CONVERTING SALMON WOBBLERS INTO KOKANEE DODGERS

By Tom Schnell

Dodgers have become one of the primary attractors now used for kokanee. They come in many shapes, sizes and color combinations. There are currently a plethora of commercially produced dodgers to choose from and with all the options available, picking the right ones can be daunting. You can find yourself buying the latest and greatest kokanee dodgers only to end up with a few that you actually use on a consistent basis.

Kokanee anglers are known to spend a lot of money on gear, yet they may already be sitting on a treasure trove of great options. With a little help and ingenuity, you can repurpose some of your salmon gear and give new life to old kokanee tackle. It can save money and be fun and rewarding at the same time.

TO CONVERT SALMON gear into kokanee dodgers, the first step is to look for any salmon wobblers that you may have on hand. If done correctly, they can have a dual purpose – being

used for both a salmon wobbler and a kokanee dodger with just a few modifications.

To modify a salmon wobbler to a kokanee dodger, remove the wobbler’s back hook. If it is attached by a split ring, simply remove the hook from the split ring, leaving the split ring attached to the wobbler. If it is a solid ring, either cut the hook at the eye and remove the hook, or cut the ring and attach a split ring in its place. Depending on the size of the wobbler being turned into a dodger, new split rings will range from size 6 to 8. Check on the poundage rating too, as not all split rings have the same pound test rating. If the dodger will be turned back into a wobbler for salmon, make sure to have a sufficient pound test split ring so as not to have it come loose on a hardfighting salmon.

Now all you need to do is to add a snap swivel to the end of the wobbler via the split ring, and voilà, you have a kokanee dodger ready to go. When you want to turn the dodger back into a wobbler, simply remove the snap swivel from the split ring and reattach the salmon hook, and you are right back to having a salmon wobbler.

The standard size that I have found that works best for a snap swivel is around a size 5. Experiment with different sizes and makes of snap swivels until you find the one you like the best.

TWO TOOLS THAT I have found very useful when converting salmon wobblers into kokanee dodgers are a heavy-duty wire cutter and a splitring plier. The wire cutter is to help remove hooks attached by a solid ring, or the solid ring itself, while the split-ring plier aids in taking split rings on and off. The split-ring plier also comes in handy when changing hooks and snap swivels on the split rings themselves.

Other items to make the wobblerto-dodger conversion and back are a ready supply of split rings in sizes ranging from 6 through 8, snap

swivels and salmon hooks. This allows you to convert back and forth easily from a wobbler to a dodger and back again. Having these supplies readily available makes the changeout seamless and very quick.

The size, shape and color of your wobbler-to-dodger conversion is limited only by the supply of wobblers you have on hand. If you are like most salmon anglers, you will have more wobblers on hand than you will ever use for kokanee dodgers, so go ahead and experiment with various ones until you have your chosen few that you have confidence in.

ANOTHER OPTION FOR kokanee dodgers

is to give a facelift to ones you already have. This can range from adding a little bling to spruce up a dodger, all the way to providing a major facelift.

Old, faded dodgers can be made to look brand new with just a little effort. The two main ways of doing so are by either painting them or taping them. Since painting a dodger is an art form of its own and can require costly painting gear, I typically just

use commercially made tape like Northwest-produced Hyper-Vis Tape. It is simple and, in some ways, easier than painting dodgers.

Taping a kokanee dodger is fairly inexpensive to do. Tape is readily available in most fishing tackle stores and comes in a variety of colors. Take a black light along to see if it is fluorescent and has that UV “glow” to it. Not all tape is made the same, so look for tape that is labeled as “UV” or fluorescent. You also want tape that is waterproof and stays on in the water. Having an adhesive backing that really sticks to the dodger is important. Some tape that looks good on the shelf won’t stand up to the rigors of being underwater for long periods of time. Besides the color selection, one thing that sold me on the Hyper-Vis Tape is the incredibly strong and durable adhesive that is applied to it.

