Just wondering how you guys fish for salmon in the salt water?  Here in the US Pacific NW we use  various lures. Spoons (Cop Car pattern, which is Black and White) or Army Truck (Which is green tan and red)  Ace High Fly's and Tomic Plugs. The most common is a soft plastic squid we call a "hoochie"  Usually pull this behind a Flasher and run it on a downrigger.  Also, fresh herring, cut plug is always a good Go To, but your prone to have to beat off the dog fish (sharks) with bait.

smudge wrote: Hi BW, welcome to the site. I'm not a salmon fisherman but I've spent a couple of hours watching. Hex spinners at river mouths and trolling 'herrings' is what I've seen. hopefully we'll hear from someone who has actually done it!

Thanks Smudge,  I hope to hear from some guys. It would be fun to try some of the tacktics over here that you guys are using. Just to see how the results are. Who knows, if the fish see somthing new, just might be the secret weapon.

Hi Bay Wolf, I spend most of the summer months chasing salmon in the Canterbury/South Canterbury rivers. I don't know whether anyone fishes for them at sea, mostly because I believe they are very hard to find. A lot of people do fish the surf around the river mouths when the fish are getting ready to come through. Last season was my third one chasing these awesome fish and for the 200-300 hours I put in I only hooked (and lost) one in the Rakaia river. It can be a frustrating sport !

This is a nice Silver Salmon my wife caught in the salt off the coast of Washington!

Hi all, not much time at the mo so will give a bit more info later. There are two other forums I use to keep up with salmon fishing in Canterbury;

Hi fishing for salmon in port chalmers Dunedin is usaully good round march , hex spinners can be used and a form of down rigger or vane produces results, persistance pays off