Northwest Fishing Reports

Why do you use herring strips with hoochies?

Scent? I can understand but their has to be a better way..

Fish attractant?

Seems to help. Adds flash. The meat itself may encourage the fish to continue munching on the squid instead of dropping it.

To some extent I've used strips so long its just habit. I cut pretty long strips, larger size herring, 2 even 3 inch strips. After I cut the strips with a scissors, I put them all in a big pile and add lots of my fav scent and stir it up. Then layer the strips in a plastic container with rock salt, let it cure overnight and pour out the liquid.

As it cures overnight, I think the scent penetrates the strip so the scent is less likely to just wash off in the water like it would on just a bare squid..

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

retired11 wrote:Why do you use herring strips with hoochies?

Scent? I can understand but their has to be a better way..

Fish attractant?

I’m just curious why you wish There was a better way? Not meaning to be inflammatory at all, just that I think it’s pretty easy.
What Barchaser does is all good, but you don’t have to even get that specific.
I just take any old type of herring, cut off about 1.5” of fish, from the tail going up. I even discard the body of the herring. Cure those tails, then attach them to hootchie.
Fish go in the boat either making fancy strips, or just cutting tails.

I'm a herring-strip guy. I take whatever size herring I have, fillet them and then cut the fillet into approximately 1/4" strips. The strips are then layered with rock salt in a 1 quart freezer bag and put in the fridge overnight. After the cold soak they can be stored in the freezer. I do not use any additional scents, powders or oils.

I hook the strip, meat side first on the leading hook of my two hook leaders for hoochies and flies.

The salted strips can be refrozen a gazillion times. They are very hardy, as long as they are not sitting around in the sun the will make it through a week long fishing trip.

The Quadfather wrote:

retired11 wrote:Why do you use herring strips with hoochies?

Scent? I can understand but their has to be a better way..

Fish attractant?

I’m just curious why you wish There was a better way? Not meaning to be inflammatory at all, just that I think it’s pretty easy.
What Barchaser does is all good, but you don’t have to even get that specific.
I just take any old type of herring, cut off about 1.5” of fish, from the tail going up. I even discard the body of the herring. Cure those tails, then attach them to hootchie.
Fish go in the boat either making fancy strips, or just cutting tails.

I'm trying to educate myself for fishing locally (area's 9 & 10) with downriggers, I haven't fished with them in years. I was doing some research on releases and came across and interesting way to scent hoochies via a youtube video. The guys fishing hoochies had a piece of yarn attached to the upper hook and was putting his scent of the day on the yarn and wasn't using herring strips.
So I was wondering what other fishing folks were doing. I thought the yarn was a pretty darn good way to go...

Barchaser always provides great information!

Herring strips. Sure you can use yarn but me myself prefer the herring. My thought in this is that the herring commits the fish into taking a bigger bite instead of just short strikes resulting in more better hookups and more fish in the box

Something to keep in mind if using gel or oil scent with your hoochies and bucktails. The oils and gels will make the thin legs or hairs of the lure stick together, thereby reducing the action. Further, cleanup is much more entailed if you plan to reuse them. If you don't like the thought of having to prepare and cure herring, smelt or anchovy strips, you might want to try the Gulp bait strips which are made for just such a purpose. You can purchase them in pre-cut strips or sheets that allow you to cut them to your preferred size/shape. I keep a few of these strips on board at all times and they seem to work as well as herring.

While we are on the subject, don't limit yourself to just herring for teaser bait. I've tried a number of different baits with my hoochies\bucktails out in the salt including shrimp, squid, mackerel and well as the standards mentioned above, and all have produced. I reserve the oil or gel based scents for the flashers, spoons and plugs.

G-Man wrote:Something to keep in mind if using gel or oil scent with your hoochies and bucktails. The oils and gels will make the thin legs or hairs of the lure stick together, thereby reducing the action. Further, cleanup is much more entailed if you plan to reuse them. If you don't like the thought of having to prepare and cure herring, smelt or anchovy strips, you might want to try the Gulp bait strips which are made for just such a purpose. You can purchase them in pre-cut strips or sheets that allow you to cut them to your preferred size/shape. I keep a few of these strips on board at all times and they seem to work as well as herring.

While we are on the subject, don't limit yourself to just herring for teaser bait. I've tried a number of different baits with my hoochies\bucktails out in the salt including shrimp, squid, mackerel and well as the standards mentioned above, and all have produced. I reserve the oil or gel based scents for the flashers, spoons and plugs.

Excellent information G-Man - Thanks

Careful using oil based scents on the flasher. I used to do that but those oil based scents seem to be acidic. In my experience they will cloud and ruin the finish on the flasher. Same with spoons. Put the scent on the side that is not painted.