WHEN I’M READY to start upgrading and enhancing my kokanee dodgers, my first step is to thoroughly clean them with Non-Ultra Lemon Joy soap and hot water. If they have tape already applied to them that needs to come off, I take either a heat gun or hair dryer and use it to help peel the tape off. Once the tape is off, I apply original citrus solution De-Solv-it to take off any tape residue and then rewash the dodger again with NonUltra Lemon Joy and hot water.

If the dodger has paint instead of tape, just tape over the paint or use something like Klean Strip Premium Stripper to take the original paint off. Once again, clean the dodger with Non-Ultra Lemon Joy soap and hot water to get any cleaning residue off of it. You want the dodger to be as clean and dry as possible before adding adhesive tape to it.

After the dodger is completely clean and dry, it is time to start adding tape to it. The color combinations and designs are endless, so be creative. Sometimes all that is needed is to

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take a kokanee dodger and add some additional “bling” to it. Add some colored dots or some creative design to it to make it customized. This can be fun and bring out the creative side; there is no wrong way of doing it, so be original!

Some items I find helpful when taping dodgers are: scissors, a variety of tape, cutting templates, a variety of hole punches in various sizes, a paper cutter, a sharp knife for trimming, tweezers for removing the tape and – if you are really serious – a Cricut Maker Machine. With these simple tools many different designs can be made.

You can also buy premade tape designs off of the internet as well. My two main sources are eBay and hypervistape.com. The variety is endless and can take on a life of its own. But in the end I have found that simple colors like silver, gold, pink, orange, chartreuse and UV moon jelly are the primary ones I use. There are times when fluorescent red, purple and even blue come in handy, but I tend to stick with the basic colors for kokanee so as not to overwhelm the amount of tape I need to update and upgrade my kokanee dodgers.

You can use this same technique to convert salmon wobblers to taped kokanee dodgers. I had several old salmon wobblers that had lost their shine and paint. I removed the hook, added a snap swivel and had a “brand-new” kokanee dodger. I often transform them back into a salmon wobbler when we start focusing our fishing on fall salmon.

MAKING YOUR OWN kokanee dodgers – whether converting a salmon wobbler to a kokanee dodger or retrofitting an old wobbler/dodger into a “new” one – is both fun and rewarding. It requires only a few basic tools, some minimum supplies and is easy to do.

And catching a fish on a dodger pattern and color that you designed can add a sense of satisfaction to fishing for both salmon and kokanee. The best part is there is no right or wrong way of doing it, so be creative and original. Who knows, you may just create your new favorite dodger that is the envy of the boat. It can be very catching.

Tight lines and fish on! NS

Editor’s note: Tom Schnell is an avid outdoorsman who lives with his wife Rhonna in Central Oregon. He is a past Ducks Unlimited and Oregon Hunters Association President, along with being a former Kokanee Power of Oregon board member.

If you are anywhere near Puget Sound, then July means salmon fishing. It’s one of the few months that can be counted on for NW PURSUITS good weather, calm By Jason Brooks waters and Chinook. And it is the month that everyone who lives or visits here talks about.

Like the summers in the greater Puget Sound area, the salmon season is often short but also good enough to keep us coming back each year. And if you’ve fished here of late, then you know what’s becoming the most important piece of fishing gear: a smartphone, so you can check to see if the marine area you want to fish is (still) open. Many are run under quotas to allow anglers the opportunity to fish for Endangered Species Act-listed hatchery Chinook in Puget Sound and surrounding areas, while other salmon fisheries have set dates.

ONE OF THE more popular places is Marine Area 9, which covers the waters from Edmonds to Port Townsend. Being a major migration route for fish heading to just about every river in Central and South Puget Sound and Hood Canal, the salmon fishing can be good – too good, sometimes – and the season is short. Don’t let someone tell you that we get a nine-day season on Area 9 because we don’t. This summer’s dates are Thursday, July 14, through Saturday, July 16, all of which will see huge early tide swings, and then possibly July 21 through July 23 if the 4,700 hatchery Chinook quota hasn’t been reached. Fishing then reopens July 28 for hatchery coho, as well as kings if enough are still available.

A quick run out to Point Wilson, Possession Bar, Point No Point and other popular locations on opening day will show you why the quota won’t last long. Thousands of boats and hundreds of shore anglers will be casting or trolling lines and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

fish checkers will be ready to make sure we don’t catch more than the allotted amount.

