Kokanee

[happybrew]

I took my brother fishing at Green Peter yesterday. He hasn't been fishing in nine years, and he had a blast. We only landed four kokanee, but lost a lot more, even with light rods and rubber snubbers. He lost a big one right at the boat, before I could get the net under it. Now I know what I probably sound like when I lose a good one! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] Most of the lost fish occured after I handed the rod off to him, because I wanted to make sure he had a good time. It was a beautiful morning. We fished from 5:30 to 11:00 AM. The bite dropped off considerably after 10:00, but we still saw some being caught by other boats after that. Not many. I just can't believe we lost so many fish! We could have filled the cooler up if we had landed them all. I chock it up to bad luck. Just one of those days, plus handing the rod off to him. But when I mentioned that I was a little disappointed with the number we landed, he told me that compared to Southern California, where he lives, it was heaven, being out under blue skies, surrounded by green, with hungry fish biting.

One thing I think might have contributed to losing so many fish was the fact that we were using Deep Six diving sinkers, and it gives the fish something to pull against that doesn't give. I've noticed that often the fish are swimming in circles around the divers, but the diver isn't moving much at all. Has anybody else encountered this problem? I've rigged up a homemade downrigger that I'm going to take with me next time and see if that solves it.

happybrew

[aye fsh]

That losing them thing starts wearing thin, doesn't it? Not sure how to prevent it. On the dick nites I've taken the factory hook and tweaked the point over so it's offset and on a couple have replaced it with a real small octopus hook on a split ring. I think it helped. Been hearing about some guys running a double hook and having them stay on better, but then you probably mess up the little guys too much to release. Also some people are talking about not using a lure at all, just corn behind the attractor.

When I take someone for the first time and they get one on I stand there and holler "REEL, REEL, REEL!" until the fish gets close to the surface, then have them hold the rod tip close to the surface to try to keep them from thrashing about. They seem to swim right with it until they get to the top, where the freak out occurs. I had to get a bigger net too, the little trout one I had was awful hard to chase 'em down with.

You should be able to get them all summer between 30 - 45 ft. You can easily get down there with a 4 oz. wt using ford fenders, and a 2 oz. will be plenty for a mooching dodger. Before I had downriggers I would go around to the back side of the island where it was 45 ft. deep and troll around letting line out until I hit the bottom. then I'd mark my line and KNOW for sure where my stuff was. Be careful though, there are stumps down there!

Sounds like you had a great time with your brother, even though you didn't send him home with a cooler full. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pilar]

Happybrew, we had a lot of success with an inline trolling weight last weekend. 2oz to 4oz seems to work best at 10 to 15 pulls. The rig was weight, snubber, 4/0 dodger, Chartreuse Dick Nite. Oh yeah and shoepeg corn. The other thing that helped was letting them run around a bit deep before cranking them up to the boat.
We hit 14 and boated 10 Kokanee and 2 rainbows. The two that got off did so at the boat under the outdrive.

Downriggers are good too but you need a light release or you end up dragging fish around until they pop off.

[Hookset]

Fished GP yesterday, weather was hot and fishing was not.

We managed just 9 fish, let 5 small 8-9 inchers go and missed several strikes and lost apx. 6 near the boat. The bite never really took off. Maybe because we fished the middle of the day, not sure.

I use downriggers and could not find any kokes from 30 feet and up. Caught all the kokes from 35 to 60 feet. Just kept moving down until we found fish. The most consistent action was at 50 feet. Fished 3 poles so I bracketed the depth, like 30, 40, 50 and stayed with this since I could not find a pattern that worked.

Maybe the 66 to 68 degree surface water temp. had something to do with it and the very bright hot sun. I noticed the water level must have dropped another 2 feet over night.

The fish we did keep are very nice. Caught 1, 15 incher, long and skinny and 4, 14 inchers nice and plump. The others we kept between 10 and 12. Some really quality fish up at GP this year.

Just hope the water stays up so the boat ramps stay useable.

hook

[FallRiverGuy]

I know about the frustration of loosing lots of fish. My first trip to Paulina earlier this year I hooked 15 and landed 2! [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] I was going bonkers. I checked into ways of keeping these fish on the hook and found some methods from other Kokanee fishermen. The first is to switch to a bigger hook. These seem not to bee hook shy. They do after all slam a big ol treble hook on a jig. One person I talk with used a #1 hook and claims that the hook penetrates further in the mouth where it is stronger. Another option is to use two hooks in tandem, just like when using plug-cut herring. Keep the distance short, no more than ¾ inches apart. If you find an Apex lure (Kokanee special) they come rigged this way. I have a better landing/hooking ratio with this hook arrangement. But so far this year I have had the best luck with a double hook. I received these as a sample from R&K spinners. I like them better than a treble hook because it is easier for the hooks to get further in the mouth. When both hooks are set, it is very hard to them to pull out. There is also less ability for the fish to spin around two hooks creating a hole where the hook can pull out.

Aye fsh is right, most of the time the fish waits until it get to the surface to go ballistic. [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] The fish spin and twist like mad. I have caught fish with the hook out of the mouth, but about 10 raps of line around the head. If you drop the tip of your rod into the water forcing the fish from the surface it can stop the fish from spinning so much. I second the big net with a long handle idea.

