Caddy Provided Above-Par Outing
You’ll never meet a more enthusiastic, knowledgeable and energetic fishing guide than Rick Caddy.
The 43-year-old guide is as busy as the proverbial one-armed paper hanger when he’s manipulating downriggers, changing bait and lures and guiding his 23-1/2-foot boat at Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Caddy, who guides out of the Fins & Feathers shop, was in perpetual motion when he took Don Ostlund and me salmon fishing a few days ago. He sat on his swivel chair less than 3 minutes during 10 hours of trolling.
He even impressed Ostlund, no slouch as a fisherman and a hard man to impress. When Caddy finally docked the boat as the sun went down, the two knew they were kindred souls.
The day before Ostlund and I showed up, Caddy was sure that we’d spend a lot of our time fighting 4- to 13-pound chinooks. After all, salmon fishing had been fantastic. But Caddy didn’t count on a 40-mph windstorm that raked the lake the night before our trip. The barometer took a nosedive.
Ostlund and I boarded Caddy’s boat at 6:30 a.m. The 200-horsepower outboard engine quickly got the boat up on a plane. We soon arrived at Driftwood Point, where Caddy decided to start fishing. The wind was still blowing, but not at 40 mph. Nevertheless, the boat heaved and yawed, making standing up precarious.
As the auto pilot on his 9-1/2 horsepower motor tried to keep the boat on a straight course and the boat rocked, Caddy rigged four rods with 4-inch-long herring. He inserted one of two 4/0 hooks through the herring and left the other dangling free. Then he attached noses of the herring in “helmets.”
Most of the time he trolls herring about 60 feet behind the downrigger ball.
The helmets, which are available in several colors, make it possible for an angler to troll a herring for an hour or so. Without a helmet, a herring will deteriorate relatively fast.
Although he prefers to fish with bait, he’ll fish with what works.
“Whatever a fisherman puts down,” he said, “he should have confidence in it.”
Caddy has rigged the boat with four high-quality downriggers. He can fish as many as five lines, but nearly always fishes four. Two top-of-the-line graphite rods are 10-1/2 feet long; the other two are 8-1/2 feet. By using a 10-1/2-footer and 8-1/2-footer on each side, he minimizes entanglements, which result in lost fishing time.
Amazingly, despite the wind, he had all four 12-pound test monofilament lines out in less than 15 minutes. He regulated the trolling speed at 1.5 to 1.6 knots an hour, a speed that makes the herring roll slowly.
A few minutes later a small chinook tried gobbling a herring trolled at 85 feet below the surface between Driftwood Point and Turner Bay. I brought it in and Caddy released it.
Ostlund and I began to believe we’d catch lots of salmon. After all, the men Caddy had guided the previous day had hooked 11 salmon, one of them weighing more than 12 pounds.
Caddy decided to troll a huge “shelf” south of Carlin Bay. The shelf, which ranges in depth between 114 and 119 feet, attracts the bigger chinooks. However, 15- to 20-mph winds made fishing extremely difficult. The 9-1/2-horsepower engine labored to keep the boat on a straight course.
Caddy has fished the lake so many years that he knows, without looking at his sonar unit, the approximate depth. But the sonar screen not only lets him “read” the bottom, it shows fish schools and individual fish.
He said he and his clients have caught most of their salmon at about 100 feet the last two to three weeks. We fished at depths ranging from 45 to 105 feet, but hooked most of our salmon at about 100 feet.
He’ll occasionally attach a Hot Spot flasher about 60 inches ahead of the helmeted herring. If the rig with a flasher attracts fish more often than those without, he’ll add flashers to one or two of the other rigs.
He said he doesn’t waste time changing lures. He stays for long periods with what he knows will catch salmon.
Ostlund and I caught five salmon during the 10 hours we were on the boat, but kept only one. To Caddy, that was the slowest fishing he has had since salmon fishing picked up in early October.
Thanks in part to John Friesz, backup quarterback for the New England Patriots, several football stars have been clients. Friesz, who has recommended Caddy to pro players, has fished with Caddy several times. Other well-known clients have included movie actors.
“Fishing has been fantastic the last few weeks,” he said. “Most of my clients have caught limits. December should be a good month, maybe even better than November.”
Surprisingly, a high percentage of the fish hooked in recent weeks have been wild chinooks, an indication there are good numbers of wild salmon in the lake. Hatchery-raised salmon have clipped ventral or adipose fins.
The bigger immature chinooks resumed hitting bait the day after Ostlund and I fished with Caddy. Four clients caught five salmon weighing 6 to 10 pounds during a 3-hour period.
Incidentally, Fins & Feathers and Lake Charters are the only outfits that provide guide services on Lake Coeur d’Alene.