Everyone knows that wrapping Kwikfish and Flatfish with a sardine fillet makes these plugs absolutely deadly for river salmon, but did you know that the folks from Pro-Cure can help to make your sardine wraps even more effective…Here’s how:
The Fillet
Use a razor sharp knife or you’ll tear up your fillets. Cut right behind the head until you feel the blade touch the spine. Then lay the blade down and follow the spine all the way to the tail. Use your free hand to hold the sardine in place as you work the knife down the spine towards the tail. Don’t push your knife through the flesh, but use a gentle sawing action instead.
The Trim
This is a huge tip, and if you’re not doing it already you’re gonna love this! Put your knife away and do all the trimming to size using a good pair of stainless steel scissors. You can trim perfect fillets every time, and you won’t tear the heck out of your delicate fillets.
Night One: Adding Scent
Sprinkle all of your fillets with PRO-CURE’s Slam-ola Powder in either the regular or garlic formula. This powder will not only toughen your fillets, it also imparts a powerful chemical scent that salmon really go for.
Night Two: More Scent
Carefully smear each fillet with either pure sardine oil or PRO-CURE’s Sardine Bait Sauce. Bait Sauce contains both pure raw sardine oil and ground up whole sardines, with amino acids already added.
The Wrap
Make sure your plug is not attached to your main line or leader. With the center slit in your fillet slide your bait up and around the plugs belly hook eyelet. Some guys remove the belly treble hook to do this, but it a lot easier and faster to just learn to work around the attached hook.
After the fillet is centered around the belly hook start by wrapping either magic thread or stretchy thread around the plug and the front of the fillet. You don’t want your wraps to be so tight that you’re crushing your fillets into mush, but you want them tight enough that they are indenting into the flesh of the fillet.
When you’ve wrapped the front of the fillet to the hook eye flip the hook forwards and then wrap the back of the fillet. When this is secure, wrap to the front of the fillet and take a few half hitches around your bait to secure your wrap.
The Tune
Even the most perfectly wrapped plug might need to be tweaked a little bit to make sure it tracks correctly in the water. Always make sure your plug is attached using a Duolock snap. Never tie your plugs directly to your line or leader. Place your plug in the water right next to your boat, and get it below the surface a foot or so. Pull your plug rapidly upstream a few feet and watch what it does. If it’s action is balanced your ready to fish. If it breaks right or left, or runs true for a few seconds and then breaks to either side you need to tune your plug.