2013 Lucky Peak Fishing Thread

[Sluggo]

Clearwaterb...we were between 3-4 colors out with the leaded line and were using silver flashers with gold/red Kokabow lure. If each color equals 6 feet maybe we were fishing too deep with the down rigger. I had the down rigger set at 30-45 feet because that is the depth we were marking fish at.

Sluggo how many colors on the leaded line? My dad wants to go up this week and he is still old school with the leaded line. How deep were you fishing with the down rigger? My theory (not scientific just what I have noticed) is that 1 color of leaded line equals about 6 feet in depth. When I have 3 colors out, my downrigger is getting hit at 18 feet deep if that helps.

 

[Sluggo]

Kodiak...I am guessing my dropback with the DR is around 20 feet or so. We did try different setups on the down rigger and caught 1 using a Sling Blade and Hoochie and 1 using flashers and Kokabow lure which is what we were catching the fish with on the leaded line. Most of the fish were caught just going parallel to the shore. Thanks for the insights...I, too, hope I get it figured out so we can get off the water earlier!

Sluggo,
Yes, that it weird. We almost always do better on the DR's. What is your dropback? I go about 30 feet when I am 20' or deeper. I drop back a lot more when I get closer to the surface (except when I am fishing for coho in the ocean; they seem to be attracted to the outboard). I seem to be at 15' with 3 colors. Have you tried switching terminal gear on the two, to see if that makes a difference? One other thought....if you are picking up the fish on turns it might be either that the lead is dropping deeper or because with more line out on the lead, it will be going slower for a much longer period of time on the turn. So, it could be either depth or speed. Hope you get it figured out. Mike

 

[Sluggo]

JTM...Yes, I would love to go fishing with a good downrigger fisherman. I can always learn more. It is strange though because I have tried different setups on the down rigger (sling blades/dodgers with hoochies/squids/pee wees, flashers with wedding rings/kokabows, etc.) with the same results. Now at Anderson Ranch, we catch more fish using the down rigger than leaded line. It is very weird!

It has to be your setup, you need to go fishing with a good downrigger fisherman. I always out fish leaded line with my down riggers in fact I don't have any leaded line on my boat anymore. The fun of reeling in a fish without all the trolls to drag in is awesome, If not for riggers I would not be Kokanee fishing.

 

[Sluggo]

Thanks Mojo. I will try letting more line out next time I go.

How far back from the downrigger are you setting your baits? You misght let more line out to distance your rigs from the boat...just a thought. That way you can mark the fish, and adjust your rigger ball to the right depth by the time your gear get to the fish.

 

[Sluggo]

So strange! On Monday we caught 15 of the 17 with leaded line between 3-4 colors. We had the down rigger set at different depths between 25-45 feet and only caught 2. Very weird. Thanks for the information.

Sluggo your results are the exact opposite of mine in LP. I run two DR, one off each side, and a lead line out the back. We do a little better on the lead line in Arrowrock but at LP it gets a hit about 1/5 the rate the DR's do. On the flip side, the fish it does get tend to be a high % of bigger fish (both for Arrowrock and LP).

That is what I have never been able to figure out. Why the lead line is getting a high % of big fish while getting fewer fish overall? I thought it might be the further setback which might cause it to run across less fish that had been spooked by the boat passing over. However if spooked fish was an issue I would think it would be catching an equal # of big and average fish which it is not. I haven't been able to figure out why the lead line is catching less overall fish but a higher % of bigger fish. I have pretty much given up and am just going with it and enjoying the opportunities it provides me.

As an update, last weekend the fish had definetly gone deeper than previous weeks. I had been fishing 22' on one rod, 27' on the other, and 5 colors on the lead line (@25'). This weekend I dropped both DR's to around 32' to get consistent action (especially as the day wore on and the sun got higher in the sky). I can only fit 6 colors of leadline on my reel so I generally run 5 (the last color is my reserve on the reel) and as such it only gets to 25' or so. 4 of the 24 caught on Sat. and 0 of the 12 caught Sun. were on the lead line, well below average, figure it wasn't fishing deep enough.

