Oregon Miscellaneous Kokanee Reports 1999
July 11, 1999
Wallowa Lake
I fished Wallowa for the first time on 7-8,9,10 and 11.Unbelievable! I call it WOWllowa. I caught 26 Kokes over 17 in. and 8 of those were 20 in to 22 in. and I got 15 Kokes in the 13 to 16 inch range. This is the truth, though I can hardly believe it. I was up there with Phil Johnson a California guide and outdoor writer. He did even better. We were trolling Apexes and hoochies behind dodgers at 50 to 60 ft. over a 200 to 280 ft. depth. Even on the weekend, I never saw more than 5 other boats fishing at one time. Most people there don't know how to fish for them, so they go for the planter trout. The tackle shop at the lake told me it was too late to fish for Kokes because they were to deep, nobody around there uses downriggers. As I said, unbelievable. Before you sell your kids, dump your wife and quit your job, I would suggest waiting till next year as the Kokes are starting to turn already, they are spawning early this year. The state record was set there this year and a new record probably would have been on the books for a guy from CO. but he barbecued it. It measured 26 in.! I will be there next year for a longer stay. Feel free to contact me if you want more info on this fishery.
Odell
I fished Odell on the way home from Wallowa, so I was kind of jaded. I fished 7-13 and
14. As it was windy, there wasn't much jigging. I trolled at 50 to 70 ft. Any standard
trolling gear seemed to work. In 2 hrs. I caught 15 on the first morning and 13 on the
second morning and about 4 fish per hr. after 10 am. fish ran from 11 to 13 in.
This report submitted by John Ward
July 7, 1999
Cescent Lake
Howdy fellow Koke-aholics; Just got back from Crescent Lake and only lost
two pints of blood from the 'sqeeters. We got there Wed. (7-7) and started off really well
@ 5 PM. Landed 5 nice kokes in 20 minutes. Fished 2 hours more and netted 5 more. We were
fishing in 200' of water @ 50-60'. If you face away from the dam and look straight out
over the lake, go past the point till you hit deep water. According to the fish finder,
they look like they have started to school up. Found many concentrations of fish. Getting
them to bite the next two days was a different story. We got four in the AM and four in
the PM on Thurs. One was 15" and out of our 19 fish, only two were under 11
1/2". Most averaged 12 1/2-13". Friday was poor in the morning. The hot weather
finally putting off the bite. One good note about our trip; if we would have landed
everything that hit, we would have limited. Lots of bites on Weds & Thurs. Marked a
lot of fish in 185' of water near the Boy Scout Camp on Friday. Getting them to bite was a
different story. I think that this lake has better productivity if you want good size fish
compared to Odell, but Odell definitely has the quantity (if the wind cooperates). I like
the bigger fish for smoking. Good fishing to you...
This report submitted by Jay
June 25, 1999
Craine Prarie
My dad, brother and I went to Crane for the weekend to do some fishin'. As
they say fishing was great, catching was poor. Dad started things off well bringing in a
19 1\2" rainbow(2 lbs. 6 ounces with the digital scale). Between him and I we could
only manage to boat four more trout and one kokanee(caught on a marshmallow and worm
combo) that mesured a fat 12 inches. Four trout for him and one for me, over three days,
unless you count the huge fish I had on for about 30 seconds before it hung on a snag and
broke off. The trout fishing was so slow that we tried bass fishing, something we do quite
often here in the valley. But you go to Crane for the big rainbows not to fish for
something you can catch anytime close to home( I caught three nice ones between two and
three pounds on a white spinner bait). We were desperate for something to tug our lines,
especially my eighteen year old younger brothers. Whom we were trying our best to get
hooked on fishing. For three full days he didn't have so much as a nibble. But on the way
back to the boat ramp to take out and go home I decided to troll a number sixty Hot shot
and rigged his pole with one. It took only five minutes for him to hook up with a HUGE
rainbow. It jump clear out of the water three times and was doing its best to strip him of
all his line. He was playing the fish on a five foot ultra-light spinning rod of mine,
that I bought for crappie, bluegill and kokanee, and he was having a ball. I netted it and
saw that it was barely hooked with one tine on the treble hook, It popped out as soon as I
touched it. It mesured 23 3\4"long and weighed 4 lbs. 14 ounces. Watching him catch
that fish and seeing the look on his face made the whole trip a sucess, and I think he's
hooked.
This report submitted by Doug
June 25, 1999
Crescent Lake
Three of us fished Cresent Lake, 6/24- 6/25 Two on downriggers and 1 used braided leaded line. Leaded line used half and half ford fender and red wedding ring with 1 Pautzke egg and 2-3 white corn. Downriggers varied from flasher with small green spinner with white corn to cow bells with glow hook and white corn. Slow Monday morning fished by the Boy Scout camp but wind kept us off the lake for the evening fish. Tuesday, slight wind but fishing inproved for the downriggers fished the Simax Beach area. Wedesday morning once again the downriggers were picking up the fish in 40 to 50 feet of water. Wednesday evening it was a leaded line show, weather was quite good fished from the Lodge to Simax Beach about 100 yards off shore in 100 to 150 ft of water. Thursday morning the leaded line was hot again, Fished were we were Wednesday evening, but weather had us off the like by 9:30 and on our way home. We kept 30 kokes, most in the 12-13 range but some on the small size 8-10, one nice 15 and 1/2 incher.
Others we talk to had good fishing also, Give Cresent a try I think you will find it has improved this year.
Fish and wildlife planted 60,000 about three weeks ago so good fishing should hold on
through the year.
