Anyone fish for Kokanee Salmon?

[TreeTopFlier]

when we lake fish salmon up here, we run linecounter reels and hope you can stuff 300'+ of line on them. most of ours are spooled with 900'. they're FEISTY out on the big water and you'll get one up to the back of the boat, and they'll see the net, and bam... there goes 250-300' of line - and 20-30 mins of your time - before you can even hope to turn them and start over. they'd spool you before you can say 'oh crap' with an open face. unless it was huge. lol

watching your video, the rig you're using is VERY reminiscent to what we use for walleye up here. very similar blade/bead/hook setup to what you run. we dont run the dodgers on them for walleye of course, and we drape a big ole fat nightcrawler across both hooks. grandpa taught the grandkids all how to tie snell knots (using a cocktail straw) and make crawler harnesses when we were still in elementary school. It was the price of fishing with grandpa - we produced the tackle. I would have killed to have the nailknot tool i have in my kit these days



have you considered trying putting an eye on your spinner blades? a little dark eye might help test your krill theory.



almost all the bigwater stuff we did was with artificial baits - mostly spoons & j plugs but hot-n-tots & the occassional thunderstick have been known to find their way behind the 'rigger balls

havent been out on the big water after them in a few years - not since the bayliner took a crap on us, but we're trying to plan a charter for next summer.

Your in my head plant lol. Only I don't think I'm going to use the blade I think I will use a black bead. I have some glass ones that are like onyx, faceted and with an iridescent coating. That will be the TTF killer Krill 2.0
The question will be which end of lure to put it on. If my theory is complete and it is krill the lures approximate and the dodger jerking action simulates a backward swimming krill...think crawdad. Then the eye would be at the bottom next to the hook.
Too bad I have to wait to next season to try it. The good thing is I have a base line to test it against.

Sorry to hear about the bayliner...let me guess, old Force motor?

[Nic56]

Kokes are the goldilocks of the fish world, most times everything has to be just right. Ive learned a trick or two over the years but I still get schooled. They will make you feel like a genius one day and a fool the next lol

Well, it looked like you knew what you were doing. I thought the part about washing the lures was very interesting. That may be something I try out for myself. I've always realized scent can be a big turnoff and have always made an effort to have relatively clean hands. It never has occurred to me that what I regard as "clean" hands might not be enough. It might not make a big difference when the bass are really biting like crazy and key in on motion, but for days when they are finicky and often nuzzle or trail the bait, it could make a difference.

[plant.one]

Your in my head plant lol. Only I don't think I'm going to use the blade I think I will use a black bead. I have some glass ones that are like onyx, faceted and with an iridescent coating. That will be the TTF killer Krill 2.0
The question will be which end of lure to put it on. If my theory is complete and it is krill the lures approximate and the dodger jerking action simulates a backward swimming krill...think crawdad. Then the eye would be at the bottom next to the hook.
Too bad I have to wait to next season to try it. The good thing is I have a base line to test it against.

i would still suggest trying it with the blade in place. that flash of the blad turning round is not only attraction but cavitation in the water. i would not depend on the dodger for that alone. your theory of a black bead on the bottom has some merit though. what the heck, try both variants. thats how we figured out what worked well for walleye up here. they're nuts. one day it'll be orange & red beads with a dimpled brass blade, no eye. and not a single other pattern. then you cant get a bite on that color pattern for a week. but then you'll get a week or two straight they'll hit the same harness. basically we'd bring a bunch of patterns out & just keep switching patterns until you find the one that works, then pray its not the one you only have one or two of on the boat that day it wouldnt be uncommon to start a day of fishing with 4 or 5 different pattern's dragging behind the boat to find the magic one.


another thing if you haven't tried it already. try adding a diagonal stripe on your blades. we found good results with these style of stripes.



besides the foil adding a bit of flash onto your blade, you're also adding body pattern. we used similar material on our salmon/lake trout spoons and walleye rigs. we even did stripe with an eye on it from time to time.

Sorry to hear about the bayliner...let me guess, old Force motor?