Same with Area 10, where the Seattle skyline is in the background. This area is much smaller than Area 9 but way more accessible and popular since you can be fishing within minutes of launching. The quota of 3,966 Chinook doesn’t go as fast as its neighbor to the north and it is slated to be open from July 14 to August 31.

For anglers who want to fish in the morning shadows of skyscrapers, the bubble fishery of Elliott Bay, where most of the fish are destined for the Duwamish River, is open for four days, August 6-9. One good thing about Area 10 is that resident coho fishing has been open since June 16, which means most anglers will know where to go if the Chinook fishing is slow. This silver fishery has become very popular the past few years, as it is an opportunity to get out and catch some tasty salmon close to home.

The San Juan Islands, Area 7, are also popular, and to spread out fishing pressure, this season these waters will be open the same days (July 14-16) for hatchery Chinook as Area 9. The quota here is just 1,800 marked kings, 500 more than last summer, but don’t expect season to last long. Still, unlike last year, the islands are scheduled to reopen for marked coho from August 16 through September 30.

THE SOUTH SOUND is where Tacoma and Olympia anglers will likely concentrate their salmon efforts. In Area 11, the Chinook quota is only 2,816 hatchery fish and might not last long, if how fast June’s fishery opened and closed is any indication.

There had been a lot of excitement, as last month’s season was starting two weeks earlier than 2021 – which itself was the first time since 2018 the area was open in June – and was set to run the entire month, albeit under a quota of 580 hatchery kings. But it turned into a debacle. State fish checkers said anglers were encountering (catching and releasing) too many wild and juvenile fish (encounter limits for which were 432 and 752, respectively). In a way, if that many fish were being caught, then it should indicate that the fishery was strong. But instead of being excited about the amount of fish, WDFW essentially decided it was a “bad thing” and closed the season.

Keep in mind this announcement was made at the close of business hours on a Friday, just three days into the season, and it shut down the fishery at the end of that day. It meant anglers who didn’t check the agency’s website between that afternoon and when they woke up early Saturday morning to go fishing would have been on the water during a closed season. Again, one of the most important tools a Puget Sound salmon angler can have is a cellphone to check for closure updates.

There is some good news for Area 11 and that is the coho fishing. The past few years, coho numbers have been really good. But 2022’s season also runs through October 31 and silvers don’t have to be clipped. Most of these fish are heading back to the net pens near Harstine Island, which is a program run by the Squaxin Island Tribe, as well as the Puyallup, White and Nisqually Rivers. Area 11 has a really good resident coho population, thanks to the net pens, and by mid-August the ocean-going fish will be returning.

Area 13 is open for salmon fishing

year-round. The main Chinook returns are to Minter Creek, and the Nisqually and Deschutes Rivers, with a few returning to Chambers Creek and other natal streams. The waters are often calm in Puget Sound’s southernmost end, and there is some good shore fishing at various state parks and local public beaches.

Focus on learning how to fish the points of the shoreline. Salmon will use these current breaks like the bumpers in a pinball game. Point Fosdick and the eastern end of Fox Island are popular spots as fish come through the Narrows, mostly following along the west side even though they might be heading to rivers on the eastern edge of Puget Sound. The currents rip through the Narrows but once the water and fish make their way past the bridges, the channel opens up and waters calm down, allowing fish to find food sources hiding in the current breaks from these points.

A BEST KEPT secret for Puget Sound anglers is the southern end of Area 12, better known as Hood Canal. Here, Skokomish River-bound fish – 27,912 are predicted to return this year – can be intercepted in the salt. Anglers used to flock to this small river that was choked with Chinook on each tide exchange, so much so that it eventually led to closures from trash and waste, and then the Skokomish Tribe pushed the boundary definition to include the entire river. WDFW disagrees with that and has challenged a federal solicitor’s opinion of an 1800s treaty, but until the courts can weigh in, the hatchery fish are off-limits to nontribal anglers in the river.

