2021 East Idaho Kokanee Report (Ririe/Palisades/Island Park Reservoirs)

[sawtooth]

More fish, less Virus in 2021.

[pollackoke]

IF&G posted a nice page on Rire: https://idfg.idaho.gov/press/ice-fishing-update-feb-18-ririe-reservoir

Those Tigers look like fun. Wonder if wearing a Detroit ball cap would help?

[Sunday Money]

Has the ice gone off Ririe yet?

Was out that way for work last weekend 3-28 and was surprised to see it still iced up at least by Juniper when I drove by to have a look.

Was hoping to get my boat out this weekend and have a test run and some fishing!

[Armondo]

Two of us fished Ririe from around 9:30 to 5:30. We started near the dam and trolled 2 flat lines and two DR lines at around 20 feet. We did not mark any fish and did not get any bites, so we started working our way upstream. We started marking fish near the floating outhouse, suspended at 30-40 feet, so we dropped the balls and started catching fish. We did best between 35 and 45 feet. Best approach seemed to be to stack the lines at 35 and 45 feet. No luck on flashers. They seemed to prefer a sling blade dodger. Dodger color did not seem to matter. Most hits were on orange hoochies, but we also got a few on pink. Gold and orange needle fish also worked. Action came in spurts. We would troll for a while and get nothing, then we would get one right after another. We even had three on at one time. Total for the day was 7 fish in the boat, and we lost at least that many at the boat. I think it may be time to replace the hooks on some of our favorite lures. Sharp hooks seem to grab better. Fish were all 12-14 inches, nice fish for Ririe. I hope they put on another inch or two before the spawn.
Water temp was 50-52 F, so I thought we would catch a few fish on the flatlines. We tried no weight and out to 100 feet with 1 oz. We never got a strike near the top.
Always fun to keep trying until you figure out what works.

[MMDON]

Two of us fished Ririe from around 9:30 to 5:30. We started near the dam and trolled 2 flat lines and two DR lines at around 20 feet. We did not mark any fish and did not get any bites, so we started working our way upstream. We started marking fish near the floating outhouse, suspended at 30-40 feet, so we dropped the balls and started catching fish. We did best between 35 and 45 feet. Best approach seemed to be to stack the lines at 35 and 45 feet. No luck on flashers. They seemed to prefer a sling blade dodger. Dodger color did not seem to matter. Most hits were on orange hoochies, but we also got a few on pink. Gold and orange needle fish also worked. Action came in spurts. We would troll for a while and get nothing, then we would get one right after another. We even had three on at one time. Total for the day was 7 fish in the boat, and we lost at least that many at the boat. I think it may be time to replace the hooks on some of our favorite lures. Sharp hooks seem to grab better. Fish were all 12-14 inches, nice fish for Ririe. I hope they put on another inch or two before the spawn.
Water temp was 50-52 F, so I thought we would catch a few fish on the flatlines. We tried no weight and out to 100 feet with 1 oz. We never got a strike near the top.
Always fun to keep trying until you figure out what works.


Thanks for the report. Looks like you are figuring them out!

[Armondo]

Thanks for the report. Looks like you are figuring them out!
Hopefully we can figure them out next time. That is the challenge. laugh hyst

[Armondo]

Three of us fished Ririe today. Ended up with 18 in the boat. All but 2 were 13-14". We lost a couple of nice ones at the boat. Dodgers and hoochies seemed to work best. We caught some on orange, but also caught some on other colors. There did not seem to be a strong preference for one color. They did seem to like krill and anise scent. All fish were caught between 30 and 40 feet. We caught fish from Juniper ramp to above the floating outhouse. They seemed most active from around 9:30 am to around noon. Then it slowed down until around 3:00 pm when it started to pick back up. We quit a little after 5 pm.

[MMDON]

Three of us fished Ririe today. Ended up with 18 in the boat. All but 2 were 13-14". We lost a couple of nice ones at the boat. Dodgers and hoochies seemed to work best. We caught some on orange, but also caught some on other colors. There did not seem to be a strong preference for one color. They did seem to like krill and anise scent. All fish were caught between 30 and 40 feet. We caught fish from Juniper ramp to above the floating outhouse. They seemed most active from around 9:30 am to around noon. Then it slowed down until around 3:00 pm when it started to pick back up. We quit a little after 5 pm.

