TOPIC:

For several reasons I made my first outing at Portage yesterday.  The reports I got from the previous day weren't great. Accomplished anglers had scored only a few fish at best. I even called my customers suggesting they switch to a later date. They couldn't switch so we watched the sun pop up as we headed east past the Port of Indiana. At least we were out on a picture perfect day. You can't catch them if you aren't there. 

A few hours later we'd assembled a surprisingly nice catch - mostly cohos - but one 10-pound king. 

My 9-rod spread included three downrigged lines, two divers and a pair of planer board lines on each side. Surprisingly, though I mixed weighted lines and long lines on the planers were loaded with both D/F and spoons, they went untouched. 

The king bit a Moonshine spoon (black/glow pattern), but all the cohos bit on dodger/flies. The studs were D/F on free sliders with the base lures 30 and 35 feet down. Both red and clown dodgers worked. The rest of the fish were on braid divers set back 60' on #3 setting. 

Best spot was 45' of water near the Pavillion.  

One thing of note was most of the cohos were "March" small. Only a few were the size I'd been catching at EC. Could have been some fish that had just left the offshore waters.  

Good to hear thanks Mike. DF setup as a free slider? Main line spoon probably? DF setup as a free slider is something I haven't ever tried but might this weekend now.

I  noticed a lot of coho at the Classic were smaller than the March and early April cohos as well. I'm also guessing they must have just come in shore and haven't been on bait. 

Kings seem to be on the skinnier side too. Hopefully everything bulks up fast now that bait is starting to arrive

I run D/F’s as fixed sliders on my DR. They catch a lot of coho for me each yr. 

How are you guys setting up the D/F sliders? I’ve run them with success in the past, but there’s definitely a trade off with the tangles. Free sliding the D/F above a clean spoon seems like the least problematic way to go, but maybe there’s a smarter way I haven’t tried. 

I run either a Michigan Stinger stacker sticker or a snap swivel on the main same as a free slider but held with a rubber band and a 3.5-4’ lead to the 00 D/F. Usually slides down to the main without issue. But lose a fair amt of hits while reeling to catch up to the fish sometimes. 

I run my D/F sliders with either a spoon or plug on the bottom. If you slide or stack a D/F above a D/F you are going to create a tangle. I do use a rubber band to snub or "fix" it above another lure on a downrigger some of the time. One time is when the fish are deep and there's a thermocline. There's no way to guess where a free slider will ride between the rod tip and the release. Some say 1/2 way to lure. Probably more accurate is to say somewhere in the middle 1/3rd of the line between tip and release. Say the thermocline is 50 feet, you are fishing the bottom lure 60 feet. Good spot for kings/cohos. The slider is either at 30 feet or between 20 and 40. Neither the 20 or 30 foot level is likel to catch a fish. Use a rubber band to snub that slider 8 or 10 feet up the line and it's in the zone. 

I also use a fixed slider when the fish are really shallow - say 10 or 12 feet. A fixed slider 3 or 4 feet up the line is likely to catch more fish than a free slider if it's only 3 or 4 feet below the surface. 
 

I prefer to run my dogger and fly as bottom lure and a spoon for my fixed slider. Just my 2 cents. I figure easier to get spoon off if hit comes on bottom lure. 

It's not an unbreakable rule, but in general I shy away from running a slider on a line with a dodger or flasher as the bottom lure. Since the snap that holds the slider to the main line stops at the top of the flasher or dodger, as the main line is being cranked in, the rotating thing at the bottom spins round and round the slider leader resulting in a big wreck when it all gets to the boat. 

Capt. Mike 

I run sliders of both kinds above a flasher also. Roughly 6-8’ ahead of the f/f rig I tie a bead chain into the line with one of the large beads that you use to make a fly above it. The slider rig if it has a fish on it slides down and stops at the bead and the F/F rig is trailing the fish 3’ or so. Typically it stays tangle free for me doing this.