If you want to fish for Kokanee a downrigger is a nice plus. I have noticed that even the drag from a 4/0 dodger can provide enough drag for the fish to work free. I use an 8.5 foot rod (2-6 lb line rating), which acts like a rubber snubber, which I prefer not to use, and still lose more fish with a dodger inline that without one. You can get a fair downrigger for about $100. For two years I fashioned a homemade downrigger with the butt end of a rod mounted with an old Penn reel, which I loaded with 50 lb line and weighted with three 16 oz keel sinkers. It worked, but it was very hard to use compared with a proper downrigger. If you attach the line release to the swivel that is connected to the ball and run a 6 inch line to the release it allows the rod to dance when a fish is hooked.

[ 06-01-2001: Message edited by: FallRiverGuy ]

[Lipripper]

We fished Wickiup a couple of years ago using a store bought wedding ring spinner and lost about 80% of the fish we hooked. The store bought rig has too small of hooks. After changing the hook to a #8 worm hook we increased our catch to lost ratio to about 8 out of 10. The larger hook made the difference. I think the hook size was #8. Another thing that we do at Green Peter is attach the flashers to the downrigger ball and attach the line about 3 feet above the ball. This way you can just play with the fish. Fall River Guy has the right idea by using longer releases from the cable. This allows the rod to dance a lottle when the fish hits. We use off shore releases set very light. Hope this helps.

[AllThumz]

I haven't fished Green Peter since last summer, but lipripper appears to have the right idea: change the hooks on the Wedding Rings. I just retied several with #4 octopus hooks for an experiment.

One thing that I found out: don't waste your time with leaded line - the stuff weighs more than the fish! It's nearly impossible to tell if there's a fish on until you've reeled in everything.

John [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[happybrew]

Thanks for all the tips! I made my own wedding rings, with size 6 hooks. The spoons had the hooks they came with. I'm going to use the downrigger next time, with the dodger attached to the weight. Do the fish move to different parts of the lake when the sun comes up? We were working the same area pretty good, getting hits with every pass, then they disappeared and we couldn't get into them again, but people around us were still getting sporadic bites, nothing to write home to Mom about. So I don't know if they moved on us, or just quit biting. Last week I went over fish I was marking on the fish finder, fishing at their depth, but not hooking anything after the sun came up. I know a lot of people say it doesn't matter, but that hasn't been my experience so far. But my experience is limited. Still trying to figure out how those kokanee think.

happybrew

[CAGEY]

happybrew. Iam going to share a way you can stop losing so many kokes. Instead of using the store bought snubbers go to a hobby shop and get yourself some of the long rubber bands that they use for model airplanes. They are strong and have excellent stretch to them. Use some ring clips on each end and you can still attach swivels, Works really great and you will hardley ever lose one. I use them in Odell all the time and would not fish for a koke without them. They have a very soft mouth.They can be a little hard to find sometimes but any big hobby shop that has the homemade planes should have them. Hope this helps you out. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[happybrew]

I was using homemade snubbers, but it was rubber tubing, not rubber bands. I tried store-bought snubbers once, and threw them out after an hour of using them. I'll have to try yours. Thanks for the suggestion.

happybrew

[Snapset]

I too fished Green Peter this week. Right off the boat ramp we got one, then a fish about every 10 minutes after that. We eventually put the downriggers away because it seemed that the only 2 poles that were hooking up were using 4 oz. banana sinkers to get down. The best level seemed to be between 28 and 45 pulls. It was overcast and sometimes rainy, they may be deeper when it is sunny. This is the biggest I have ever seen the Kokanee at GP. They averaged an honest 13" with 1 @ 15" and most 14".The fish are very fat also. We also had the best landing to hookup ratio I have ever had, with only 1 fish getting off at the boat and maybe 5 missed hits. The 2 poles that were catching the most fish were using 5 bladed silver plated willow leaf trolls. Behind these was a heavy rubber band that came off of an asparagus bundle(for a snubber) 5 feet of 4 pound ultragreen, chrome bladed red wedding ring, and a red #6 Gama hook with plain white corn. Sometimes I filled the jeweled band with power bait and this seemed to help. I can't wait to get back,
Mark

[FallRiverGuy]

The sun, and the wind I think, all affect where Kokanee congregate. When the sun hits the water and the bite stops a change in lures may do the trick to get back into the bite.

I have had some of my best fishing at GP during the middle of the day. I have found that switching to an orange wedding ring has been more effective than red during the day. I have found wedding ring bodies at the Fisherman’s corner in Philomath. A rainbow colored superduper, or a Kokanee king or Needle fish with white on it, has also produced in the middle of the day. I have often wondered if the blade on the wedding ring may discourage bites. Some people use just beads on a short leader with a dodger so you may try taking the blade off of the wedding ring.

I think when the bite goes off trying other lures, colors, and the like may get you back in the bite. Over Memorial weekend, my friend was out fishing me and we were both using wedding rings. It finally occurred to me that his had a gold blade not nickel. When I switched to a gold blade I started to get bites similar to my friend. I also caught fish without any blade on the wedding ring, but still not as productive as with the gold blade. Very subtle changes do make a difference.

At times the fish seem to school down near the dam in the middle of the day so you may want to check there.

[novice]

Fall
You are right. You must be willing to change colors and approaches throughout the day.
We put the hurt on the koks(as did many others) @ Odell over memorial weekend.
Chrome bladed wedding rings were the ticket until about 6:30am. Then like magic the chrome fell off and the gold seemed to be the only thing that would catch.
novice