By Yos Gladstone
In 1996 it was Marty Dowling, then owner of the Rivers Inlet Sportsman's Club, who showed me how to cut a plug. I was a dock boy at the time, scrubbing boats, cleaning fish, spilling gas and trying to get out fishing at every chance I had. I fumbled around all season trying to perfect a roll and would stare at it over the side of the boat longing for one of the 70-pounders that cruised through Rivers Inlet to smash it. Now, 14 years and tens of thousands of decapitated herring later, I can probably rig cut plugs in my sleep.
My guiding career has taken me up and down the British Columbia coast and for the past four years to the northern tip of Haida Gwaii, until recently known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, where I now guide for Langara Island Lodge. I am lucky to work with an unbelievably knowledgeable guiding staff, most of which have far more years and big fish under their belt than me. So I will preface this article carefully: in no way do I claim to have the most-perfected, fishiest-roll, but I do hope that a few of the tricks I've learned will help you in your salmon fishing endeavors.
PREP TIME IS KEY: Being an effective cut plug angler starts before you ever hit the water. It begins with prepping your bait box and ensuring your bait is ready to be fished. You'll want a cooler filled with healthy sized herring that have minimal flaws and all their scales intact. The herring Rhys Davis produces are pretty hard to beat for quality. The right mixture of brine to bait is important. Too much salt and your herring are left shriveled, too little salt and your herring become soft, lose scales and tend to spoil if not used. I usually use two cups of salt for every eight packs of frozen, large herring. I change the bait brine after I get off the water. Dump it on the dock, do a quick sort, chuck the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. This will keep you from having to sift through the box looking for a fresh piece of bait when the bite is on. It will also keep the water clean, which, on hot summer days will make for a lot nicer smelling bait box. A scoop of ice in the evening will help preserve bait well overnight.
RIGGING, CUTTING: I've always found if you asked 20 fishing guides to show off their cut and roll you'll see 20 different ways of doing it. Do what works for you, but also do what is quick and keeps the bait rolling tight even under slow mooching conditions. Make sure your hands are wet before handling bait; this will keep the scales in place. Once you've offed the little guy's head ensure all the innards are cleaned out so that nothing trails off the bait. I use a two 5/0 hook leader, placing the trailer hook on the side between the herring's dorsal and its tail. Some guides will leave it hang as a true trailer hook. The tow hook is the real determining factor in how your herring will roll. Obviously the angle of the cut is important but the tow hook placement can make or break a roll. I place my tow hook through the low side of the cut and out the high side and try to align the eye of the hook with the center of the cut.
I'm not that technical to get into degrees of angles so here is the easy math: steep angles equal faster rolls, blunt angles equal slower rolls. Simple enough?
CHECK YOUR ROLL: If you check your roll and it's not what you're looking for, the problem doesn't lie in the angle of the cut, rather it is the placement of the tow hook. A slight adjustment of the tow hook will fix the roll to make it tighter. If you're new to cut plug herring fishing I'd suggest trying to switch up the placement of your tow hook to see what gives you the best results. Also remember to be gentle with your bait, treat it like a little trout about to be released, as squeezing it will alter its shape and remove the scales.
Now that you've gently threaded your herring, the scales are glistening, the guts are out and the hooks are sticky it's time to get it down there. Before you drop it to the bottom, be sure to check your roll. Cut plug rolls are like knots, no matter how many you tie, you still have to check them. The same is true with a cut plug; you have to make sure it rolls right in the water before you fish it. This will take a few seconds but is well worth it to ensure a quality roll.
Put your boat into gear and cruise the speed that you intend to troll or mooch while fishing. Watch the roll at the speed of the boat, don't pull the rod tip forward, this will just speed up the bait and won't give you a realistic view of what the roll is doing. If your roll looks good get it down there; if it doesn't there is a little trick that can sometimes get it from doing the ‘helicopter' to getting it do the perfect lazy tight roll that big fish are hungry for. Give your bait just a quick jerk through the water. This will adjust your tow hook slightly and will displace any air that may have been in the cavity of the herring. Often that is all it takes to get the roll right. If it still isn't rolling properly it is best to pull the bait and manually adjust the tow hook and check it again. If it's still not right, discard the bait and cut a new piece. We're all eager to get the bait down there but it is a monumental waste of time to be fishing a cut plug that isn't working and a quick roll check will equal more bites and more fish.
