Odell Report 5/18/09

[541 Native son]

A buddy (his first time ever jigging kokes) and I hit Odell today at 6:00am sharp. Pretty decent bite until about 7:00am, then dead for an hour. Jumpers everywhere from the front of Shelter Cove Lodge all the way to the back end of Trapper. Around 8:00am we started picking one up about every 10-15 minutes - pretty slow by Odell standards. Pink/pearl Gibbs Minnow cast to jumpers accounted for almost every fish. It was a yanking and cranking show all day, not a single fish of ours came from vertical jigging. We quit at 10:00am with 21 fish - lost probably 8-10 and tossed back a couple shorties - would've had more if my buddy's reflexes were a little sharper :whistle:! Surface temp. was 43-44 degrees. Strangely, I did not mark any HUGE schools of fish. Usually this time of the year you will find schools of kokanee 20-30 feet thick. The fish we did mark were everywhere from the surface down to about 60 feet. Marked very few macks under the schools we did find. The kokes were maybe slightly larger overall than last year. Ours ran 8-12 inches and looked about like everyone else's. There were close to 50 boats in the west end with us. Everyone seemed to be catching some including the ospreys and bald eagles. Most everyone we saw were flinging jigs, (one boat was doing pretty well throwing blaze orange 2" buzz bombs tipped with white corn) maybe a half dozen boats were trolling. The trollers didn't seem to be quite as successful. We did see one mack caught on the troll just after 6:00 that looked to be a little better than 24". Also watched an osprey take a nice koke from a guy just as he was swinging the fish into the boat. Those birds sure make a splash when they hit the water from about 70 feet up! By 8:30, it was warm enough for shorts and a tee shirt; the breeze started up at 9:30. Still 2-3 feet of old rotten snow under the trees at the lake. Take care, Ken

[Buck]

Good report, thanks.

[Kokanee Slow]

Nice report, Thanks.:cool:

[Larry G]

Thanks for the report! Sounds like this weekend should be fun!! :meme:

[fisherofmen]

Great Odell report.
Wish more were like this.:applause:

[royalfish]

Will be there is weekend and hope they are still biting.

[541 Native son]

fisherofmen Re: Odell Report 5/18/09
Great Odell report.
Wish more were like this.:applause:

You are welcome! I don't post a whole lot and when I do, I try to be as helpful as possible, speak only from personal experience, and tell things "like they are." I provided a lot of very specific info on Odell because it is not a "zipperlip" spot; there are literally millions of kokanee in there (plenty of fish for everyone) and it is a HUGE body of water (plenty of room for everyone).

Anyone who has not been to Odell before should know that there is NOT a lot of room to park if you put your boat in at the west end past the lodge (there is a $5 launch fee) and that it gets REALLY windy on the lake every day. It can get VERY dicey if you are caught out in that wind in a small boat (another reason I usually try to stay in the west end). Do NOT take this warning lightly! About 25 years ago I had a 12' boat flip on me in the east end due to heavy wind, whitecaps, and my own inexperience/foolishness/stupidity. I personally know of more than one person that has gotten seasick on this lake, if that tells you anything!

Larry G Re: Odell Report 5/18/09
Thanks for the report! Sounds like this weekend should be fun!!

royalfish Re: Odell Report 5/18/09
Will be there is weekend and hope they are still biting.

The fishing should actually be better this weekend and into Monday/Tuesday because we are coming into the dark phase of the moon and the weather has continued to hold out. It's gonna be REALLY busy due to the holiday, but if there is one place in this state that can handle a bunch of pressure/people and still produce, it is Odell. Good luck to all of you. Ken

[moknots]

541, thanks for the great report. I agree with whoever said that your's is a great example of what a fishing report should be like! I was up there too, concentrating on getting some trophy fish for a couple of guys who've never caught a trout over 12". Mack fishing was slow, but we managed 3, and the mack virgins' fish were 37" and 38". Saw lots of jumpers mid-lake on Friday, fewer on Saturday, and almost none on Sunday. Also saw lots of tightly packed schools of kokanee at 160 to 180'. I assume those fish were still in their cold water state of supsended animation- can't imagine what they'd be eating down there -- anyone care to enlighten me as to the validity of those ass-umptions? By Sunday the deep kokanee were moving up a little.

[The Lucky Duck]

WOW, now that's a fishing report.

[SCOOTA]

Wonderful information, thanks for a great report