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So, what’s to like so much about this photo from the summer of 2012? For a fishing guide hoping to provide wild salmon action to his clients, the answering is everything.

Those slashes running diagonally across the screen of our Furuno fish finder are king salmon – lots of them from 180 to 100 feet. The picture explains why we use Shimano line counter reels at AU. Drop your spinning herring down to 200 – if you manage to get there without a bite, simply start reeling back up. Whether your bait is on the drop or on the rise, you’ll get a bite nearly every time when the screen looks like this. Four baits down will yield four bites. If your group manages the bites properly, we end up with four kings on and the fun really begins.

The captain becomes the choreographer amidst this kind of excitement and a quadruple hookup explains why we use a bright green main line. We can better see who needs to go over and who needs to go under as frantic fishermen work their way around the boat. By mid-May and extending through the end of June – this kind of king action repeats itself often. And, they don’t really leave until later in August, but they do begin to mix in with silvers, pinks, and chums. For those who enjoy the look of this screen – a pure king show – think late May and June. I’ve been saying that Sitka has the best salt water chinook fishing in the world for the past 20 years and nothing has come along to change my mind.

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