 ft and the other for 22. This set-up was originally in 35-60 ft of water. However as I was letting a lead core line out, the 15 footer went off FISH ON!. I immediately checked the depth that I was fishing over and the boat had drifted out to 104ft. I spent a good deal of time now alternating between 35-60 and 70-100 feet of water, still only marking fish in the shallower of the two. Anyway, I ended up landing only that one Salmon. I saw NO FISH at the 70-100 ft level almost all day.
Any help would be appreciated. I don't like wasting time over water that is unmarked by fish, but the shallow fish just weren't biting.
Don't tell Adrien I told you this... ehem... but last Wednesday when I was driving HIS boat and putting us on fish... wink wink... I found that bouncing back and forth from 60-70 feet of water was key. BUT, that was that one day??? The next day my friend and I went in my boat and caught some in 50-60 foot depths. Both times we were running the lines from 20 to 30 feet down.
I do believe (in my very limited experience) that the fish change due to sky conditions, weather fronts, water temp and boat traffic. So, it would be pretty hard to say where they will be hovering until you actually see the conditions for the day. Know what I mean?
Best bet is to start where you feel confident and then work up or down the water column til you catch a couple fish. Then you'll have a better idea of where to run the lines???
