This was one of Tom's hairbrained ideas from when he was commercial salmon fishing in the early 2000s. The commercial technique for salmon trolling was refined in 2007 to accomodate fishing rods and off-the-shelf fishing gear which when combined made MEGA-BITE the top salmon producing boat of Monterey Bay.

The commercial trolling gear consists of 500 feet of 900 pound test stainless steel cable connected to a shear plate and 35 or 50 pound lead ball with "double stops" every three fathoms (18 feet) on a hydraulic contolled gurdie (a supersize sport type of downrigger).

Upon arriving at the salmon grounds the deckhand will lower the 50 pound ball over the side to just below the water surface then connects a scotty quick release clip between the first set of "double stops" via an AK snap. The deckhand then pays out 18 feet of fishing line from your rod setup (flasher and lure/bait) and inserts the line into the scotty quick release. Then puts the rod into a rod holder. Then the deckhand lowers the rigging via hydraulic gurdies to the next set of stops (three fathoms/18 feet later) and repeats the scotty quick release procedure with a second rod. Then again for a third and fourth rod. And lowers the entire rig to depths where the salmon are. Then... repeats the setup on the other side of the boat for up to another four rods.

We troll from 2 to 4 knots depending on the bite.

When we hookup a fish, the scotty quick release automatically releases the "hot" fishing line from the gurdie cable and the angler is now connected directly to the fighting salmon. All the remaining rods continue to fish and on occasion one or two other rods will pop their release with fish on! We have had triple 20+ pound salmon hookups using this technique. All fish were boated. It's controlled chaos and it's wild and it's fun.

The boat doesn't stop until we get back to the dock at the end of the day.