Kokanee FAQS

Here are some questions asked by visitors to The Kokanee Page.  If you wish to add to an answer given, please e-mail me.  I will be happy to include your answer.

Question: Robert, what do you use most often to catch Kokanee on?
Answer: I guess it depends on where I'm fishing.  Generally, the fish in Wickiup hit differently than the fish in East or Green Peter.  In Green Peter I like to use a home-made spinner threaded on 6 lb test leader.  The usual orange body beads with a silver plated Colorado style spinner blade does the trick.  I use a size 6 Gamakatsu RED egg hook for the trailer and tip it with corn flavored with some flavor of the day.  Lately I've been flavoring it with the Kokanee flavoring sold in stores or Potski egg juice.   These two flavorings seem to work well consistently for me  When fishing East I seem to do better with a piece of corn threaded ahead of a piece of worm.  Both rigs are trolled behind a gang spinner and/or dodger.

Question:  Is it possible to catch Kokanee on a fly?
Answer: I've never attempted to catch them on flies but I'm sure that early on in the season it would be very possible indeed, because it is then that the fish are at or near the surface early in the morning.  I had a report from someone who saw someone catching them on flies in Suttle Lake one year.  Nothing since then.

Question:  Which is better trolling or jigging?
Answer: Boy that's a good question.  I would have to say that whichever is catching the most fish and whichever gives you the most enjoyment is the way to go. A good jig fisherman can really clean up during the right conditions.  I prefer trolling only because I enjoy watching the bite and it seems more relaxing.  Sometimes it seems like trolling can catch fish more consistently for longer periods of time, where jigging seems to have it's best and only time periods for action.

Question:  Robert, do you use a rubber-snubber?
Answer: Most of the time NO.  And I've had many times I regretted it too.  I use a very soft, light, home-made fishing pole with a downrigger most of the time.  I prefer to have as little weight on the line as possible.  I'd rather sacrifice catching a fish or two for the feel of catching them on light tackle.  I use a different pole for jig fishing.

Question:  Do Kokanee bite at night?
Answer: I don't know.  It's illegal to fish at night here in Oregon.   Anybody in another state with the answer?
Answer:  {by Dan Krouse} I discovered your page while searching for info on Kokanee. I don't know if you know it or not , but Connecticut had/has probably the best Kokanee fishing west of the Mississippi, maybe the Rockies too. Connecticut has been stocking Kokanee in various lakes for over 35 years. One of these lakes, East Twin used to produce Kokanee 15-19" regularly, 2 to 3 lbs. those days are gone however, because someone introduced Alewife's about 15 years ago. These baitfish ate a large part of the freshwater shrimp, etc in the lake and the state had to stop stocking Kokanee. In an effort to contain these baitfish the state stocked several breeds of fast growing brown trout. This resulted in a fishery of huge browns, but the recent introduction of zebra mussels. These filter out the small plankton causing a rapid decline of the alewife and the large brown trout. In the meantime, the state continued to stock two other lakes with Kokanee. One has a town owned launch that does not allow night launching, the other lake, West Hill does have a state ramp and allows launching 24 hrs a day. 

I used to troll with downriggers and fairly large Silver/Copper Sutton West River spoons for Kokanee at East Twin. Also a local fisherman used to make bead lures - small silver spinners with different colored beads and Luhr Jehsen Kokanee Kings - but the big spoons were the best for big salmon.

West Hill has a horsepower restriction on it in the summer so I can't troll there, so downriggers are out. Even tough I trolled for Kokanee, by far the most popular method because the need/cost for trolling gear wasn't there, was still fishing at night. Corn and or meal worms with propane/gas lanterns over the side was the method of choice for most fishermen. I still do this on West Hill and even use 12V sealed beam floating car headlights. You can't imagine the amount of shrimp, minnows you get under your boat. You calibrate your reel to the # of cranks from the bottom to the top, and then determine where the thermo cline is and reel up just enough to be under that level. The salmon have been smaller and this year they have been almost non existent. Early in the summer a few people caught Kokanee as large as 22", the state said these were salmon that did not spawn after 3 years. But there have been very few caught this year.

The bottom line is Kokanee sure do bite at night. They have a very soft hit, unlike the aggressive pull of the browns or rainbows. I believe the state has put some of the fast growing browns in West Hill and they have been eating the salmon smolts. Best nights were always new moons, because there was no other light except your lanterns. It's not uncommon to see 50 boats out at night fishing this way until midnight or later. Limiting on trout this way is almost like shooting them in a barrel, so it's tough to even catch a salmon because the trout hit so fast.

