Anderson Ranch Reservoir, 2010

Good Sunday Morning all,

Yesterday's trip to Anderson was most worthwhile! I managed to get on the water at around 9AM at the Elk Creek boat ramp (put in there because my son-in-law, daughter and son, and my wife were on the river below the dam), ran to the upper end of the lake and dropped the downriggers to 30 ft. Location was just where the road to Pine comes down to next to the lake and along that shore to the next boat ramp.

The morning was calm, very little traffic - either fishing or pleasure boaters. Around noon the wind started to come up and the traffic picked up somewhat, but the fishing stayed fairly consistent with hook ups every 10 minutes or so.

Initial offerings were: line 1 - a slingblade trailed at about 18" by a small trout killer type lure; line 2 - a 4 in plain chrome dodger followed by a small spinner blade n beads. 3 ft lake trolls off each DR ball.

Neither was producing, so I changed one rod to a very small willow leave lake troll followed by a red wedding ring, and it almost instantly was it. After landing 3 and missing 3 kokes, I changed the other line to the same rig.

I ended up bringing 14 fish home (AR limit is 25). All were in the 10 - 14" range - not big, but I certainly brought more more than my last 3 trips to LP. And what these fish lack in size they make up for in fight - jumping, dancing on top of the water and generally putting on quite a show.

I finally quit around 3 pm, fighting the wind finally got the best of me.

Ken

Thanks for a great report, Ken. I have also decided to kiss off LP for the time being. I have always enjoyed my trips to AR, better scenery, cooperative fish, etc. I guess, with the terrific fishing at LP the last few years, I wrote it off. I will try to make it up there this next week. By the way, you were fishing in our favorite spot. Oh, and by the way, those slightly smaller kokes work much better in the smoker!! Mike

Thanks for the report. Yep, it's getting to be about that time to hit AR.

Hey Kodiak, maybe we'll see you over there this summer.

New Kokanee forum angler

New to site. Fished lucky peak on june 17 and had only one hook up. However, was able to fish wallowa on june 12 and caught a 22" kokanee on the joseph side of the lake using a dodger set up. Tight lines to all.

Great post Ken. We're hoping to hit AR this weekend. Anyone put in at Deer Creek yet this year? If so how is the boat launch? Hope to see you all on the water!

Bob

We landed 9 fish on 6-27. We lost many more, but had a great time. 5 of the fish we caught hit a lure that was only 5 ft. deep. Look forward to making another trip soon! Fish were caught all over the lake.

Anderson 7-2-10

Hit Anderson on Friday. I almost turned around when I got to Mountain Home, because it was blowing so hard the sagebrush was laying over! It was not bad at all when we got to Anderson, we had a few gusts but it flattened out nicely towards the afternoon. Marked plenty of fish, but they were very picky. We ended up with 8 for the day. All of them were caught on an Apex. Jellyfish color was producing the best. We also used corn treated with red Kokanee Fuel. All in all a beautiful day on the lake and we have a nice pile of fillets to grill this weekend

Made another trip to Anderson yesterday, 3 July with my son-in-law. The fish were much more picky this week. We came home with 5, but only fished for a couple of hours - about 9 - 1pm. They still seemed to prefer a rig with a very small lake troll with scale holograhp tape on the blades, a flourescent red/orange ww, tipped with WSP corn. Tried several different combos on one like, left the other line with this set up. Four of the five were taken on the standard rig. The five were brined overnight, drying now to form the pellicle, and will go in the smoker this evening.

After that we went below the dam so Isaiah could try out his new fly rod. Fish in the south fork were really uncooperative, neither of us had anything close to interest from the fish.

All in all, a great day in the Idaho outdoors. 101cheers101

KP

Had a great weekend at AR. Brought home 19, all between 12 - 14 inches and thick. I'll have a better post in the next day or two with a couple of pics. I think I'll start another post on tips to get thos darn fish in the boat! Had some trouble with that and lost at least 20 -25 that we had hooked. Oh well, at least they were biting and the maiden voyage of the downriggers was a success. More to follow.

