We’ve always known that trolling spinners for salmon can be one of the most effective methods for catching these hard fighting fish. As a matter of fact it was the sole inspiration behind our Dirty Troll line of fishing spinners so putting our gear to the challenge in Resurrection Bay at Seward, Alaska was nothing less than spectacular.
Back at the shop we had been working hard to come up with the perfect combination of coloration and flash to create something incredibly irresistible to fish.
It was a matter of bead versus blade, plus something else critically important, the hooks! All to often lure manufacturers skimp on the hooks. I’ve even known guys that will buy a lure and cut the hooks off so they can replace them with something of higher quality.
Our goal was to produce only the highest quality trolling spinners period.
Colorado blades have stood the test of time in regards to producing a quality flutter and will generally spin as soon as they hit the water. Also Colorado blades do not require much speed to start rotating so they can be effectively trolled at very slow trolling speeds. This is great when targeting chinook as they love to get an easy meal.
Next we had to think hardware. We decided to go with the standard .028 stainless steel wire commonly found on popular salmon fishing spinners like Mepps and Blue Fox. Thousands of salmon and steelhead have been taken with this exact gauge of wire and we were confident it would work perfect with our gear.
As far as the beads we would use we decided we would go with a solid brass bearing bead and our Stone Cold Beads for accent beads. This one fact alone makes our Dirty Troll line of spinners the most unique fishing spinners in the industry. No other spinners found anywhere use natural gemstone for accent beads and it really sets us apart from the crowd because every Dirty Troll Spinner is a one of a kind work of art.
For our treble hooks we decided to go with the powerful VMC 4X Strong O’Shaughnessy treble hooks, for regions that don’t allow trebles we went with Japanese hooks like Gamakatsu’s Big River bait hooks or the ultra strong Matzuo Sickle Siwash.
Now we had the makings of something great, but something was missing. To finish off our Dirty Troll we needed a little something extra. For this we got ahold of our friends at PLine and they hooked us up with some of the awesome 2.5 UV Hoochie skirts.
Next thing you know with a twist and a bend then a snip we were in business. End result, nothing less than perfection.
Now as the wave splash against the side of the 30ft charter craft it was time to put our fish killers to the test.
It was only fitting that for our first run we would go with our 4.5 Neon Green Hoochie. We knew this color combo was the perfect King salmon killer. With a chartreuse sparkle Colorado, and two green grape jade beads and a deep purple quarts bead we are talking trouble. For the fish that is.
The Dirty Troll Neon Green Hoochie with VMC 4X Strong Treble
Now it was time to set up our rigging. We we’re going to incorporate a diver followed by a chartreuse flasher and lastly the Neon Green Hoochie trailing 3′ behind.
I no time at all we’re in business, while trolling spinners for salmon on the second pass through the blob and it was fish on! Our very first King caught on a Dirty Troll a nice little 19 lb. chinook that will never be forgotten.
Beautiful 19lb Chinook caught with a #4 Dirty Troll “Neon Green Hoochie” Spinner
Things started to slow down a bit so we decided to try a couple other design so now we were running both our Dirty Troll Sparkler and our Hammered Pinky spinner side by side.
Wow! Were we in for a ride! Hook up after hook up, it was mind boggling. At the end of the day we had landed 45 fish. The hit rate for each edition was about 50/50 but in the end we landed more on the Hammered pinky. The sparkler definitely held it’s own but due to the massive amount of hook ups our sparkler started to get bent up. The funny thing about it was that the more bent it got the more the fish were hitting it.
Two fish killers the Dirty Troll Hammered Pinky and the Sparkler after a hard days work!
All in all it was a banner day! 45 salmon on the deck. Now we knew for sure that we are in business. The Dirty Troll would be going to market and once others see the same results as we did the rest will be history.
One thing we did learn however was that the .028 spinner wire we we’re using in our opinion wasn’t good enough. The Sparkler took a pretty good beating that day. Granted I’m not sure other lures would have faired better after 20 plus hook ups and serious battling taking place. However we took it as a learning experience and decided to upgrade our spinner wire for our salmon lures to .035 which is thicker than anything you’ll find on the rack in the big box stores.
Back to the bench we went, twisting up a storm, seeking to create the latest greatest. When all was said and done we had retrofitted our gear with the .035 wire and came up with another killer design. The Dirty Troll “War Hammer” Oh! This one was a beauty, sporting a #4 Hammered Copper Colorado Blade, hot pink and blood roe beads and of course the Hoochie.
We’re back in business and off to the races. This time we’re going after coho and testing out the “War Hammer”. Granted the action had died off a bit when we decided to drop the hammer! This time we were trolling spinners for salmon at 60′ we made a pass through what looked like a nice little school on the radar detector. Whammy, the pole bent in half and it was go time.
Within 5 minutes a beautiful chrome bright coho was flopping on the deck with the war hammer hanging out of it’s mouth.
Beautiful Coho caught with SCB’s Dirty Troll “War Hammer” Salmon Trolling Spinners.
Know we know the Dirty Troll is officially ready to take the sports fishing industry by storm. The only problem is making sure we’ll have enough in stock.
If you’d like to try Dirty Troll salmon trolling spinners for yourself go to fishdirty.com and order some today. Just be aware our trolling spinners are so effective everyone will know your fishing dirty.
