Wickiup Reservoir Reports 2001

August 12, 2001

Saturday headed up to Wickiup with a boy from my neighborhood.  It was a slow day for us and from what I could tell others too.  We were on the water a first light and fished the Deschutes arm for a while with no luck even though we were marking fish.  Ended up fishing all over the place where there was still water.  If you want to know where the channels run now is the time to have a look see.  We found fish that would bite between the two arms.  We only caught 5 fish in 6 hours.  Tried several different setups but only caught fish with R & K's diamond ring spinner or their green hoochie.  We caught the fish between 30 and 17 feet down.  Four of the fish were 11.5 inch kokanee and one was a 14 inch Coho.  The Coho was turning color, but the kokanee showed now signs of changing.  I think these are not spawning this year, which hopefully means some bigger fish next year.  The kokanee were very fat and full bodied, and full of feed.  I hope to fish Odell next weekend....Brian

July 15, 2001

I have been hearing various reports from Wickiup about some bigger kokanee being caught.  I have wanted to fish there more often as I live very close to the reservoir, but have not because the fishing reports were not good.  I did a quick evening trip and was on the water at 7 pm.  I was fishing the new Diamond Ring from R&K Spinners behind a dodger with corn.  I fished the Deschutes arm in front of Gull Point.  I dropped the gear down to 20 feet and soon after had a big strike that popped the line from the release.  I felt a good tug before the fish was gone thinking to myself that that was a good fish.  One more missed strike that looked like a big fish too.  The third strike also released from the clip, but his one was on.  By the way it fought I thought I had a brown hooked.  It turned out to be a very fat and thick 14 inch Coho.  I wish I could have fished longer, but the wind was getting worse and more clouds were moving in so I pack it up.  I would like to catch about a dozen of those fish....Brian

May 4, 2001

I took my wife of 8 months, who had never seen a real live kokanee, on a exploratory trip to Wickiup. The
major concentrations of fish seemed to be in the Davis Creek arm, although we didn't get down to the dam
area. We only had a chance to fish for about an hour and a half before the wind suddenly came up strong and blew
us off the lake. I jig almost exclusively for kokanee, and it became nearly impossible to correctly position
the boat with the wind gusting and the anchor dragging. At least, I was able to teach my wife some of the fine
points of jigging for kokanee. And, she not only caught her very first kokanee, but also nailed a beautiful 23 inch brown on a red buzz-bomb. We totaled six kokanee which ran in size from 10 1/2 to 12 inches. The fish were fat and sassy, and considering the short time we were actually fishing, they were pretty responsive to our lures (fluorescent red and pink/white)...Jim

April 28, 2001