Glow lures?

[el_carpo]

Hello again,

I have been trying for salmon here in Chicago for the past few weeks (haven't caught any but have seen many landed) and we use glow in the dark lures at night. The salmon don't hit them for food but out of anger (they're in spawning mode). Anyway, I was wondering if you Australians have glow lures over there? They have a special paint on them that holds a charge and emits a glow. The charge has to be reactivated every so often by either flashing them with a camera flash (best way) or exposing them to the light of a black light. The fish can see them clearly in low light conditions. I won't give brand names of lures or anything but I thought I might post this information. For those of you who fish at night or early in the morning, or even deep sea, it may be something to try.

My brother went to a hobby store and bought some glow paint and painted some of his lures with it. It didn't work as well as the commercially available lures, but it did work. You paint them white first, then put on a coat of the glow paint (works much better).

I'm not sure if you already knew about glow lures or paint yet or not but I thought it could be a useful tip if not.

Good luck and good fishing!

E.C.

[gogecko]

Sounds like your using hard body lures? I use a soft plastic glow in the dark. Its made in japan. Its become my favorite SP for estuary work, and works well in the daytime too.

[rando]

Hi El Carpo
Glow beads , glow tubing, glow soft plastics , flouro sinkers.we use them all over here for various applications.
Locally one common practice is to thread some flouro plastic on the line above your hooks when night fishing for tailor( bluefish in yank-speak) recharge it with a few seconds in front of a head-light or other flashlight.I personally wouldnt use a camera flash for fear of spooking the fish.
as well as acting as an attractant the flouro sleeve offers some abrasion protection on the line.
What kinds of lures do you use for salmon. ? what species of salmon do you get & how big? Send us some pics next time you catch something.
How do YOU prepare them for the table. I love eating salmon one of my favourites.
Did you know that Tasmania has some wild breeding populations of Atlantic salmon(introduced of course) as well as some stocked impoundments and of course farmed salmon.
Ive never had the opportunity to fish for salmon(but Im not dead yet
Cheers
rando

[el_carpo]

gogecko and rando,

Yes, we mainly use hard bodied glow lures here. Spoons and cranks baits. The salmon that we catch are called King (aka Chinook) and Coho. The kings average about 10 to 20 pounds for us shore fishermen and the cohos usually go around 3 to 8. I've only caught one coho so far. We also have Atlantic salmon, as well as brown, lake, brook and rainbow trout. I think all except the lake trout were introduced here too. Very cool to hear that Tasmania's salmon population "took." My brother caught one of those one year going for brown trout one spring.

As far as eating them goes. You have to limit your consumption to a few meals a month. The reason being they accumulate contaminants (PCBs) . They taste very good though. What I usually do is grill them with some salt, pepper, lemon juice, garlic powder, butter or olive oil, and maybe a few onion rings. Nothing fancy. They taste so good you don't have to be that clever (perfect for me ). I just wrap them in aluminum foil with the ingredients and grill them for a little while. The most popular way to prepare them is to smoke them in a smoker. Never tried that personally. I may in future if the opportunity presents itself.

Pics you say? I have posted a few of them in the "freshwater fishing picture" section of the site. I think the title was "a day at the lakefront." My brother caught all of them. He's the only one of us who have caught any this year. I have gone five or six times and have been "skunked" every time out.

The king he caught went around 15 pounds but they get much bigger in the lake (into the 30's) and if you really want to see them get big, visit the Northwestern states and Alaska. They grow gigantic in the ocean. Of course you may have to wrestle with the largest species of bear in the world to catch one if you fish for them during the run (Kodiac Island brown bears ).

So you have the glow lures over yonder. Good to hear. I had to take a chance and ask. They work pretty good and didn't want to keep any secrets. One thing though, just for experimental purposes, you may want to try using the camera flash. I was fishing next to a guy using one while I was using the black light. His lures were WAAAAY more bright than mine and the glow lasted longer too. We were both using the same lure (spoon) too. I'm going to buy a cheap flash camera from a second hand store and try that. I don't know for sure if the same paint and chemicals are used over there as over here but if they are, I think the camera is the way to go. Don't know why it works so well but it does.

Thanks for the information guys. I hadn't heard about some of the techniques you described. Pretty neat! Thanks!

E.C.

[el_carpo]

Woops! The post in the freshwater section with the salmon in it is called "salmon plus."

[damons33]

mate .....we got sooooo many fish over here we simply don't need the stuff!


is that lake michigan?
maybe its the use of chemicals which makes it hard to catch em??
take it up to the profiteers that created a set of "dirty great lakes". sad it can never be like what the red indians first saw!
what are they called again eerie, ontario, superior, michigan and one that begins with 'h'-

[el_carpo]

Huron. We remember their name by the word HOMES. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Flashback to grade school geography class .

The lakes are finally making a rebound. Not as clean as they were before the industrial revolution of course but some beats none.

I'll experiment with the different light sources.

[rando]

E.C.
Before you spend money on a camera flash, try 10-30seconds held close to the bulb on a powerful torch( flashlight) and compare that to the results you are getting. Im not saying its better cause I havent tried your technique but it works pretty good for my purposes
rando