Unfortunately, East Twin was the source of all of the fish for breeding. Attempts to use the other lakes have not worked well. Connecticut has ceased stocking two other lakes with Kokanee, but has recently started stocking two of the larger reservoirs in hopes of creating a fishery, but more important a breeding population to harvest mature fish from in the fall.

Question: I just returned from a trip to Billy Chinook. Again I was amazed at the number of Kokanee that congregate by Rattlesnake Point. the water here is only 8 to 20 feet deep. Every year the fish congregate here, even when the water temperature is 76 degrees! I have tried to observe the same behavior in other lakes and reservoirs and have not been able to confirm this type of behavior. My question is: Why do the Kokanee in Lake Billy Chinook congregate this early in the year at "Rattlesnake Point" on the Metolius arm of Lake Billy Chinook? 
Answer:  {by ODFW Biologist Chris Kern 1999}I've got a fairly long answer, but it's pretty interesting stuff. The reason they gather there seems to be related to the way water flows through the reservoir. The temperature of the water from the Metolius arm is much cooler than that from either the Crooked or Deschutes arms. Most reservoirs result from blocking one major river and maybe some tributaries, Billy Chinook blocked three major rivers. So when water enters the reservoir, instead of mixing like you would expect, water from the three arms distributes according to what temperature it is. Since the Crooked tends to be warmest, water from this arm tends to float on top, Deschutes water kind of goes in between, and Metolius water fills up the deeper sections of the lake. So most of the warm surface water in the lake came from the Crooked and Deschutes side of the lake. This pattern of water flow is what did in anadromous fish in the system also, which is why I think it is interesting. After the reservoir was constructed, juvenile Chinook and steelhead where unable to find the exit to the lake. These fish follow downstream currents, which in the case of Billy Chinook resulted in them moving downstream to the dam, then following a reverse current all the way back up to the Metolius arm where they started at. Of course kokanee are happiest in the lake, so they did fine. Anyway, back to your question. Water entering the lake from the Metolius arm dives underneath the warmer surface water near Rattlesnake Point. This is also what causes the debris pile that typically shows up there. The kokanee are basically taking advantage of this cool water/warm water interface. They can hold in the cool water near the bottom, and make feeding runs into the warm water, where there is more zooplankton to eat. Usually they seem to congregate before the spawning run, but it probably also helps them pack on growth anyway so they may show up for that reason alone. Question:  What the heck is a Triploid? Answer:  I have been getting a lot of questions about triploid Kokanee. Some of you may have heard that ODFW is experimenting with a way to make Kokanee grow larger and not spawn (so they won't die because of spawning). Hopefully, this will help explain some of this, although I am still available for questions. Basically, triploidy refers to manipulation of chromosome numbers during cell division right after fertilization of the egg. By shocking the eggs with pressure, temperature (what we use), or chemicals, cell division is manipulated, resulting in three of each chromosome, instead of two (diploid) which is normal for most animals and plants. The result in the case of Kokanee and many other fish is sterility. The same thing is done with plants to influence their growth rates, etc. The theory here with Kokanee is that by making the fish sterile, they won't mature sexually and won't spawn and die, like they normally do. In addition, they should be able to dedicate more of their intake to growth, as opposed to developing eggs and milt. This is not real new, it has been done quite a bit in Kokanee and other salmonids, and it does tend to work, but it works best if we don't expect any miracles! Some folks in British Columbia have had some pretty impressive results, however. We have actually been stocking these triploid Kokanee into Lake Simtustus near Madras for three years now. The folks at Round Butte fish hatchery developed the protocol and methodology for this and stocked the fish. They weren't able to produce a lot of fish, and only 50-60% of the fish treated actually turned out to be triploid (this is fairly normal), so not a lot of them turned up in anglers creels, and we don't really know how they did or how they are doing. This year, the program was moved to Wizard Falls fish hatchery and they are expanding it to use in other areas. (The Bend District Fish Biologist, Steve Marx, would know more about where than I do, but I believe East Lake is one). I hope this answers some questions about triploid fish, but feel free to email me with others. I just figured I could head off a bunch and only type this one more time this way! Question:  When do lake Kokanee start changing color? Answer:  I don't know about other lakes, but at Lake Billy Chinook they tend to start turning colors in late August. We do some netting work then to tag fish, this year we were at it from mid-Aug to mid-September. Early on the fish were still pretty bright, but by the end of August they were starting to darken, and by the end of September, most that were going to spawn were pretty dark, with some being really nice and red.