The fish can still be chased in the salt, but it can be a tricky fishery. Larry Phillips, the former WDFW director of the region that includes these waters and now with the American Sport Fishing Association, used to fish the lower end of Hood Canal a lot.

“It’s been a few years but we used to do really well,” stated Phillips.

He liked to concentrate his efforts near Bald Point – to the north of the mouth of the Skokomish and right where the canal hooks east – and fish really shallow. The shoreline here is rockier than the south side of the canal, where sand and mud are deposited off of the Olympics.

“We had days with a lot of success, but don’t expect to catch a lot of fish each time out,” said Phillips, who added that it was usually an early morning bite. “Look for jumping fish, which will tell you where they are concentrating and milling around waiting to go up the river.”

Though the majority of the run occurs in August, Phillips said the fishing can be good in July, as the fish will stage in the salt before heading to the hatcheries a few miles upriver. Trolling bait, such as whole herring with a bait hood or anchovies, works well, but Phillips admitted he is a “hardware guy” and prefers to troll spoons. One of the top producers on lower Hood Canal fish is a Coho Killer in a silver finish.

The mouth of the Skokomish River is a big shallow mud flat that is exposed at low tide, making it impossible to fish. And during high tide the Chinook race into the river, which means no stopping to bite your lures or bait. But the fish must get here first, so look for areas where the fish will be feeding or holding on their way back to WDFW’s George Adams Hatchery.

Salmon fishing south of Hood Canal’s Ayock Point opens July 1 and runs through September 30 with a daily limit of four hatchery Chinook. You can use two rods with the endorsement as well. If you can figure out this fishery, then you can fill a

freezer quickly. Again, the height of the run is mid-August through mid-September, but fish will be here from the opener on.

THERE SEEMS TO be two types of Puget Sound anglers, moochers and trollers, and they don’t get along. Well, they do as long as they don’t fish together. Mooching is a nearly stationary way to fish, hovering over schools of salmon or places where the fish tend to feed on stacked-up baitfish. You will find flotillas of boats at Point Defiance, Point Evans, Point Wilson and several other well-known mooching areas, where anglers will be jigging their rods up and down. Notice the three areas mentioned above are all “points.” This is because baitfish will be on either side of the structure during the tide exchange, and so will the Chinook, gorging themselves.

Mooching is using a cut-plug herring and a banana-shaped lead weight, dropping it down and then slowly reeling it up through the water column with a jigging action to create the up-and-down movement of a wounded baitfish. But dogfish can wreak havoc on bait, so some anglers use the same technique but with jigs such as Point Wilson Darts or Otori Puget Pounders. It is a simple and effective way to catch Puget Sound Chinook.

If you prefer to search out the salmon by trolling, be sure to steer clear of the moochers. Not only will you mess up their fishing but you will end up tangling with their lines and nobody will be catching fish while you deal with the mess.

One of the benefits of trolling is that you can search for migrating salmon. Years ago, just after I moved to the Puget Sound area, I was trolling along the shoreline with a diver, an inline flasher and a spoon. The rod bent over hard and on the end was a 20-pound Chinook. I could have easily thrown a rock from my 14-foot boat and hit the bank. That is one of the best things about Puget Sound: Just about anyone with any kind of boat can go salmon fishing. You don’t need downriggers, as you can use divers or mooch up some fish, but downriggers do help a lot. If you run them near the bottom, you might pick up a blackmouth – a Chinook that lives its entire life in Puget Sound – or you might get a migrating ocean fish. You can also find the bait and work your line at that depth.

I know I mentioned there are two types of salmon anglers in Puget Sound, the trollers and the moochers, but there is one more, a dying breed of sorts. They are the meat liners. If you see someone using the old-school meat line system, which is a heavy weight on a cable, then pay attention. These are anglers who have more knowledge of the local area than all of the books, podcasts and blogs you can find. Don’t get in their way, as their heavy cables will grab your gear, but watch where they are going and know they are on the fish.

JULY IS ONE of the best months of our short summer, and it could be a short salmon season too. For the Puget Sound angler it is time to catch some Chinook and be sure to watch for last-second closures. Keep the cellphone close and hit the water this month. NS