2019 Blue Mesa Kokanee Fishing Report

[kokanee64]

Sounds to me like you are getting it dialed in Kokaneed. We haven't been seeing schools of salmon; I think that when we motor over shallow fish they move to the side. In you kayak, you probably go right over them without disturbing them, so you can see the schools. Very interesting. Yes, these are my favorite fish to catch because they are such great fighters and they taste so good. I guess if you are a salmon that gets counted as really bad luck. Hope you have great luck.

 

[kokaneeds]

It is bad luck for them indeed Any time I get on them I am thrilled, if they move it is bad luck for me because top speed is 3knots and I can’t keep that up for long. It is a big body of water to scout!
I noticed in one of your earlier posts that you are using bead patterns with a lot of contrast, like black and white. Is that an early season trend for you or do you prefer that throughout the season?

 

[kokehead21]

Hey guys, wanted to post since I said I would give an update for the 4th of July weekend. We didn’t end up going to Blue Mesa since the reports were hit or miss and it’s a long drive. We ended up going to Navajo lake and got into Kokanee there. My wife and I got our limits. Hope to make it to Blue Mesa soon! Thanks for all the information kokanee64!

 

[kamartin68]

When I lived up in Wyoming on the flaming gorge most of the seasoned fisherman would say in big water years like this one the fishing usually sucked because the water was never very stable. Makes me wonder 2 things, 1) How many salmon may have died last year with the low lake levels and probably low oxygen levels that we don't know about? 2) If water managers can manage to keep the lake relatively full this year will next year be a banner year if they can keep the lake stable?

 

[kokaneeds]

I am really curious how the runoff and fluctuation effect the plankton. Sediment = nutrients = phytoplankton = zooplankton is my basic understanding. If water clarity gets very poor do the plankton end up entirely in the upper column to get sunlight? And if there is a balance throughout the few remaining months for the kokes to put on weight is it already a setup for a banner year?
If anyone has been on Blue this week I would love to hear if you had any success, I am going to try to get there Saturday for a morning and take a visiting kid.
Tight Lines

 

[kamartin68]

I never thought about the plankton being up in the top of the water column, it makes a lot of sense though.

 

[kokaneeds]

Well, at least the weather was beautiful One Kokanee for 5+ hrs paddling around. I don’t know where in the heck the fish are, but I can tell you there aren’t a lot between elk and dry creeks. Lots of algae, the lake certainly has plenty of nutrients, but even the trout are acting uninterested.
Salmon seem to be heading deeper, 25-50ft seemed to be the trend.
I hope somebody got something figured out today!

 

[kokanee64]

After over a week without fishing we were on the water early Sunday morning; 1 kokanee, 3-4 small macs and one brown. It was pretty disappointing.

Last Wednesday on an early morning trip to Montrose we noticed 10 - 12 boats, including 3 guide boats, fishing between Red Creek Islands and the middle bridge, so this morning we started there. In 45 minutes we didn't have a bite and no other boats joined us. We pulled in everything and went to the Iron Works. We found 6 - 8 boats and a herd of 20 big horn sheep near the highway. We caught some macs and finally picked up the single koke in the Bay of Chickens.

The single koke was caught on LC, 1.5 - 2 colors, so it appears the kokes are still shallow. We tried deeper to see if the fish between 30 and 40 feet were trout or salmon. They were trout. We see a few fish between 70 and 90 feet but nothing that looks like the typical schooling behavior for this time year.

On the good side of the ledger, the lake is now essentially full, at 97% of capacity and 3ish feet below full pool. We are up 80 ft from the low point this spring. Did all the run off cause the poor fishing? Was the problem caused by low water and low oxygen last fall and winter? Did a bunch of hungry macs decimate the year's spawners a couple of years back when they were minnows? Maybe all these things came together in a perfect storm that produced the worst salmon fishing in 20 years. My big fear now is that we won't have the necessary 15,000 spawners needed for eggs and milt this fall.

 

[kokaneeds]

Kokanee64
Thank you for the report, I am glad that you sorted out the marks at mid-range, I caught one bow down there but assumed it was mostly Kokanee.
I hope that the spawn is still strong and the fish are just dispersed right now, have we had good years for 2nd and 3rd year adults coming up next year in your opinion?

 

[kokanee64]

Kokaneeds,

Pretty sure I haven't sorted out the depth issue. Since fishing has been so slow on the lake, I was in Gene Taylor sporting goods in Gunny this afternoon to "talk fishing." One of the young dudes recommended blue squid and dodgers (what I've had luck with too) fished between 20 and 30 ft. We've been trying this range, as well as 30 - 40, when extremely shallow hasn't been working. We catch a lot more small lakers than Kokanee regardless of depth, so it is hard to say what the pattern is right now. I'm thinking there aren't very many fish in this year's spawning cohort but we may not know until we see them or not in the river on their way to the hatchery. Good Luck -- we all need it this year.

