Oregon Miscellaneous Kokanee Reports 2001
July 14, 2001
Crescent Lake
The wind coming from the East, the waves coming from the West,
and the swells 2 feet high make for some interesting boating and difficult
fishing. We were greeted by the biggest dust-devil I've ever seen.
While putting the boat in I looked up and on the beach a dust-devil taller than
the trees and about 50 feet wide put on an amazing show for a few minutes.
Everyone was standing still watching the event. I was struggling to hold
the boat. We were on the lake by 1:30, opting to fish here rather than
Odell due to the wind. It was a good decision. I've never seen the
numbers of fish in Crescent like we saw on the finder Friday. The wind
made it extremely difficult to troll the correct speed and the swells made you
hold on to the side of the boat at times. We were turned completely around
a few times, causing tangles, but the fish were there and we caught many.
Twelve inches was the average with the biggest only 13". Normally
Crescent is noted for the size of fish and not the numbers. Not this
year. We marked far more fish here than at Odell the next day. We
did manage to land a 17" hatchery Brown that we
released. All in all a very interesting afternoon with very good
fishing.
This report submitted by Robert
July 14, 2001
Wallowa Lake
I fished and camped at Wallowa lake with my wife and friends
from July 8th through the 14th.Fishing conditions were good minus one big
thunderstorm that kept us off the lake one evening. I chose this week
because of the great trip I had last year at the same time. Very few
people are fishing for kokanee right now. Most of the locals quit fishing for
Kokanee after June as the summer heats up. Water conditions are much lower
than last year but that didn't seem to affect the bite. I was told that the
kokes were at 80 to 100 feet, and although we marked fish at those depths and
deeper, had no trouble finding biters at 35 to 55 ft.. As Brian mentioned in his
report from June27th, there are a lot of 8inch shakers that get hooked and taken
for rides without knowing you have them, but plenty of big fish are available.
The first two days of our trip we never caught anything larger than 14 inches,
but by Wednesday we were taking kokes 17 inches and up. My wife caught several
19 inch and one nice buck that was 20 and 1/2 that weighed nearly three pounds.
The highlight of my trip was a beautiful bright 23 inch buck
that weighed over 4 lbs. He fought more like a Chinook than a koke, diving deep
and taking long deep runs. I caught him on a pink hootchie at 45 ft. We nearly
lost him at the net, as my wife who isn't too experienced made a premature stab
at him with the net and missed the fish but got the trailer hook caught in the
net. I reached over the side and jerked the whole thing in the boat. What luck.
We had a big thunderstorm in the middle of the week that seemed
to really turn on the bite. Morning and evening fishing was great on both
Thursday and Friday with good numbers of large fish, from 16 to 23 inches.
Friday evening I took a guy who was camped next to us who was primarily a fly
fisherman. He found out what fun kokanee can be on light gear and he caught his
limit in a couple of hours
Here is what worked for us. Everything we used is tied on double
Gamakatsu hooks . #1 in front and a #2 as a trailer. Homemade wedding rings with
a #1silver plate French blade and orange beads and hooks. Pink hootchies and
pink hooks. Apex lures in pink pearl, purple pearl and red and white stripe. I
also caught a few on Wee Tads, with the hooks trailing about one foot behind the
lure and some on small spin and glos.
I also re- taped all my dodgers with a new prism tape that I
found at B.C. tackle in Oregon City. It is kind of a plaid looking pattern
that really puts on a light show when the sun hits it. I used mostly a 000
dodger. Last
but not least, the all important white shoepeg corn flavored with Kokanee
special scent.
I hope my trip to Paulina in two weeks is as much fun as this
one was. Good fishing, Kirk
This report submitted by Kirk
June 27, 2001
Wallowa Lake
Went over to Wallowa lake with a friend, his son, and his friend, who had
hired a local guide. I fished with them Monday 6/26 and Tuesday. We
worked hard but caught some nice fish trolling with dodgers and a variety of
lures. Most fish were caught between 50 and 40 feet. The first day
we had trouble hooking up with the big strikes. However, we kept 14 fish
between 12 and 19 inches. We had to wade through a mess of 6-inch fish to
find the bigger ones. At times we were dragging those small fish on all
four rods with out knowing it. Tuesday we caught more nice fish. We
kept 18 with three over twenty inches, 4 over 17 and rest between 12 and 14.
