Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: dufflayer on May 11, 2016, 03:51:29 PM
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Is it possible? I want to give it a shot this weekend. Anyone have good results using divers and weights?
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Depends where you are fishing. Personally, I've never used a down rigger for kokanees. But that's just me. :)
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I caught kokanee using a 1oz sliding weight.
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This is a troll. ;D
Kokanee are so light these days that I can't imagine it ever popping off a rigger clip.
Many time you'll be dragging around a kokanee for some time without ever realizing you got one on. Often happens if you're pulling a willow leaf and drinking beer. Well you don't have to drink beer to catch or miss kokanee.
Up at Allouette I would use a 4 or 6 inch half silver/half brass flasher with a 4 to 6' leader and a small pink Dick Nite spoon baited with maggots. Slow troll works well. Pink on one side, white or pearl on the other side of dick nite.
I've never known anyone to use downriggers for kokanee but I can't say it's not possible.
I have tried a 4oz betty to get the lure down deeper - that was a costly mistake.
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Up at Allouette I would use a 4 or 6 inch half silver/half brass flasher with a 4 to 6' leader and a small pink Dick Nite spoon baited with maggots. Slow troll works well.
How did you get that rig down to a working depth?
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Lead line works great, put it on a large arbour fly reel, then a mono leader of that. I use it in stave lake with lots of succes, Lyman lures are great off them or any smaller spoons or spinners for Kokanee.
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Jet divers are a good bet as well . They are light and you can get different sizes for the depth you want to reach .
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How did you get that rig down to a working depth?
Whenever I fish kokanee, I try hit the early morning of sun down. Kokanee are near the surface and you're trolling slow enough that you don't need weight.
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A few days ago we were trolling for kokanee at Wood Lake near Kelowna. At the beginning (10am) we were actually trolling very close to the surface by using a Gibbs trolling spoon as a mini flasher, and hootchie tipped with shrimp on the hook. That worked well until about Noon then most of the fish we got were on the downrigger set at 20ft, so still not too deep. It was a bright sunny day.
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Thanks Rod. It's nice to see Wood Lake recovering.
Did you note the surface temperature?
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I can't remember the surface temp at Wood, but if it helps, we were at Skaha the next day the surface temp was 59.
Wood has a pretty high abundance of kokanee now but it also means the fish are not as big as when it had a die off a few years ago. All the fish we got were in the 14 inches mark, a couple slightly bigger. We had about 20 hook-ups.
(http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc90/fishingwithrod/2016/160509-1_zpsbwx0vuve.jpg)
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For anyone that's interested, I am going to give the Tacheeda Lakes system a go. They are (allegedly) one of the more tangible kokanee fisheries in the Williston drainage. The last couple of summers the road has been washed out, but some recent logging back there has opened things up.
I'm going to try and hit the water bright and early in my 12ft aluminum. Going to try the old faithful willow leaf gang troll > snubber > wedding band > white corn rig. I also have some mini flashers and little pink things I want to try out.
The lake is still very cold and high.
Apparently the char fishing there is outstanding too. I've heard accounts of 20+ pounders getting pulled out... but those are just fishing stories.
Can anyone recommend a trolling speed?
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I can't remember the surface temp at Wood, but if it helps, we were at Skaha the next day the surface temp was 59.
Wood has a pretty high abundance of kokanee now but it also means the fish are not as big as when it had a die off a few years ago. All the fish we got were in the 14 inches mark, a couple slightly bigger. We had about 20 hook-ups.
(http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc90/fishingwithrod/2016/160509-1_zpsbwx0vuve.jpg)
--THIS is just to confusing Rodney... (fishingwithrod)... fishing with Rod from (Rodney's reel outdoors).
--Sorry couldn't help it.
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Fishing with Rod has been fishing with Rod. ;)
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For anyone that's interested, I am going to give the Tacheeda Lakes system a go. They are (allegedly) one of the more tangible kokanee fisheries in the Williston drainage. The last couple of summers the road has been washed out, but some recent logging back there has opened things up.
I'm going to try and hit the water bright and early in my 12ft aluminum. Going to try the old faithful willow leaf gang troll > snubber > wedding band > white corn rig. I also have some mini flashers and little pink things I want to try out.
The lake is still very cold and high.
Apparently the char fishing there is outstanding too. I've heard accounts of 20+ pounders getting pulled out... but those are just fishing stories.
Can anyone recommend a trolling speed?
Gawd when you figure it out let me know... Fished there a few times during moose season, with zero success.
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Moose season might be too cold for fishing season...
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Moose season might be too cold for fishing season...
Ya but it's a hell of a drive just to go fish it in the prime season...
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Gawd when you figure it out let me know... Fished there a few times during moose season, with zero success.
Fished hard all day. Trolled up and down battling some pretty bad wind. I was using a variety of things, dipsy divers, jet divers, weights, gang trolls, wedding bands, apex, maggots, corn. Went in to some of the small bays to the south and you could see the schools working throughout the calmer waters. We were casting some croc spoons and getting taps but no commitment. Was able to hook up a few rainbows on my ultralight which fought nicely. I didn't much pursue Char as I was dreaming of a cooler full of kokanee ::)
All-in-all it was a good trip. From Mackenzie to the middle rec site it took about an hour and fifteen minutes. The only thing I left with was a sunburn and a dusty truck. I may try again in the near future if I can get a group of people that want to camp out there.
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--When kokanee are on the bite most anything works.
--A key factor is water temp mid to low 50's so if that is near surface temp then no downrigger required.
--On deeper lakes or when fishing year round the downrigger gets you into that temp range where the fish are active and willing to bite.
--On lake chelan they winter fish 85 to 150 ft down. I often fish Skaha 60=85 ft but have also caught at the south end where it is only 20 ft deep.
--This time or year with lower water temps there is a longer period during the day that near surface fishing is productive. I usually go to downriggers after 10 am
--I use downriggers so I can use lighter action rods when I get the fish on. I don't use snubbers so best to get the fish onto the rod.
--Scotty and others have mini clips with light release but I find these sometimes release.. especially when fishing deep which can be a pain. I use the chamberland.. magnetic release for deeper fishing when I want the light release to prevent dragging around a little guy but it sill has the power on to prevent the deep line from pulling the line out.