 

[furmaster]

Hey fellas, been a long time lurker here. I have been following these Blue Mesa Kokanee reports for the last few years. Ive never posted on the topic because Im new to trolling for kokanee and didnt feel I had anything to contribute. Maybe I should have been posting the success I have had this year which sounds about par with everything that is being shared. Basically every color I have, every dodger I have, 5-2.0mph and the depths I see them at. Thats about it. I think I just get lucky once in a while. I have found no hot pattern although I think my pinks, purples have done best and 90% of my fish I have caught are right at 1.2 mph.

The main reason I am posting today is I think I can help with the concern about the # of kokes. Obviously the kokanee are very shallow. I seem to see them from surface to about 15ft.
I havent been out there in 10 days so that may have changed a bit. Here is my contribution if it helps. I have no idea about the sonar you guys are using, but this last year I took the jump into garmin panoptix. I have the PS22 transducer on a pole I can spin around and look 360 degrees and over 100 feet away. When I do find kokanee, It is pretty obvious. They have a different return because of their air bladders. These schooled fish are not "stacking" in this shallow water they are in schools but spread out. With regular sonar on whatever type of downview the unit has, even with a large cone angle, there is no way to see these fish. Sideview might be pretty handy but for me, shallow fish in deep water is hard for me to see in side view. I have no idea why these fish are being so finicky this year, most likely the unstable water and murkiness, but like I said, I am pretty new to this. To be able to consistently see these shallow fish with a down facing cone they would have to not flee from boat. I promise they do!!! I can spot a school and troll straight at them. When the boat is about 20ft or so away they will either dive down or flare off to the side. When I know I have gone over them I will turn my transducer to back and they will come back to pretty much where they were when I am about 40ft past them. I can watch my lure/dodger go right throught them, I can watch them turn and follow my lure, which is great. I have triggered some hits with a speed change or drop my pole and let my lure fall, then pull up and speed up. Anyways, being new to this I am not sure exactly how many fish I should be seeing, but I can say I can see at least 80% more fish on my screen with my panoptix than show up with my 2d sonar, I think the fish are there, just not in the mood to go in my cooler.

Syver

 

[Dorado]

Hey fellas, been a long time lurker here. I have been following these Blue Mesa Kokanee reports for the last few years. Ive never posted on the topic because Im new to trolling for kokanee and didnt feel I had anything to contribute. Maybe I should have been posting the success I have had this year which sounds about par with everything that is being shared. Basically every color I have, every dodger I have, 5-2.0mph and the depths I see them at. Thats about it. I think I just get lucky once in a while. I have found no hot pattern although I think my pinks, purples have done best and 90% of my fish I have caught are right at 1.2 mph.

The main reason I am posting today is I think I can help with the concern about the # of kokes. Obviously the kokanee are very shallow. I seem to see them from surface to about 15ft.
I havent been out there in 10 days so that may have changed a bit. Here is my contribution if it helps. I have no idea about the sonar you guys are using, but this last year I took the jump into garmin panoptix. I have the PS22 transducer on a pole I can spin around and look 360 degrees and over 100 feet away. When I do find kokanee, It is pretty obvious. They have a different return because of their air bladders. These schooled fish are not "stacking" in this shallow water they are in schools but spread out. With regular sonar on whatever type of downview the unit has, even with a large cone angle, there is no way to see these fish. Sideview might be pretty handy but for me, shallow fish in deep water is hard for me to see in side view. I have no idea why these fish are being so finicky this year, most likely the unstable water and murkiness, but like I said, I am pretty new to this. To be able to consistently see these shallow fish with a down facing cone they would have to not flee from boat. I promise they do!!! I can spot a school and troll straight at them. When the boat is about 20ft or so away they will either dive down or flare off to the side. When I know I have gone over them I will turn my transducer to back and they will come back to pretty much where they were when I am about 40ft past them. I can watch my lure/dodger go right throught them, I can watch them turn and follow my lure, which is great. I have triggered some hits with a speed change or drop my pole and let my lure fall, then pull up and speed up. Anyways, being new to this I am not sure exactly how many fish I should be seeing, but I can say I can see at least 80% more fish on my screen with my panoptix than show up with my 2d sonar, I think the fish are there, just not in the mood to go in my cooler.

Syver

That is very cool! I live in WY and have never fished Blue Mesa, but I fish Fontenelle reservoir for Kokanee a lot. It is a weird reservoir, in that the Kokanee never stratify at depth. They are almost always near the surface, even when the the water is 70 degrees on the surface. Because the fish are almost always shallow, lots of people run the dual board planing boards to spread their lures out away from the boat. You can run multiple lines off the boards, and you use release clips like on downriggers, so you dont have to mess with dragging the planer board each time you hook a fish...

This has been a weird year at Fontenelle too, as far as figuring out a pattern and finding fish....

 

[kokanee64]

Syver,

Thanks for the info re fish on your sonar. My sonar is at least 15 years but I keep it because it works very well for jigging and when the fish are deeper it works plenty well enough for trolling. But at times this I sure wish I had something that could help makes sense of where to find the fish. So thanks.

