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Bucktailing

2K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  Joepa 
#1 ·
I'm just curious as to whether or not any people on here bucktail from a boat, either long-line or in the prop wash.
I'm looking at doing a bit of it this summer but haven't ever really dine it. Just wondering if you guys use an actual fly line or if you use a bit if weight on straight mono. Blades?

Thanks!
 
#2 ·
I've done well on silvers with a large fly on a intermediate line 100 feet out at CQ
Actually out fished the downriggers
Locally I've caught cuts trolling form spot to spot

Back in the day at neah had an epic day catching black Rockies in the prop wash
Never tried a blade
Maybe run a tiny swivel so reduce twisting

Pretty daytoday
 
#3 ·
JesseC and I did it a few years ago at Neah bay and had an absolute BLAST! We'd troll around till we found a bait ball on the surface then then bucktail through the ball and HAMMER the coho. I wish we would have done it sooner rather than relying on the downriggers as it was WAY more fun than starring at a rod waiting for it to spring up.

As far as gear, we were using 8 wt rods with a regular ole fly line with some straight mono leader/tippet. Throw it off the back of the boat, feed it some line, troll really slow, and start popping that rod and hold on tight. Easily the most fun I've ever had fishing...period.
 
#5 ·
As far as gear, we were using 8 wt rods with a regular ole fly line with some straight mono leader/tippet. Throw it off the back of the boat, feed it some line, troll really slow, and start popping that rod and hold on tight. Easily the most fun I've ever had fishing...period.
reminder to myself... if luke and i ever fish together at neah bay, make sure he's wearing depends because he would shit himself the first time a coho tracked his cast popper and finally ate it, or watching ten silvers swirling at his clouser 10 ft under the boat every time he strips it, the panic of being in the roughest rip vanishing after hooking up on your first cast in the breakers by the whistle buoy, or seeing a football field sized school of silvers boiling on krill offshore. ;)

thanks for reminding me of why i love the fishing at neah bay so fucking much.
 
#4 ·
Bucktailing for coho is fairly common in BC. In Tofino, a common setup is 4" streamers on full-sink lines. Your leader can be 12 or 15 pound fluorocarbon, maybe less if it's impairing the fly. I think guys down here sometimes "skip" the bucktail on the surface to create a "V" wake, but I haven't seen that too much in BC. Some days blades work. Mirror blades and white blades seem common. Most guys keep the fly fairly close to the propwash to give it motion, but on sunny days you may have to drop it back a bit to get deeper. Good luck. If you find bait, there's a good chance you'll find fish.
 
#7 ·
Bucktailing for coho is fairly common in BC. In Tofino, a common setup is 4" streamers on full-sink lines. Your leader can be 12 or 15 pound fluorocarbon, maybe less if it's impairing the fly. I think guys down here sometimes "skip" the bucktail on the surface to create a "V" wake, but I haven't seen that too much in BC. Some days blades work. Mirror blades and white blades seem common. Most guys keep the fly fairly close to the propwash to give it motion, but on sunny days you may have to drop it back a bit to get deeper. Good luck. If you find bait, there's a good chance you'll find fish.
This sounds spot on.

You can loop to loop 20 or 30 feet of T14 to a standard line if you don't have a heavy weight sinker, and save some $

Most shops will have it in bulk.

Blades may help on a given day, but are not necessary.

look for current seams if you can't find bait balls.
 
#9 ·
As indicated in the previous post "bucktailing" can be very successful on outside waters where the coho are actively feeding. It is mostly a matter off finding actively feeding fish (look for birds), show them your flies with out spooking them and handing on - great fun.

That said it can also be done on inside waters though the fishing will be less consistent. Though if you can finding them relatively shallow fishing can be surprising effective and compete with other methods including herring. Some days the troll fly has out fished a cut plug. Here in central Puget Sound I typically fish with a 7 or 8 weight rod and either a full sinking line (type 6) or 250 to 350 grain sink tip. I usually fish 75 feet or so behind the boat with 3 to 4 inch unweighted streamers (chartreuse and white are a great combo though pink/white will have its day). I typically have a leader a little shorter than my rod (even dropping down to 6 or 7 feet if fishing by myself (makes it much easier to land the fish in a boat) with a tippet of 10# . I use the smaller flies during the July/August period when I'm targeting the resident coho and move up in size later in the season. On inside waters the coho are often not very aggressive feeders and may just slash at the fly so at times having a stinger hook helps to increase hook ups.