 

[kodiak1]

Grabbed two quick limits this AM. Fished it from 7-9:30. 20 and 27 on the cable. Dragged a lead core at three and four colors all morning w/o a single bite. Go figure. Jack Lloyds and wedding rings. The green and red beaded wr with the wings on it has outfished the other wr's all season for us. Still nice and bright. Mike

 

[Budreaux]

Lucky Peak 7/26/13

Got on the water at 8:00 AM (had meant to get there earlier) and caught one at 8:15 AM, a few hundred yards towards the nursery from the eastern ramp. Using a pinkish hootchie at 25 ft. Had a few strikes over the next hour but no hook-ups. Switched to a red/orange kokabow on one of the lines and dropped both lines down to 35 ft. Caught 3 over the next hour (with a couple more no hook-up strikes). This was while trolling off the eastern shoreline around the point and towards the LP dam. Thirty minutes (or so) later, I had a double...and lost both of them. Broke my spirit, I reckon, cause I gave up and headed in. All four fish in the boat were 13 to 13.5 inches. As far as I could tell, that was about the size everybody else was catching.
I was pretty lucky to get any in the boat...I haven't yet figured out the knack of getting the tension set correctly on my downrigger line release clamps. Only once did the fish actually strike hard enough to release the line; on another occasion, I was able to jerk the line free (without losing the fish). On a couple of occasions, I had to crank the ball up to the boat and manually pull the line free of the clamp. Uff Dah!
Of course I would have preferred all 17 - 18 inch fish, but at almost any size, Kokanees are pretty fish. These four added to what's in the freezer will make a smoker full. Can't beat it.
Bud

 

[JTM]

Got on the water at 8:00 AM (had meant to get there earlier) and caught one at 8:15 AM, a few hundred yards towards the nursery from the eastern ramp. Using a pinkish hootchie at 25 ft. Had a few strikes over the next hour but no hook-ups. Switched to a red/orange kokabow on one of the lines and dropped both lines down to 35 ft. Caught 3 over the next hour (with a couple more no hook-up strikes). This was while trolling off the eastern shoreline around the point and towards the LP dam. Thirty minutes (or so) later, I had a double...and lost both of them. Broke my spirit, I reckon, cause I gave up and headed in. All four fish in the boat were 13 to 13.5 inches. As far as I could tell, that was about the size everybody else was catching.
I was pretty lucky to get any in the boat...I haven't yet figured out the knack of getting the tension set correctly on my downrigger line release clamps. Only once did the fish actually strike hard enough to release the line; on another occasion, I was able to jerk the line free (without losing the fish). On a couple of occasions, I had to crank the ball up to the boat and manually pull the line free of the clamp. Uff Dah!
Of course I would have preferred all 17 - 18 inch fish, but at almost any size, Kokanees are pretty fish. These four added to what's in the freezer will make a smoker full. Can't beat it.
Bud

Try the chamberlain release.

 

[Budreaux]

I will definitely give it a try.

Try the chamberlain release.

Hi, JTM. Thanks for the tip about the Chamberlain Release. I looked it up online and it seems to be pretty slick. Seems a bit spendy, but if it works as well as the ads say it will, very much worth it! Thanks again!
Bud

 

[Budreaux]

So does anyone know if there's a store in town (or nearby) that carry the Chamberlain Release Clip? I can't wait to give it a try!
Bud

 

[JTM]

So does anyone know if there's a store in town (or nearby) that carry the Chamberlain Release Clip? I can't wait to give it a try!
Bud

I bought mine online from Amazon, I got the stacker 101 that way you can run your flashers right on the weight and run your dodger and lure about a foot and 1/2 higher on the cable. The most adjustment you have to do is for your rod release, the fish release part is your preference. You will love these there is no dragging a fish after accidently setting the pinch pad to tight, I will never fish pinch pads again!!! Also when your rod pop's up there is no guessing it is a fish!!!!!!!

 

[Cricket]

Sluggo,

Like you we always do better on leaded line vs the downrigger. I actually like fishing with leaded line just as much as the downrigger. The depth your leaded line drops is in sync with the speed you are trolling. Typically it drops 5 ft if you are trolling around 1.2 mph. The faster you go the less deep it drops. We went out on Saturday the 27th and limited out. Overcast and the boats weren't too bad. Perfect fishing day. Most of the fish were caught on leaded line. Three colors out with the Kokabow Kingfisher, Falcon, and Kestrel.

 

[sawtooth]

So does anyone know if there's a store in town (or nearby) that carry the Chamberlain Release Clip? I can't wait to give it a try!
Bud

Go to Kokaneetackle.com and they will get one out to you in a hurry. Great people and they are a sponsor of this site.

 

[Budreaux]

Hi JTM, The Chamberlains sound great...I've ordered two of them, directly from downriggerrelease.com. I expect I'll get a couple of the stackers, as well, but primarily to allow me to fish two lines from the same downrigger. (When I have a second fisher in the boat.) Thanks again!
Bud

 

[kok-head]

fished right by arrowrock dam on 7/27/13 from about 7pm - 8pm, had 2 rods out long lining the surface with small sling blade dodgers, one rod had a small white flatfish and the other had a 1.5in pink crappie tube, lost one rainbow at the boat on the flatfish and boated and released 2 small rainbows and 2 kokanee on the crappie tube, one kokanee was 13" and the other was 15", with the 74 degree surface water temp I was pretty surprised about boating the kokanee, anyone else finding them so shallow right now?

