For example, mooching with herring and a banana weight is a time-honored tradition at places like the Slag Pile and further north at Bush Point. But in the minds of many modern salmon anglers, trolling with downriggers just can’t be beat for covering water and working up and down the water column.

The simpler the trolling approach, the more effective it seems to be. For Weist, trolling with downriggers is the way to go. And he does keep it simple. Trolling a whole or plug-cut herring, a plastic hoochie, a salmon fly behind a green -- on the Sound, it must be green -- or a Hot Spot 11-inch flasher are well-proven, high-confidence presentations.

Whole or plug-cut herring can have the disadvantage of attracting the Sound’s vast hordes of resident bait-raiding dogfish. Perhaps that reason, squid hoochies and flies have become so popular. Army-truck hoochies --green and white and glowing -- are a top choice for anglers who prefer plastics. For Weist, however, it’s been tough to find anything that outperforms salmon flies on the Sound.

“Silver Horde has a new fly called the Ace Hi Fly,” he said. “It’s like a bucktail fly. I also use the Grand Slam fly. That’s been one of my favorites. But the Ace Hi is a combination of a bucktail and a hoochie.

“For some reason, I just haven’t done as well on hoochies, but I’ve done really good on bucktails. A lot of guys I fish with catch salmon on hoochies, but I like that Ace Hi fly. I tried some prototypes and I’ve been very impressed with them.”

Weist says his favorite salmon fly colors are greens and blues. He ties his own two-hook snell rig, using 3/0 and 4/0 hooks. “I don’t like using bigger hooks,” he says. “But what’s most important is, you want that trailing hook slightly behind the tentacles, for short-strikers. You don’t want to miss those. Sometimes I’ll put beads in front of the front hook, to get that back hook back where I want it.”

Leader material also makes a big difference with hoochies and flies, which don’t have their own lure action, so that the action must be imparted by the flasher. Weist uses 30- to 50-pound-test PowerPro as the main line because of its thin diameter. Then from the flasher to the hoochie or fly, he uses 40- to 60-pound-test. Not for breakage, but for better action than he’d get with thicker, stiffer line.

TROLLING STRATEGIES
Anglers put a lot of thoughtful strategy into trolling speeds for salmon. The general wisdom is to troll as s-l-o-w-l-y as you can for kings, and faster for silvers and pinks.

But the angle on your cable rather than miles per hour is the most telling sign of whether or not you’re trolling at the right speed, said Weist.

“I usually don’t look at the speedometer,” he said. “But if I’ve got a pretty good angle on the line, not quite a 45-degree angle, then you’re doing pretty good. You have to make the flasher work, and that’s generally -- very generally -- around 2.5 mph.

“But don’t look at speed. Look at line angle and action on the flasher. Just before you drop the downrigger down, you can see the flasher back there. Make sure it’s working.”