Volvo Penta actually. The motor still ran. it was the lower unit that crapped out and when we tore into that we found out that the transom was pretty much rotted out too. It just wasnt worth rehabbing it at that point.

it was bad enough that the marina refused to give us an offer on the trailer until we had the boat offa it


she had a good life. that boat did a LOT of hours on the water over the years

[TreeTopFlier]

Kokes are the goldilocks of the fish world, most times everything has to be just right. Ive learned a trick or two over the years but I still get schooled. They will make you feel like a genius one day and a fool the next lol

Well, it looked like you knew what you were doing. I thought the part about washing the lures was very interesting. That may be something I try out for myself. I've always realized scent can be a big turnoff and have always made an effort to have relatively clean hands. It never has occurred to me that what I regard as "clean" hands might not be enough. It might not make a big difference when the bass are really biting like crazy and key in on motion, but for days when they are finicky and often nuzzle or trail the bait, it could make a difference.

I guess it is pretty well know that the amino acid L-lysine which is secreted by human/mammal biology repels particularly salmon. It has even been shown to put them off of migration to spawning grounds. Makes sense to me...In the salmon world mammals would be predators, seals, sea lions, dolphin, bears etc..

I found that simple green is awesome for cutting scent. The original kokanee favorite was always lemon fresh joy. I found using simple green by accident.
Kokanee has a particularly persistent fishy scent that is hard to get off of you hands fish cooler etc. I used to dedicate a cooler just to keeping fish and ice in because it was ruined for everything else even when bleached still didn't get it all off. One day after cleaning fish I sprayed simple green on my hands (cause it was there) to wash up...and noticed right away the scent was gone...tried it my stinky cooler and presto, fresh as new. I figured if it cuts their scent it probably cuts mine too so I went to using it on my hands and lures and it seems to work great.

Probably would help with bass fishing, especially when combined with known attractive scents.

[TreeTopFlier]

i would still suggest trying it with the blade in place. that flash of the blad turning round is not only attraction but cavitation in the water. i would not depend on the dodger for that alone. your theory of a black bead on the bottom has some merit though. what the heck, try both variants. thats how we figured out what worked well for walleye up here. they're nuts. one day it'll be orange & red beads with a dimpled brass blade, no eye. and not a single other pattern. then you cant get a bite on that color pattern for a week. but then you'll get a week or two straight they'll hit the same harness. basically we'd bring a bunch of patterns out & just keep switching patterns until you find the one that works, then pray its not the one you only have one or two of on the boat that day it wouldnt be uncommon to start a day of fishing with 4 or 5 different pattern's dragging behind the boat to find the magic one.


another thing if you haven't tried it already. try adding a diagonal stripe on your blades. we found good results with these style of stripes.



besides the foil adding a bit of flash onto your blade, you're also adding body pattern. we used similar material on our salmon/lake trout spoons and walleye rigs. we even did stripe with an eye on it from time to time.

Sorry to hear about the bayliner...let me guess, old Force motor?

Volvo Penta actually. The motor still ran. it was the lower unit that crapped out and when we tore into that we found out that the transom was pretty much rotted out too. It just wasnt worth rehabbing it at that point.

it was bad enough that the marina refused to give us an offer on the trailer until we had the boat offa it


she had a good life. that boat did a LOT of hours on the water over the years

Sorry I didn't say that very well. I plan on having a spinner blade for all the reasons you stated. I meant that I was not planning on putting the eye on the blade, just on the body. I looked at some of those walleye rigs (they do resemble kokanee rigs) and looks like they use a Colorado style blade, wider and better at slower speeds. I may try that as well.

If I'm right about the krill association, making the lure from orange (orange, red, pink work well in 0-30ft water) glow in the dark parts would probably be a lure that would work in 0-100+ ft of water, sort of one lure does it all. That would be unheard of in koke fishing. I'm probably not right at all

I used to have a Volvo penta on a 22ft Wellcraft I used in the ocean...I thought they were indestructible?

[plant.one]

I used to have a Volvo penta on a 22ft Wellcraft I used in the ocean...I thought they were indestructible?

the motor probably still runs to this day. as i said the lower took a shit (its an I/O) and when we pulled the lower we found the transom rot. took it to the marina and he said the whole thing was toast.


that little motor was the little engine that could. that bayliner was likely 20+ years old when it finally gave up.