 

[Allyn S]

Haven't tried on the surface at Lucky Peak but caught quite a few Sat. on the surface at Anderson. Water temp was 74.

Only fished on the surface because my son got a hit letting back the lead line while it was still on the mono leader. The osprey were hammering them on top so figured we would give it a try. Didn't get more bites than we did at 20' on the DR, but got enough that we left it there for awhile.

 

[Allyn S]

Fished Lucky Peak Sun. after going to Anderson Fri. evening and Sat. morning. See the Anderson thread for the self abuse report from there.

Fished for 3 1/2 hours Sun. at Lucky Peak to boat a 3 person limit. All the fish were still pretty bright and in the 12"-14" range.

That got me to thinking as we didn't get any of the "big" ones in the two size classes we seemed to have this year in Lucky Peak. Since I started fishing this year there has seemed to be two different sizes, the "big" ones that were 15-17" and the smaller bunch was in the 11-13" range. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the bigger ones had the first little hues of pink starting to show up and said so here. Didn't think much of it that the smaller ones were more silver as it was still early for all that. During the first part of July we were averaging about 25% were the "big" strain and 75% were the smaller ones. Last week that percentage started to drop to about 1 in 6 were the "big" fish, I also started to notice there were a few boats fishing (and staying) in the Mores Creek arm. This week we caught 0% of the "big" fish and more boats were fishing Mores Creek. This has all gotten me to thinking and I am wondering if there were not 2 races of Lucky Peak kokes showing up this year. The "big" fish were naturally reproduced fish from the ones that go up Mores/Grimes Creek and spawn and they smaller ones were the stocked hatchery fish that have different genetics and are probably gonna spawn in the reservoir. If this was the case that might explain why the bigger ones turned sooner and seemed to have left the main pool near spring shores and the smaller strain is still there and still pretty bright.

I drive up Mores Crk. everyday so I will be able to check, if they are 15-17" and show up in the creek in a week or two and we are still catching the "bright" 13" fish in the reservoir there might be something to it. Anyways, I thought I would throw it out there and see what you guys think. Might just be the result of my sun addled brain baking at Anderson the day before. Gotta think about something in between bites.

 

[avid_outdoorsman]

Allyn,

The logic seems to make sense. Certainly seems plausible. I think you need to go fish some more to test your hypothesis out.......in the name of science of course

~AO

 

[kodiak1]

I have noticed the very same thing. Also, every fish we caught the last two trips were males. Gotta wonder why? I haven't ever heard of the genders separating, like you see with warm water fish. Mike

 

[kok-head]

Fished Lucky Peak Sun. after going to Anderson Fri. evening and Sat. morning. See the Anderson thread for the self abuse report from there.

Fished for 3 1/2 hours Sun. at Lucky Peak to boat a 3 person limit. All the fish were still pretty bright and in the 12"-14" range.

That got me to thinking as we didn't get any of the "big" ones in the two size classes we seemed to have this year in Lucky Peak. Since I started fishing this year there has seemed to be two different sizes, the "big" ones that were 15-17" and the smaller bunch was in the 11-13" range. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the bigger ones had the first little hues of pink starting to show up and said so here. Didn't think much of it that the smaller ones were more silver as it was still early for all that. During the first part of July we were averaging about 25% were the "big" strain and 75% were the smaller ones. Last week that percentage started to drop to about 1 in 6 were the "big" fish, I also started to notice there were a few boats fishing (and staying) in the Mores Creek arm. This week we caught 0% of the "big" fish and more boats were fishing Mores Creek. This has all gotten me to thinking and I am wondering if there were not 2 races of Lucky Peak kokes showing up this year. The "big" fish were naturally reproduced fish from the ones that go up Mores/Grimes Creek and spawn and they smaller ones were the stocked hatchery fish that have different genetics and are probably gonna spawn in the reservoir. If this was the case that might explain why the bigger ones turned sooner and seemed to have left the main pool near spring shores and the smaller strain is still there and still pretty bright.

I drive up Mores Crk. everyday so I will be able to check, if they are 15-17" and show up in the creek in a week or two and we are still catching the "bright" 13" fish in the reservoir there might be something to it. Anyways, I thought I would throw it out there and see what you guys think. Might just be the result of my sun addled brain baking at Anderson the day before. Gotta think about something in between bites.

your explanation makes sense, the 2 that we boated were nice and bright and are either later spawners or are going to be next years spawners