As you know Russell Gahagan from Russell’s Fishing Tech puts out a lot of great videos. In this video, Russell talks about a sure fire way to increase your catch. I can vouch for this technique personally because I use this as well and it consistently produces fish.

Key takeaways:

  • Set a downrigger so that the ball hits bottom and then bring up a foot or two at most. You can even bottom bounce if you want.
  • In Russell’s setup he is using a set of cowbells with a spin n glo.
  • His go to color for the cowbells is the Salmon Candy Antifreeze
  • His spin n glo is a green with chartreuse top and a Salmon Candy fly skirt.

Adding to this, I have had a lot of success using a similar setup. From the beginning of the season until Mid July or so, instead of a cowbell and spin n glo setup, I use a Silver Streak 4″ Smurf spoon. I caught enough fish on this particular spoon last year that I had to retire 1 spoon and have a 2nd that will not make it through 2021. As you can see, this spoon took a lot of punishment.

I also had good success using a ProKing Blue Dragon Slayor Flasher and a chartreuse spin n glo in late summer and early fall when nothing else was biting.

The key to being successful with this technique is to continually check that your downrigger ball is right off the bottom. About every 10-15 minutes, I will purposely drop my ball back down until I hit bottom and then raise it up a foot or two so that I know I am just off the bottom.

While this technique primarily targets Laker’s, you’ll also catch, King, Coho and Steelhead using this method. It’s definitely worth it if you want to put more fish in the boat and don’t mind catching Lakers.

Brands Mentioned:

If you find this video helpful, be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to Russell’s Fishing Tech YouTube channel.   This is one of the better channels I’ve found on fishing for salmon on the Great Lakes.