Smelly Jelly special Shrimp Anise has always been my only scent needed for Ririe! It slays Kokes.

[Armondo]

Smelly Jelly special Shrimp Anise has always been my only scent needed for Ririe! It slays Kokes.

I normally start with a Shrimp/Krill Anise scent. If that does not work, I try others. Lots of times I never need to try anything else.

[IdahoKokeAddict]

Fished from 0730-1500

Hooked 47, netted 30.

All fish were 11-14.5". All were good fighters, some had multiple jumps out of the water once they saw the boat. Some of the most active fighters I've ever had. Spunky fish, for sure.

All fish were hooked within sight of the Blacktail Docks. 23-27' deep, color was immaterial, they hit anything we put down there. We fished pink, green, purple, and black. Orange Kokabow Mini-Flight and Green Mini-flight.

I was using yellow Pautzke Fire Corn, flavored with Atlas Mike's Lunker Lotion, kokanee flavor. Had some hits on red corn flavored with crushed garlic in the jar.

[Armondo]

Four of us decided to try our luck at Ririe on the 9th from 9:00 to 3:00. It was too windy to fish the open water near the dam most of the day. We fished around the Floating outhouse where it is more sheltered. Even there it was challenging to maintain a course and several times we had to really goose the engine to keep from blowing up on the shore. We ended up with 10 kokanee and 3 rainbows. Most of the kokanee were around 12 inches. One went around 14 inches and 2 that were less than 10 inches were released. We lost several at the boat. We started out around 25-35 feet deep and dropped to 35-40 feet as the day progressed. No one color seemed to produce consistent action, so we kept changing and never found the hot ticket. There was one bright side to the wind, there were no water skiers or jet skis. tooexcited

[MMDON]

Four of us decided to try our luck at Ririe on the 9th from 9:00 to 3:00. It was too windy to fish the open water near the dam most of the day. We fished around the Floating outhouse where it is more sheltered. Even there it was challenging to maintain a course and several times we had to really goose the engine to keep from blowing up on the shore. We ended up with 10 kokanee and 3 rainbows. Most of the kokanee were around 12 inches. One went around 14 inches and 2 that were less than 10 inches were released. We lost several at the boat. We started out around 25-35 feet deep and dropped to 35-40 feet as the day progressed. No one color seemed to produce consistent action, so we kept changing and never found the hot ticket. There was one bright side to the wind, there were no water skiers or jet skis. tooexcited

Bright sides are always good but the wind can make it tough sledding there.

[Armondo]

I fished Ririe today from around 9 am until 12:30. I would have liked to make an earlier start, but it was not meant to be since it is a 2 hour drive for me. I ended up with 6 kokanee, most were about 11 inches. I did get one that went 13 inches. Orange dodger with flash tape and a pink hoochie was the ticket when I started. I caught one, lost one at the boat and lost another one on the way in in a very short time. Then it went cold, so I kept "flipping cards" to see what got some results. Red sling blades with pink or orange hoochie produced results up until i quit. I had a number of hits that did not result in hookups and lost at least 6 fish that I had on briefly. I don't think they were hitting very hard, so I did not seem to be getting good hookups. I marked fish as high as 30-40 feet, but all the fish I caught were at 50-65 feet. The biggest fish was at 65 feet. I might try to get out one more time to see if I can find some of the bigger ones I found earlier this summer.

[Armondo]

We fished Ririe today from about 8 am to 5 pm. It was windy and the smoke was miserable. Water temp was 70 F. It was so hazy, I tried using using gold and darker colors when silver and brighter colors did not work. No secret weapons today. We caught one 15 " red kokanee, and 3 smaller kokanee that were either silver or just a hint of pink. I lost one more at the boat. We also caught a 12 inch lake trout. That really surprised me, but I checked the stocking records and they stocked 369 triploid lake trout last September. They were 6" last year, so they must be doing OK. It might get interesting when they get bigger.