Question: The ODFW plans on putting Triploids in lakes that have no outlets true? If so, why were "The folks at Round Butte fish hatchery" allowed to put them in Lake Simtustus? Are there other lakes with outlets that will eventually be considered for Triploid planting?
Answer:  {by ODFW Biologist Chris Kern 1999} I wouldn't say ODFW plans to only put those fish in lakes with no outlet, that's just one of the reasons they chose East.  It's a little different story up there because there are other lakes downstream of those high Cascades lakes that might be impacted by kokanee washing out if they had different genetics, etc.   It's just safer where those things occur to play it on the safe side.  We know that around 50% of fish meant to be triploid turn out to not be, so they probably can spawn, etc.  I do know that there are other lakes planned for stocking and I think some of them have outlets.  It's just a case of the risks involved with each.   For instance, Paulina is where most of the state's brood stock comes from, so we don't want any interaction risks (interbreeding, etc.) with those fish and some fish we have monkeyed with, because if it had an adverse effect, we would be in real trouble.   In Simtustus, there really is nothing downstream (kokanee wise) that would be impacted by fish leaving the lake, which they seem to do at a very high rate.  We have decided not to continue stocking (I think) those fish in Lake Simtustus because of the fact that they get blown out of there quickly due to high rates of flow through the lake.

 
Question:  What the heck is a Triploid?
Answer:  {by ODFW Biologist Chris Kern 1999} I have been getting a lot of questions about triploid Kokanee. Some of you may have heard that ODFW is experimenting with a way to make Kokanee grow larger and not spawn (so they won't die because of spawning). Hopefully, this will help explain some of this, although I am still available for questions. Basically, triploidy refers to manipulation of chromosome numbers during cell division right after fertilization of the egg. By shocking the eggs with pressure, temperature (what we use), or chemicals, cell division is manipulated, resulting in three of each chromosome, instead of two (diploid) which is normal for most animals and plants. The result in the case of Kokanee and many other fish is sterility. The same thing is done with plants to influence their growth rates, etc. The theory here with Kokanee is that by making the fish sterile, they won't mature sexually and won't spawn and die, like they normally do. In addition, they should be able to dedicate more of their intake to growth, as opposed to developing eggs and milt. This is not real new, it has been done quite a bit in Kokanee and other salmonids, and it does tend to work, but it works best if we don't expect any miracles! Some folks in British Columbia have had some pretty impressive results, however. We have actually been stocking these triploid Kokanee into Lake Simtustus near Madras for three years now. The folks at Round Butte fish hatchery developed the protocol and methodology for this and stocked the fish. They weren't able to produce a lot of fish, and only 50-60% of the fish treated actually turned out to be triploid (this is fairly normal), so not a lot of them turned up in anglers creels, and we don't really know how they did or how they are doing. This year, the program was moved to Wizard Falls fish hatchery and they are expanding it to use in other areas. (The Bend District Fish Biologist, Steve Marx, would know more about where than I do, but I believe East Lake is one).

Question:  When do lake Kokanee start changing color?
Answer: {by ODFW Biologist Chris Kern 1999} I don't know about other lakes, but at Lake Billy Chinook they tend to start turning colors in late August. We do some netting work then to tag fish, this year we were at it from mid-Aug to mid-September. Early on the fish were still pretty bright, but by the end of August they were starting to darken, and by the end of September, most that were going to spawn were pretty dark, with some being really nice and red.

Question: The ODFW plans on putting Triploids in lakes that have no outlets true? If so, why were "The folks at Round Butte fish hatchery" allowed to put them in Lake Simtustus? Are there other lakes with outlets that will eventually be considered for Triploid planting?
Answer: {by ODFW Biologist Chris Kern 1999} I wouldn't say ODFW plans to only put those fish in lakes with no outlet, that's just one of the reasons they chose East.  It's a little different story up there because there are other lakes downstream of those high Cascades lakes that might be impacted by kokanee washing out if they had different genetics, etc.  It's just safer where those things occur to play it on the safe side.  We know that around 50% of fish meant to be triploid turn out to not be, so they probably can spawn, etc.  I do know that there are other lakes planned for stocking and I think some of them have outlets.  It's just a case of the risks involved with each.  For instance, Paulina is where most of the state's brood stock comes from, so we don't want any interaction risks (interbreeding, etc.) with those fish and some fish we have monkeyed with, because if it had an adverse effect, we would be in real trouble.  In Simtustus, there really is nothing downstream (kokanee wise) that would be impacted by fish leaving the lake, which they seem to do at a very high rate.  We have decided not to continue stocking (I think) those fish in Lake Simtustus because of the fact that they get blown out of there quickly due to high rates of flow through the lake. 

Question: When do Kokanee spawn? 
Answer: {by Robert}They spawn in the Fall as other Salmon do depending on your geographic location, local strain of fish, and weather.  Generally they are into the spawn near the end of September and into October.

Question:  Are they more easily caught when they are spawning? 
Answer: {by Robert}No.  But that said, they can be caught.  The Males get quite aggressive protecting the nest.