If you've been fishing a cut plug for a while, say 30 minutes or so, it's time to check it again. If you've been watching your rod tip you shouldn't have missed any hits but sometimes salmon will come up and mouth the herring barely making the rod tip twitch. This will be apparent if there are fine rake marks on the herring, usually a sign that a king salmon has been lured in to investigate your roll. Salmon will always take a herring head first, this is why the initial salmon strike is such a jerky, uncommitted type of hit. They come to injure the bait with a scrape of their teeth or a slap from their tail and then swim back to inhale it head first. Silver salmon tend to peel the bait a bit more than a king salmon or they'll smack the bait with their body to stun it.
If you bring you bait up for a check and it has been damaged, change it. If your bait comes up missing a big chunk from its belly don't think you've found the secret honey hole; more than likely you're wasting your time feeding rock fish. Another consideration when checking your bait is debris in the water that gets caught on your cut plug rendering it useless. Unaffectionately know as ‘salad', eel grass and strands of kelp love to get wrapped up on herring and in some places blooms of jellyfish will wreak havoc on your bait and suffocate your swivels creating inoperable messes. Check your bait often; it greatly increases your chances of success out there.
ON-THE-WATER SMARTS: At this point it's easy to think that much of the work is completed. It makes sense, too, especially when you've checked your bait enough time, you've been watching the rod tip intently and you're ready to hop on even the smallest twitch. So what else can you do to get that cut plug working a little harder down there? There are entire books dedicated to cut plug herring fishing but I'll give you a few little tricks that I use daily while I'm out on the water.
Make your turns. Your herring should be a Ninja, not a long track speed skater. Turning your boat, speeding it up, throwing it in reverse help to alter the action of your bait and will keep your cut plug dancing and covering different depths. On turns, your outside baits will speed up and rise in the water column while your inside baits will slow down and drop. I often find that the outside rods get the majority of bites as turns are made. Sometimes a salmon follows your bait and when you make a turn the change in speed often entices a strike.
Cover your depths. If you're fishing cut plug herring off a downrigger switch up your depths. Occasionally fish are lazy and won't move up or down to feed. Most of the salmon fishing I do is mooching with a 6- or 8-ounce weight and often when fishing is slow I'll free spool my cut plug to the bottom and reel up. You'll be amazed at how many fish will hit while sending your bait down and reeling it up again. I attribute it to covering a varied depth range but also to the action the herring takes.
Add some bling. The cut plug purist may turn their nose up to this but adding a blade to your leader can interest fish that are otherwise not actively feeding. A small Colorado blade on a quick clip placed right above your herring can be useful as can the Smile blades from Mack's Tackle. The added attraction adds a bit of extra glimmer to your roll and it can also be helpful if your bait is stripped during the initial strike. Sneaky salmon can easily take your bait and dodge the hooks but the remaining blade can be an incentive to come back for a second swipe.
The Holy Roller, the Ned Flanders of herring. If you work it right you can often get a pretty interesting roll rigging up a whole herring. Without a teaser head you can place your trailer hook on the herring's side and create a slight arch in the baitfish by running the tow hook through it's nose and having a bit of tension between the front hook and the back hook. This is a good trick if the bite is on and fish are hitting everything that's down there, not to mention if you lose your bait knife overboard.
Watch the sounder. When a big ball of bait rolls across your sounder screen take a look at its depth and get your bait down accordingly. Salmon will be stalking the sides of the bait ball and if you look around and boats are on fish it is very likely they're on top of the bait and fishing its depth.
Add scent. Short of spraying bait with WD-40, it's not a bad idea to give your herring a shot of added scent.
Hope these tidbits of information are helpful for you the next time you're on the water; and remember, "Tight rolls and slow trolls get 'em every time."