I typically troll 2.5 to 3.5 miles/hour and since these inside coho can be followers changing direction or speeds sharply can trigger additional strikes. A favorite trick is to quickly strip in 5 or 6 feet of line, pause and let the line back out (be careful to keep the line tangle free). On many of my streamers I use spun deer hair heads which adds a bit of erratic action to the fly in the water and on the drop back the fly hovers seductively; again adding an additional fish or two .

One inside waters one of the oddities is that I seem to better in bright light calm conditions mid-morning. One would think that early morning foggy days would be the best but rarely are. As with all coho fishing tide changes are good (for some reason the low change has been better for me than high) and of course target the rips (the clean side makes your life easier). Add bait in the area and you can be golden. My sone and I often jig herring for our cut-plug fishing and at times one will jig bait and the other cast and retrieve their fly - the struggling herring and rainfall of loose scales can trigger a pretty good bite!

Finally if you find willing fish stopping the boat and casting the flies can be very productive (don't know if you can retrieve too fast though as always experiment with retrieve rates). If there are two anglers trolling with one rod and the other angler casting to the side and "mooching" the fly on the swing can be productive. If you can stand the chaos when a fish is hooked the other angler "covering it" as quickly as possible can result in doubles - remember a memorable morning where my son and I had 9 such doubles in a couple hours with the Seattle sky line in the background.

Curt
 
#11 ·
I go bucktailing out of Tofino every summer. We usually use a blade with a clevis separated from the bucktail by 2 to 3 plastic beads. Normally I like to fish in the prop wash. I have had fish hit the prop itself when the fish are thick ( they seem to to be attracted to the wash ). I find just a sink tip line with about 6 ft of 12lbs maxima is all I've ever needed, and I have managed chinook up to32 lbs on this set up.
 
#12 ·
Thanks for all the replies and various responses. I think I'll pick up a couple TFO rods and Sage 1800's. I don't plan on doing this too much so can't see myself investing too much into this. The coho where I will be doing this aren't very big either for the most part (average 6-9lbs) so this should suffice.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
#13 ·
Can anyone recommend a specific line that they like for this? Would a sink tip be fine, or do I want a full sinking? I don't expect there to be one that can do both, but if not bucktailing, we might be casting at kelp as well so if there is such a line that is decent for bucktailing but good for casting that would be ideal, but like I said, I don't expect there to be one...

J
 
#14 ·
Can anyone recommend a specific line that they like for this? Would a sink tip be fine, or do I want a full sinking? I don't expect there to be one that can do both, but if not bucktailing, we might be casting at kelp as well so if there is such a line that is decent for bucktailing but good for casting that would be ideal, but like I said, I don't expect there to be one...
just bucktail with the sinking / intermediate / floating line you would cast with. base your line selection on the fly fishing you plan on doing, not the trolling. if you get line twist, just cut the fly off and motor along with the full fly line out... it won't have twist for long.

my favorite casting lines -
floating/intermediate - the rio outbound shorts work really well.
sinking - rio 350 striper, or if you don't mind loop to loop 25-28' t-14 with rio's intermediate running line (which also means you can loop to loop other sinking rate shooting heads like the rio max heads).
 
#15 ·
The time with Luke was insane - props to Jonathan Tachell for dealing with all the questions before the trip via PM to get us dialed in.

We let out two flashers behind the boat which seemed to help. We let those out about 20-30 feet and they were weighed down with some perversely heavy banana weights.

The advice about casting out once a fish has been hooked has haunted me since I read about it. As soon as we hooked into a fish, we'd stop the boat and horse them in. Every single time, we'd see about a dozen other fish greedily swiping at the hooked fish. I am sure we would have doubled up if we had the mental fortitude to overcome the adrenal gushes of the present surprising success.
 
#16 ·
when the coho are coming to the DRs at 40-50', its time to break out the fly rod and give it a shot. when the fish are coming way deeper, save your energy for a better day.

a simple and deadly pilchard fly I cooked up 2 years ago after examining the stomach contents of a coho I had just caught.

Ruler Office ruler Insect Water Arthropod


because the coho in the strait are primarily feeding on sand lance and pilchard, tie up some flies to match this hatch. keep in mind that the sand lance come in a variety of color phases so variety in what you are packing is important.
 
#18 ·
there is a simpler way to fish flies at neah bay. no need for downriggers, flashers, banana weights, gear rods, or even a kicker motor.
Heck, you don't even have to stand up! The most fun I had fishing all last year was casting a line to a large pod of coho finning on the surface 20-30 feet from my boat. Had my butt planted on the transom and had fish strikes within a rod length of the boat! That does beat every fish I ever bucktailed up, but both are fun.
 
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