The first step in assembling any rig is bait selection and preparation.
Live bait selection and preparation is easy: you’ll want
live herring. But if you decide to use frozen bait such as herring
or anchovies, you should make sure that it’s fresh. Beware
of a strong odour, white eyes, or fins that look eroded from
freezer burn. These signs usually indicate soft, rotten fish,
which will bloat and burst or refuse to roll true.
If you go with strips rather
than whole herring, look for eroded ice—another sign of
old bait. Next, make sure the bait is large enough. An average
length of six inches is good.
As for preparation, whole herring
and anchovies work best if they are brined beforehand, since
brining toughens bait for the rigours of trolling and mooching.
(Note that a herring strip doesn’t spiral correctly when
brined.)
Many anglers opt to prepare their
bait en route to their fishing destinations by carrying it in
small coolers filled with water and table salt. Another approach
is to use a large jar of water saturated with salt. An even
simpler method is to open the bait tray and pour coarse salt
over the bait until it’s covered. Then pop the bait back
into the freezer for three days (be sure to prepare a new package
for each day you intend to fish).
| TEASER
TACKLE |
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| Use
teaser heads for whole herring or herring strip
rigs |
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When you remove it from the freezer, the bait will have dried
up like a prune. Now as tough as old shoe leather, it will maintain
a satisfying firmness. If the brine solution dulls the bait’s
scales, sprinkle on some powdered coffee whitener.
Another way to toughen baitfish
is to place them on a warm curved surface, such as the engine
cover of an outboard motor.
Next, you’ll need the proper
tackle components before settling on a specific rigging technique.
Twenty-five-pound-test monofilament is standard; it will not
break on big fish and, just as importantly, it is supple enough
to let bait spiral freely. Ball bearing swivels, which allow
the bait to spin freely, are de rigueur on end changers, flashers
and leader swivels. You may have as many as four ball bearing
components per line. Use Palomar knots or, where exact distance
is required, an improved clinch knot (there are exceptions to
this rule).
In recent years, the leader length
of choice has gone well beyond the standard 36 inches. Today,
large chinook are regularly taken with movement dampening five-
to seven-foot leaders, and sometimes with nine-foot leaders
in heavy swells. That has made the debate over whether to use
a dodger or flasher largely moot. In the past, chrome dodgers
took more large fish because they swayed rather than rotated
like plastic flashers, which imparted far more dramatic movement
to trailing lures. With today’s longer leaders, movement
from the flasher or dodger no longer affects lure action. 
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