Both days we missed strikes that we could tell were big fish. It is a real
finesse game with those large Kokanee. The guide had us free spool the big
fish when fighting. This works very well to stop the fish from thrashing
around on the surface. When the pressure of the line is lessened the fish
drops back
under the water. Basically what happened was you ended up swimming the
fish to the boat. We did not lose one big fish at the boat. Most of
the big fish are already starting to change and get some color.
This report submitted by Brian
June
23, 2001
Suttle Lake
We had a little family reunion at Suttle lake Thursday, Friday and Saturday. My kids have had enough of catching Kokes so I spent most of the 3 days shuttling nieces and nephews out to catch a few fish, then go get another boat load. It was pretty fun, the fish were more towards the middle of the lake, and we averaged 40 fish per day, and didn't work too hard to get them.
There are plenty of fish up there if a person wants to limit out, that should not be a problem, but the size is not so great. If you are wondering about techniques, see my posts about fishing Green Peter.
This report submitted by Mark
June 19, 2001
Lake of the Woods
I fished Lake of the Woods on 06-19-01 with my sons. We caught
20 from 9" - 11" trolling up and down the East shore. We marked fish
from 25' in the early afternoon to 6' by early evening. We used homemade wedding
ring-type spinners, white corn with scent, and Seps small flashers and/or flash-lite
flashers with down riggers. There was fish everywhere. This was my first time
fishing there, and I saw two other boats the whole day. I believe the
fishery could use some pressure to bring the size of the fish up.
This report submitted by Brett
May 25, 2001
Wallowa Lake
Fished Wallowa Lake May 22 - 25. The first 2 days, we caught several small
fish in the 8 to 10" range. Finally kept a 12" fish late the 2nd day. While pulling the boat out the first evening, we ran into a couple that said they
had a large koke that they were heading off to town with to weigh. We later heard that this fish was 26" and 6lbs 3oz -- a new state record. Wish we
would have asked to see it. On the third day we finally found some bigger fish. As we were trolling along, my buddy's rod starts bouncing and his drag
starts screaming. Pretty soon the bouncing stops but the drag keeps screaming. I look at the depth finder and we have shallowed up so he must be
hung up, but he insists it's a fish. I start to turn the boat around to get him loose from whatever he's hung up on when I see the line moving away from
the boat. Maybe he does have a fish. His hang-up turns out to be a 24" Mackinaw. I try to convince him that these non-target species are
"incidental catch" and should be released, but he would not hear of it especially since I tried to tell him it was the bottom and not a fish. The
rest of that day we finally find some larger kokes and land 6 in the 15 - 19" range until a wild thunderstorm drives us off the lake. The last day we
start out jigging. Within the first 15 minutes, we hook 4 fish but only manage to land 1 -- a beautiful 21" specimen that I almost knock off twice
with the net. Later when the jigging action slows down, we switched to
trolling and we ended up with a total of 8 fish in the 14 - 21" range for a half days fishing. Once we figured out where we should fish, it turned out
to be a great trip with outstanding weather and beautiful scenery.
This report submitted by Kris
March 31, 2001
Detroit Lake
My friend Jim and myself went to Detroit this past Saturday. We got there around 7am and the water was pretty low. Didn't have too many problems putting in, it can be tricky this time of year. We started trolling without the downriggers, using 2oz weight, Flash-Lite, wedding ring tipped with white corn. I had a hit right off. Then just a few hits here and there. Sonar not showing a whole lot of fish. So we headed up towards the town were the river comes in. We drifted with the slow light current while we simply used worms and a weight and dropped to the bottom. We started nailing fish left and right. Not Kokanee, Trout. We were not expecting any kokes this time of the year. We did the catch and release thing for 3 hours or so. We only kept 5 and released around 20-25. Most were about 9-10 inches. The ones we kept were 11-12. It rained the entire time! We had fun, put the top up, turned on the heater, ready for relaxation! We also did this last year at this time. If you get a chance, the fishing is pretty good.
This report submitted by Rick