This report submitted by John
June 24, 1999
Crescent Lake
Just got back from Crescent Lake. Fished Monday thru Thursday morning. Had
varying degrees of success. Monday morning was kind of slow. Fish were biting for us at
the 35-60' range. We were not marking schools. The fish were scattered. We were told that
they had recently dumped in the Mackinaw feed (60,000 planters). Others we talked to were
picking up fish with 2-ounces and 26 pulls. Tuesday was a poor fish day for us (3). Some
people were getting fish but they said it had slowed considerably. Wednesday was our day.
Hammered nice kokes (most 12-14", a few 10-11) at 40' in the morning and 55' in the
evening. We're using downriggers for two poles and one off the back with 4-oz. and leaded
line. The morning bite was hitting on a black Triple Teaser (Potzki egg and 2 corn). Tried
the flashers off the downrigger (a half silver/bronze cowbell with a silver/silver flash
tape dodger attached to that)-it was the hot rig in the AM. The PM trip was getting fish
off the back pole with half/half Ford Fenders on a red Wedding Ring. The pole that was hot
in the morning didn't get a strike. Needless to say we redeemed ourselves by limiting out
for the day. Thursday AM started well-5 fish in about an hour and a half, but the storm
started to come in and we were off the lake by 8:45 (it was sleep-in day!) One of those
fish was the biggest of the trip-15". It would have been nice if they were all that
size, but we were glad to bring home about 30 fish for our trip. Getting my Traeger BBQ
ready to go for a smoking session this weekend. Hope this report helps. Good Fishing! Jay
PS. Congratulations to Uncle John for winning our annual "Kokanee King" family
contest. I'll have the trophy into the engraver tomorrow (he beat me by ONE fish).
This report submitted by Jay
May 25, 1999
Suttle Lake
Read the good reports and decided to make Suttle Lake my first boat excursion of the year. Uncharacteristically, everything worked fine. I started by trolling half way down the lake toward the East end. I did mark some fish but couldn't find any biters. On the extreme East end in 35 feet of water on the North side there were large concentrations of fish. Since they would not hit trolling, I remembered that Suttle was a good bait lake with Potski eggs. So I tried a small hook with corn and eggs. The bites were fast and furious as 6 to 10 inch Kokanee committed suicide on my hook (no Postski egg - no bite). Unfortunately all the fish were very small and hardly worth the effort. Others I talked to reported similar results. The bite abruptly ended around 10:00 AM.
On the way home I was halfway down the hill when my pickup (136000 miles) overheated. I used my drinking water to get home. It makes noise like more than just a overheating problem. I think it needs a new block. If this is the case it may be a year or two till I can go Kokanee fishing again. So, if you don't see any reports from me you'll know why.
This report submitted by Robert
May 19, 1999
Suttle Lake
Went up to Suttle Lake yesterday arriving at about 7am. Just like several weeks ago the fish were concentrated at the east end of the lake. We tried several different colors of jigs and found they liked a pink and white combination the best. We tipped the jigs with white corn and red eggs. We fished till about noon and ended up catching 35 fish, most in the 10 to 11 inch range, with the largest 15 inches. Several boats that were trolling in the area were catching fish also, but didnt seem to be getting as many as those jigging.
This report submitted by Andrew Cox
April 27, 1999
Detroit Reservoir
Three of us spent 5 days at Detroit fishing for trout. We did see many schools of fish again at 180-200ft and we assume they are Kokanee but they are beyond our ability to fish for them.
We caught 4 more of the land-locked salmon I previously called Kokanee but they were only 11-13 inchers. The trout were really hitting once you found where they were. We caught 69 Wed., 56 Thurs., 35 Fri., 149 Sat.!, and 69 again on Sun. Total 379 fish! We used mostly Needlefish with a couple of splitshot and for awhile Triple Teasers. Just say NO! to Ford Fenders and all that hardware. Microlight poles and 4lb test make this kind of fishing a blast! All the fish were released.
This report submitted by Jim
Bradley
April 24, 1999
Suttle Lake
Went up to Suttle Lake on Saturday April 24th. Only the boat launch on the
west end of the lake was open. We didn't mark many fish at the west end so went to the
east end and marked several large schools. We anchored in about 55 feet of water and
jigged Castmasters tipped with anise flavored corn. In two and a half hours the two of us
caught 50 Kokanee in the 10 to 12 inch range. Judging by the number of fish on my finder
it should be a good year at Suttle Lake. Andy Cox
This report submitted by Andrew
April 24, 1999
Suttle Lake
I was up there today 4-24. We arrived at first light and found that the
hole by link creek campground had no fish. Found them schooled in about 38 ft of water off
cinder beach. We used chrome cast masters and were hooking them about 2 foot off the
bottom.
This report submitted by KKeyte1004@aol.com
April 17, 1999
Detroit Reservoir
Here's a 17" Kokanee we caught at Detroit Lake on Saturday the 17th. We were trolling needlefish very fast less than 5ft. down when this one slammed us hard and missed and then came right back again even harder. The Microlight pole with 4lb test was in 7th heaven! He ended up directly under the boat with us pleading for him to show himself before he got away- immediately he came straight up out of the water 2 ft. from the boat right in our faces! Ziiiiinnnnnnnnng-off he went again. Could've reached out and netted him on the fly if we were ready!
We tried trolling earlier with downriggers at 30-50ft because we had caught a couple last week at that depth but there were none to be had this day. We marked many schools at 180-200ft. down but we had great difficulty with our light lines and releases at that depth.
Thanks for letting me brag on and babble endlessly about fishing-looking forward to new reports on your page-good luck at Green Peter! Jim
This report submitted by Jim
Bradley
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