Back about 10 years ago I was out trolling one very hot day in August on Blue Mesa and went up to stand in the bow of the after seeing some kind of disturbance in the water ahead of me. I saw what looked like a thousand kokanee about 2 ft below the surface and they were parting like the Red Sea in front of my boat. I tried casting into them but they ignored my lure. I tried a long line and turning big circles to pull the lure through them but never got a bite. It never made sense to me because of their normal behavior and it was way too hot for them to like the surface, but there they were. Let's hope there are lots of fish and they are just hard to catch because of this odd behavior -- sounds better to me than too few fish.

 

[furmaster]

Well, all I know is being fairly new to fishing these finicky fish. I sure do enjoy it. I love a challenge and by god this is one fore sure. From what I read.... when stacking a downrigger(which I don’t do). The top line should have a further setback, because when the kokes decide not to hit the line off the ball, they usually tend to head upward. Then, you have more bait right in their face. I can’t see why the planet boards wouldn’t have the same results. I seen a well known guide on the lake running two dr’s and two planers. I figured it’s because he had 4-5 clients, but I would love to know if those were getting hit more often.??

 

[kokaneeds]

Furmaster, thanks for the insight! I have watched videos of guys jigging lake trout in multiple holes on a spread using the panoptix, the way they were able to watch the behavior of the fish coming in was incredible.

 

[furmaster]

It’s pretty cool, I don’t think it is putting any more fish in my cooler, but I know I’m in the right areas and depths I should be. I just think when these fish start heading deeper you will see more fish

 

[kokanee64]

This morning (Thursday) we had our best fishing trip on BM this summer with 8 kokes that averaged 1.6 pounds. The largest was 2.1 lb. All fish showed some gill lice. We also caught several small lakers and browns.

We started fishing at 6 am in the Bay of Chickens and then went on to the Iron Works, where we caught our fish (I'll skip the Bay of chickens next time I'm out) starting at 6:30 am. Fish were hitting DRs at 25 and 27 ft, on an orange bead/spinner and a blue squid behind a blue dodger. As the morning progressed we fished deeper, getting hits at 33 and 36 when we quit at 10 am. LC caught a couple of fish at 4-5 colors and at 8 colors on a purple spinner/bead lure behind a purple dodger. Next trip we'll probably stack the downriggers, as the fish are getting kind of deep for LC unless we have 100 yards of line out, which makes actually catching a salmon kind of tricky. We've been fishing with small lights immediately ahead of the dodger and it seems to help a little -- maybe. Still no signs of schooling salmon.

Morning temps were in the mid 40s and the water is 67, unchanged for quite some time.

We won't be able to get out again until Tues or Wed of next week, so anyone who has success please share so we can follow your advice next week.

 

[furmaster]

That is great news, I was thinkin about going over there this weekend. The small lights you referenced....like the lights most people including me use for jigging? Nice to hear they are dropping down a bit. I think it makes them easier to find.
Congratulations on your outing!!!

 

[furmaster]

Went out yesterday and ended up with 4. Lost probably 4-6. And 3 trout. Most of morning I ran some blue beads with silver dodger from 20-35 ft. Later in day fish dropped between 40-65ft. Seemed chartreuse was doing better down there. The fish are starting to school up.
This was all at Iron works. Lots of boats running around, especially those water skiers that think it’s fun to ski through all the boats

 

[kokanee64]

Fishing is still slow on Blue Mesa.

The temp this morning at 5:15 was 50F at Neversink and water temperature remains the same at 67F. Based on a tip from our friend Willie, we started on the S shore of Cebolla, about a mile west of the mouth of Cebolla creek. We picked up 3 nice kokes, two in the first 40 minutes and one not long before we quit at 9:30. We fished DRs at 30, 35, 40 and 45 ft and caught two salmon at 45 on orange and 1 salmon at 30 on purple, in addition to too many small lakers. The three salmon averaged 1.9 lb.

We are seeing lots of boats around the Iron Work and several of the boats obviously expected to jig for schooled salmon. We aren't seeing schools around the 80 ft depth, or anything that looks like a school. We see plenty of fish between 60 and 90 ft but all we get trolling those depths are small lakers. Some of the males are showing modest hook jaws and a female this morning was the first I've seen with eggs showing some growth.

The lake is over-full at 7519 ft, 1 ft below full pool and 99.7% of capacity. At this level large trees along the shore are at risk of drowning. We saw a 20 ft, 3 ft diameter tree trunk with lots of branches floating in the middle of the Cebolla basin; a Park Service boat with three non-law enforcement rangers passed within 50 yards of it twice. We've been starting a little later this summer to avoid such hazards in the dark -- and it isn't as if there is a first thing in the morning bite to lure us out of bed 20 minutes earlier. On the other hand, it was a beautiful sunrise, we had perfect fishing conditions, and we're having grilled salmon for dinner.