Dodgers And What? Howie Flies Are Hot, Hot, Hot!

The herring juice from the package of cut bait slowly ran down my sweaty arm and dripped from my elbow onto the carpet in the cabin of my charter boat I was hot, tired, and close to the end of my fuse.

The first two herring strips out of the $4.75 6-pak I opened fresh that morning were too thick to even fit in the bait heads. The third strip of bait was too thin to tune properly. With three strips of bait already over the gunnel, three more strips on my cabin carpet in a puddle of herring juice, and me smelling like a New York City fish monger, I couldn't help thinking, There has to be a better way. I'm tired of slow-poking around Lake Ontario with flashers and cut bait!

That's when my quest for a better "mouse trap" began and eventually ended with Howie Flies, the hottest salmon lure I've ever used in 21 years of chinook and coho salmon fishing on Lake Ontario.

That minor angling disaster took place in late summer, 1999. The following winter it was time for some serious researching. As a writer for "Great Lakes Angler", I had some good contacts in the upper Great Lakes, especially Lake Michigan. Guys like Chip Porter, Dan Keating, and Tim Dawidiuk who run charters on Lake Michigan and routinely boat 15-30 cohos and salmon per trip, during the peak of the salmon season shared their knowledge. I knew flashers and bait weren't big on Lake Michigan. What the heck were those guys using to catch all those salmon? What I heard was dodgers and Howie Flies, Howie Flies, Howie Flies, the mainstay of the Lake Michigan charter fleet.

The rest of their story was about dodgers, and a Luhr Jensen finish called "silver glo". With not a mention of this finish in the 2000 Luhr Jensen catalog, it was a mystery to me until a shipment arrived from Michigan. Aha, a brushed silver plate that gives off a soft reflective glow rather than an ultrabright glare. Perfect for the crystal clear water in Lake Michigan, AND Lake Ontario. The other standard Lake Michigan dodgers..., chrome/silver prism, and white/with pearl scale tape.

The next step was the Howie Flies which I purchased in Wisconsin. The hot ones, glitter green, glitter/silver/black/green, aqua, white, powder blue, and others looked hot right in the box.

A veteran of the 1980's on Lake Ontario, when dodgers and squids were king for cohos and chinooks, I'd spent hundreds of days fishing dodgers. What should have been simple ended up a struggle. The first few weeks we tried them, Capt. Randy and I fished Howie Flies and dodgers with only fair success. What was wrong? It was back to the drawing board. More advice from Lake Michigan, "You have to commit to them." "Don't be afraid to spin them". "Just fishem". "Color is important". "Speed is critical". "Fast is better than slow."

On a Monday morning in early August over a cup of coffee at the dock before our Fish Doctor anglers arrived, Capt. Randy and I were having a heavy chat about techniques. It was right then that we decided. I would be the guinea pig and fish dodgers and Howie Flies exclusively for 7 days come h_ _ _ or high water, and at the end of the week we would either be using them or trashing them. That was one of the most important weeks of our angling careers, because at the end of 7-days I had begun to master the art of trolling dodgers and Howie Flies. It's the most deadly technique I've ever used for chinook and coho salmon, and it also catches browns, landlocks, rainbows, steelhead, and lakers.

In August and September 2000, fishing Howie Flies, Capt. Randy and I had one of our best charter seasons ever for kings and cohos. In the spring of 2001, with lots of spring kings in eastern Lake Ontario, we put the Howie Flies to work again. With catches of up to 10 kings in 5 hours of fishing in May, plus a surprising number of deep water browns, lakers, and stray landlocks and steelhead, we were right back in business. Although we've trolled spoons and plugs in 2000 and 2001 in combination with dodgers, by far, the majority of trout and salmon we caught on this system have come on the flies.

Dodgers and Howie Flies are deadly for trout and salmon. Years of use on Lake Michigan plus our recent experience on Lake Ontario is proof of this. Why this salmon catching secret of Lake Michigan charter captains took so long to show up on the scene here on Lake Ontario is a good question, but listen to what some of them have to say about Howie Flies;

Chip Porter: Lake Michigan charter captain and field editor of Great Lakes Angler magazine;

Being the Field Editor for Great Lakes Angler Magazine, I have the unique opportunity to fish nearly every bait and bait style ever made. Being a Charter Captain also means that I need to produce fish every day for my clients.