Bob

Ken - we also hit AR on 07/03/10. I think we might have even seen you in the morning. Since you said you were with a guy named Isaiah, if it's the Isaiah that I know from work. (Isaiah S)

I was with my wife and 3 yr old daughter in the blue invader.

Anyway - we fished from about 10-4 and came home with 16. Kind of slow morning but picked up in the afternoon. Most were caught on a 4 blade beer can with reflective tape. From Curlew, we fished towards the dam. My 3 year old caught 3 all by herself about 10 ft down with a blue and yellow kokanee killer and wedding ring.

Had pretty good luck with shoepeg on a wedding ring along with some anise oil.

Can't wait to get back up there.

Yep, that was us. Isaiah and I stayed on the lake till about 1 pm, with 5 in the cooler, then went below the dam to try some fly fishing. The fish in the river weren't nearly as interested in us as the Kokanee. Think it was the result of the cool weather the night before and Sat morning. Very few insects active, nothing hatching, so we just practiced casting.

I at least got to initiate my new Kufa Kokanee rod and Caiman reel - caught 1 of the 5, while Isaiah, the Kokanee rookie, caught the other 4. Something about the setup he was using was really attractive to the silver bullets.

Ken

My guess is that it was the length of line that caused the success of your friend. When I have kids on board, I always "short line" them, and they will always outfish the other rigs. Try it sometime; it seems to be a much greater factor than color, lure, etc. Mike

Thanks Kodiak, I didn't think about that! While we were generally using the same setup and technique, I didn't pay much attention to any differences in drop back.

I've been running trolls off the DR weight, and the line off a stacker set about 18" above the weight, dropping back about 5 - 10 ft depending on what works best on any given day. Terminal tackle is ideally just whatever lure is working for the day tipped with WSP corn. At Anderson, the fish seem to prefer the addition of a small troll with willow blades and silver scale reflective tape ahead of the lure. I've had equal success with single blade patterns and a double blade pattern where each blade looks like a housefly wing. Remove the trolls, or use something larger and the fish go cold.

I guess that's the draw of Kokanee - every trip out is new.

Ken

Okay, our 4th of July weekend post as promised earlier.

3 July: On the way in we saw a very nice mule deer buck (5 x5) that was just standing next to the road. Of course the camera was all ready loaded in the boat behind us so no pics. A half a mile down the road another small fork horn buck. We had the boat in the water at about 0830 and after a small scare when the motor wouldn’t start we were finally on our way. It took me a little while to get the hang of using the down riggers (my release kept releasing early) and then finding the right tackle combo. Assassin spinners and wedding rings tipped with anise scented shoe peg corn behind a watermelon dodger seemed to be the ticket. Fish showed up between 20 – 40 feet with most at 25 – 30 feet. We only pulled in 8 that day but must have had more than 15 get off the hook near the boat. I need to work on my rod/fish handling a little more. Any tips for me would be greatly appreciated. We parked on the other side of the lake away from the campers and set up boat camp.

4 July: After a chilly evening in the sleeping bags we hit the fishing at about 0645 and had one in the boat right away. Didn’t have another strike for more than an hour and then they were sporadic. Things didn’t start picking up until about 1030. We put 11 in the boat and again, lost probably more than 20. Same setups as the day before did the trick. We left in the afternoon as the wind really picked up and made maintaining a proper trolling speed virtually impossible. I would like to thank the Sherriff’s department for helping us trailer our boat. They volunteered to help and we gratefully accepted. Getting a ‘toon on the trailer in windy conditions can be a real pain in the butt. We had it on in less than 10 minutes.

First time using the down riggers and the Jared Johnson Red Koke rods; I was very pleased. We had a great time and it was nice to catch a Koke after being out of the mix for almost 2 years. Again, all fish were 12 - 14 inches and thick. The ones we brought home will go into the smoker soon. Can’t wait to hit AR again!

Bob

Fished yesterday the 12th and had good success. We landed 17 fish all betw. 11-14" range. Fish seem to be a little bigger this year. We lost 10 more fish. 20-30 ft. range was working all over the lake. Caught all fish betw. 10am- 2pm.

Good report and welcome to the site! Mike