Well, your big motor may do ya better. Can you trim it up? That will slow you down a bit as will sea anchors. You can use 5 gallon buckets with some holes drilled in the bottom hanging off each side towards the front of the boat to slow you down too. But really, 2.5 mph is the slowest you should be going. I try to maintain 2.5 to 3.2 mph and we have been doing good. The guys I see doing better are going even faster. Maybe 3-4 mph or even a bit more. I have read up to 5 mph but I like right around 3. We have been working from 40' to 150' deep going back and forth till we get hits. When we get hits, we work that area over till it slows down then we hunt for fish again. Right off the green can and east off of west point has been producing. But locations change daily and soon if not already they will start stacking in the bay more. Get on salmon university.com and you will find maps and tips that can really help. Study hard, read reports and stay dialed in and dedicated and you will bonk some fish. I'm no pro but I do what the pros say to do and it produces. Big e chip flashers with white hoochies and superbaits have been working for us. We use scent on everything as well. I will be out there in the morning before work trying to get into a limit so get your boat back out there and watch for me and my dad in an old white 18' bayliner named Finlandia and I will gladly give any advice I can on the water. Watch for others catching fish and don't be scared to ask what they are using and how deep they r fishing. Even follow them to figure out speed. It works man. Tides will be great in the morn and I feel some big b-run fish coming!!! Fish on!!!

we've tried it trimmed up problem is the motor runs kinda rough at slower idle since its like 30 years old...lol...but at high speeds it runs great so its nice for getting places quick. thats funny you mention the bucket trick becuase my dad thought of that and we tried it twice...seemed to work well but we still went about 2-3 mph which i thought was too fast and the motor rattles the whole transom so its not that pleasant for fishing...been reading reports for about a year and fishing river too...just really wanna get on a chromer!!! you know...anyway thanks for the reply, like i said all help is appreciated and also good luck to u and your pops as well!

2-3 mph is fine for silvers. For kings you want to troll at a slower speed around the 1.7-2.2 is what they recommend. You want to troll faster from what they say for silvers. Where have you been fishing at specifically?

Kings is closed in area ten and many other places and for migrating kings, you don't fish much slower from what I read on guide pages. They say most people's problems is too slow. Resident chinook though, you troll slow for, when it's open.

I too own a speedboat but like to occasionally fish for salmon in the sound. I have a 23 ft open bow with 5.7 liter engine and a twin prop Bravo 3 drive. With the drive in the full up position, the slowest I can troll is 3.9 MPH. I've tried dragging multiple buckets, trolling motors, trolling in S patterns, and never did well for Kings, Sockeyes or even Pinks. Then I read an article about commercial fisherman trolling up to 6 MPH for silvers and a fishing report where a guy fishing for tuna at 9 MPH were hooking into Silvers. I decided to ditch the buckets and just deal with the 3.9 MPH trolling speed of my boat and this has seemed to work to my advantage. The faster speed seems to work at times when others aren't doing very well. I fished the last 5 weekends and brought home fish every time and that is with just 1 downrigger and never launched before 10am on any of those trips (I don't like to get up early). After experimenting with different setups, here is what has worked for me. Replace your steel cable downrigger cable with the smaller diameter woven fiber type (Dacron?) and go with a 12lb ball or heavier. The thinner cable and heavier ball will help you get down deep at the faster trolling speed. For setup, I found the Hot Spot flashers and the Ace Hi-Fly to work well with the fast trolling speed. I like to tie my lure short, 30" behind the flasher and go heavy with the leader 40lbs. I read that the heavier leaders give more action to the lure but I found that I lost less fish due to leaders breaking as compared to the 15lbs leaders I was using before. My landing rate also went up dramatically after someone suggested that after a fish releases the downrigger, just keep the boat in gear for a while you play the fish. Something I noticed about the faster trolling speed is that people have been reporting a lot of shakers but I only recall catching one during the last 5 weekends. I wonder if there is something to that or maybe it just plain luck. Anyway, the bottom line is, don't look at your fast idle speed as a liability but use it to your advantage.

Running faster isn't an issue for the silvers or the kings. The 3mph range is optimal for downrigger use as one can cover a good amount of water and not have excessive blowback, which allows you to stay close to the bottom, critical for blackmouth fishing. Basic rule for leader length at this speed is 3 times the length of the flasher for silvers and 4 times for kings. If you are using hoochies with flashers, experiment with extending the leader length a bit to get the proper action on your bait. For silvers, you may want to run 36" long leaders if you are using an 11" flasher, for kings run it out 48". If you fish herring you'll want to run them whole as cutplug herring tends to pull off the hooks at those higher speeds. You can also try the Fish Flash attractors with a spoon or Brad's Cutplug lure behind them.