I am often asked, “What can I do to catch more salmon?”

The simplest and often most accurate answer is, fish where the salmon are. Or more precisely, fish in a school of salmon. Salmon will often congregate around a pinnacle, behind a rock, near a point or on some sort of structure along a shoreline to feed on herring or needle fish that are schooled up there. Often times being in the vicinity isn’t good enough – you need to be right on top of them working different depths until you find the strike zone. Once you find the sweet spot keep circling on it and work it till it’s dead.

Fish in a school of salmon!

Eventually all bites die and you may have to try further down shore but don’t forget to go back and try that sweet spot again because odds are it will light back up, especially if the bait is still there. Fish have to stop feeding occasionally and digest their food just like humans but they will be hungry again in an hour or so.

The more you fish an area the better you will be at recognizing where the salmon and the bait hang out and you won’t have to spend hours trolling blindly searching for fish. Use your fish finder/sonar to look for bait. It’s much easier to see a school of bait on the sonar than it is to see salmon unless you stumble across a huge school.

Save the celebration for later!

Another tip that will help you catch more fish is: Save the celebration for later. After landing a nice fish, I’ve watched lots of fishermen stop for pictures with high fives all around followed by the shot of cinnamon whiskey and sometimes the celebration will go on for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, not only have they have drifted off the fish, they could have caught two or three more had they kept their gear in the water and stayed in the school.