Guide TJ Hester calls a Brad’s Super Bait lure simply “a plastic contraption that makes fish want to bite it.’’
As most anglers know, guides are given to exaggeration when it comes to the fishing prowess of particular products.
But, in 2015, during the late summer and fall in the Columbia River, the salmon bite on Brad’s Super Baits and Super Bait Cut Plugs was unlike anything I’ve seen in 30 years on the river.
“At Buoy 10, the mouth of the Lewis, mouth of the Cowlitz, Drano Lake, Bonneville, Deschutes — anybody who was out there a lot will tell you Super Baits put on a clinic,’’ Hester said. “That’s a fact what happened this (last) year.’’
I agree.
At Buoy 10, a Super Bait Cut Plug in the “Blackjack’’ pattern put five fall chinook in my neighbor’s boat in three hours. Upstream of the mouth of the Lewis in September, I witnessed an amazing catch of fall chinook (alas, without a Super Bait in the boat that day).
On Oct. 2, I caught 30- and 15-pound bright fall chinook on a Super Bait Cut Plug in the Tena Bar area downstream of Vancouver. Later that month, while walleye fishing at Washougal, I watched boat after boat yard out fall chinook just downstream of Reed Island with Pro Trolls and Super Baits.
Super Baits and Super Bait Cut Plugs, pulled behind 11-inch Pro-Troll Flashers, worked phenomenally well in 2015.
Will they work that well again in 2016? Did the low flows in the Columbia create a situation where the Pro Troll-Super Bait combination was deadly, but unlikely to repeat in 2016?
Hester, of Yakima, said the combo has worked well for eight to 10 years in the upper Columbia River.
“I’m not telling you this is going to be the only thing you ever need,’’ Hester said at a seminar at the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show in Portland. “But it’s another thing to learn — another $100 to spend.’’
Hester likes to fish his Super Baits on a Lamiglas XCC1064GH rod and a Shimano Tekota 500LC reel. He uses 65-pound Maxima High-Visibility braided line.
On the business end, he uses a 2-foot leader of Maxima Ultragreen to an 11-inch Pro Troll, then 3 feet of 30-pound Maxima to the Super Bait or Super Bait Cut Plug.
There are at least a half dozen ways to rig the bait. For spring chinook, Hester likes to run the leader through the hook tunnel and head leader hole with the top hook a No. 2 treble and the trailer at No. 3/0 Octopus.
He prefers the 11-inch Pro Troll over the 8-inch version.
“I like the 11-inch a lot,’’ Hester said. “It rolls a little bit harder.’’
It’s not necessary to buy every color variation of Pro Trolls, he said, suggesting starting with five colors: chrome, white, chartreuse/green, red/orange and blue/purple.
Metallic finishes work best on bright days, clear water and when the fish appear high in the water column. Matte finishes are preferred on cloudy or overcast days, early in the morning or near sundown, during muddy water or when the fish are deep.
The No. 1 sin when using a Super Bait is overfilling the cavity with too much scent product. The hinges will break when the lure is overfilled.
Anglers fill Super Baits with a variety of scents, including tuna in oil, herring, anchovy, sardine, shrimp, eggs and cat food. Creative anglers are known to mix scents.
Hester does not use the scent pad that comes with Super Baits and Super Bait Cut Plugs.
“That scent pad — throw it away,’’ he said. “It attracts so much bad scent. Other guys, though, love it. I’d suggest throwing it away.’’
Keeping the lure clean is important. Hester uses a toothbrush after a day of fishing to clean the holes in a Super Bait.
He fishes Super Baits upstream of Bonneville Dam but Super Bait Cut Plugs downstream, mostly.
“For fall fish anywhere from Bonneville up, it’s a Super Bait show, without a doubt, no question,’’ Hester said. “Anything below Bonneville, for fall fish, almost always cut plugs. For springers, almost strictly cut plugs….I’ll go with minis when I trying to troll really slow or it’s really clear water.’’
He trolls downstream to cover more water and put the bait in front of more salmon.
An exception is a spot like the mouth of Oregon’s Deschutes River, where a large number of fall salmon get kegged up in a cool-water refuge.
“At the mouth of the Deschutes, where a lot of fish are concentrated in a small area, then I want the bait in front of them as long as possible to entice a bite.’’
He also believes mostly in trolling with Pro Trolls and Super Baits rather than anchoring.
“If it’s really fast water, just screaming, for me, that’s when anchoring makes sense.’’
Mark Gavin, a Pro-Troll staff member from North Bend, Wash., gave a seminar Saturday at Bob’s Sporting Goods in Longview, on salmon fishing with Pro-Troll flashers and Brad’s Super Baits.
Among Gavin’s tips were:
• Chrome (color 700) is the best-selling 11-inch Pro-Troll flasher. Other colors he recommends are Glow Green (105), Glow Chartreuse (106), Glow White (102) and UV Plaid Purple Stripe (712).
• Fish with the glow flashers early in the morning, shift to the glow and ultraviolet in mid-morning and then to chrome and ultraviolet plaids when the sun is out in the afternoon.
• After about 20 minutes of fishing, expose the glow tape on the glow models of Pro-Troll to light. Twenty minutes is also a good rule of thumb to refill Super Baits with fresh scent.
• Besides using oil-packed tuna, sardine, herring, anchovy and shrimp in Super Baits, try cat food, which is gaining popularity.
• It is easy to lose the bands that keep a Super Bait closed. Carry 2 feet of surgical tubing in your boat and chunk a replacement chunk is the Super Bait band blows away.
• Try using the Mini Cut Plug models of Brad’s for spring chinook. Gavin said he’d probably rig a mini with a treble hook at mid-lure and a 2/0 single hook out the rear.
He also suggested for a Mini Cut Plug to have a bead chain swivel coming out a mid-lure with single Siwash hook attached to the bead chain.
Don’t be afraid to use single hooks instead of trebles.
“Super Baits are plastic and fish don’t hold on to them as long as a natural bait,’’ Gavin said. “The problem with treble hooks is it takes more to drive them in than a single hook…The more hook weight the faster you have to troll or shorter you have to make your leader to get more action,’’