The Howie Fly is far and away the best producing salmon and trout bait I have ever fished in my life. Spoons still produce well, but Howies are the go-to bait for me and most of the Captains I know. I'll change colors, speeds, dodgers, lead lengths, and bead colors, but never which fly, Howies are it.

Capt. Chip Porter and some happy anglers with a limit of Lake Michigan salmon taken on Howie Flies. Contact Capt. Chip at chip@chipporter.com

Tim Dawidiuk: Lake Michigan charter captain and co-owner of Howie Fly and Mauler spoons;
I could provide you with a list of charters that run out of Winthrop Harbor who have been using Howie Fly's for as long as they have been available and they will use no other flies. By the way, these charters are running over 300 trips per year. That's per boat!

I fish Howie Flies and Mauler spoons exclusively during the salmon season here, and if you ask at my marina, you'll find there are many trips when we return to the dock with a limit of 30 salmon. The worst thing you can do with Howie Flies is troll them too slow. I fish five dodgers at once on the riggers and keep them spread wide, back 20-40 feet on flat days, and I almost always fish 4 wires.

Why does the dodger/Howie Fly work so well? First, it's an attractor system, just like rotating flashers, and it draws in salmon from a distance and revs them up. But, unlike rotating flashers, dodgers and flies aren't for slow pokes. It's a moderately high speed salmon trolling system and really helps cover some water. This higher trolling speed is perfect for spoons and plugs fished in combination with the dodger/ flies. This system is also effective because it's so simple, has a minimum of variables, and has a built-in speed indicator that perfectly monitors dodger/fly action and down speed.

When the "Fish Doctor" and "Alaskan" are in production mode, we're fishing dodgers and flies on up to 5 riggers at once, at least two wire Dipsys with dodger/flies, sometimes a second set of Dipsys with spoons or plugs, plus 1-2 straight wire rigs with 10-16 oz. weights off the stern of the boat. Depending on conditions, we'll mix spoons and/or plugs with dodgers on the riggers, but we never run less than two dodgers at once on the riggers, plus the dodgers on the wires. We generally fish the dodgers back 10-50 feet behind the riggers. Hot dodger colors, "silver glo", chrome/silver prism, and white/pearl, and to a lesser extent, chartreuse/silver prism, and red(primarily for cohos) are few, but important.

O.K., so what the heck's a Howie Fly? Developed by Howard Halsne many years ago for the Lake Michigan salmon fishery, it's constructed of a hi-tech mylar skirt and dressed with 6mm beads ahead of the hook. There are 24 stock colors. In Lake Ontario glitter green, glitter black/silver/green, powder blue, white, and aqua have caught fish for us. Leader length to the fly is generally 16-22 inches(head of the fly to the end of the barrel swivel.

Stock leader is 40 lb. test but the 50 lb. test Maxima Tournament Silver mono we rig them with is tougher and still catches fish. Some Michigan captains use 60 lb. test fluorocarbon leaders. Stock hooks are Size #1 VMC vanadium trebles. Stock beads are 6mm glass in light green. Howie Flies are available completely rigged with treble hook, beads, and leader in a single pack, or in Captain's Paks, with 6 unrigged flies per pack of the same color.

The first mistake most anglers make it to troll Howie Flies too slowly, at the old 1.7-2.1 MPH dodger/squid speeds we fished when we used squids with 12-16 inch leaders. With leaders on the flies up to 22 inches and longer, fish the dodgers at speeds of 2.0 MPH to almost 2.7 MPH and faster, and don't get nervous if the dodgers spin. With the longer leaders on the flies, spinning dodgers will catch fish. This is a system where erratic trolling speed and direction catches more fish. The key to proper trolling speed with this system is your wire line rig, which telegraphs every move the dodger makes to the rod tip. It won't take you long to be able to tell when the dodger is working right.

Color combinations are important. The chart above shows a few that will get you started.

No one on Lake Ontario will ever question that flashers and bait catch king salmon, and big ones. But, if you're tired of the slow-poke troll, and messing with cut bait, you might want to give dodgers and Howie Flies a try. They've been hot on Lake Michigan for years, and they're just as hot on Lake Ontario.