2020 Arrow Rock Reservoir Kokanee Report

[Pauli]

I fished Arrowrock this morning from 0800-1030...... I didn't get one bite. Very slow for me. But there were plenty of other boats out there. I met a new member from this forum named "Idahoan". Welcome to the site. Hope you had better luck than me today.

Pauli

 

[Pauli]

I hit Arrowrock at daybreak today. It was the perfect day on the lake.....rain and thunderstorms were forecasted, but it didn't rain or blow at all. I shared the entire reservoir with someone in a kayak. The water was like glass all morning. Fishing was great.... if you are into trout. I caught a half dozen trout and only one small Koke. The trout were very nice, and two of them cut very red. I'd say they averaged about 15 inches. The solo Koke was only about 12 inches long. Tried all different colors and depths..... even sent the down rigger to 60 feet, but no takers. I finally settled on chartreuse wedding rings and emerald/silver flashers. That combo produced the Koke. Vast majority of the marks were at about 60 feet. I had a TON of "drive by" hits....but most did not stick.

I talked with a fellow who said he is new to this site who was launching as I was leaving. Dave?? I think. Nice guy. Hope he did better than me with the Kokes.

Pauli

 

[terek]

Fished on Sunday. The main point was to try out the new garmin autopilot for the 15hp kicker. It worked like a dream. Being able to do whatever you want and not worry about steering is well worth the $1400.

We didn't get a bite until we found the fish around 1230. Unfortunately we had to get out of there by 2pm. But we did get 3 fatty 18+" kokes and 4 decent trout in that 1.5 hours. I wish we would have found the fish at 8am we probably would have gotten double digits. All bites were at 30 feet. Pink was the ticket

 

[Oldfishnfart]

Put the top up and hit the water at 6:00 am Saturday before the wind and rain hit. Trolled until 2:30 caught and released many trout! Action was steady thru out the day with only one 12" kokanee. I had the whole lake to my self and the low clouds around the mountains were spectacular! Kept 2 nice trout and the Koke for the smoker. Pink and orange were the best as usual. I tried depths down to 40' but 20-30 was the best. I really thought I would sneak out and find them but I was served another helping of Humble Pie.

 

[MaGoo]

F&G and Payette Lake Trout

I just read on another fishing forum opposing the F&G gill netting and removing Lake Trout in Payette Lake. The F&G reason is to bring back the Kokanee fishery. Idaho Kokanee fisherman is growing every year. I would think Idaho has ten kokanee fisherman to one trophy lake trout fisherman. Deadwood can only give up so many eggs per year. What happens if something go wrong at Deadwood. At one time Payette was self supporting of Kokanee. F&G has as I can see has not planted any Kokanee since 2014 in Payette. The Lake Trout more in numbers and are getting smaller. They can live up to 40 years. But they have eaten all the Kokanee. The old rule more fish the smaller, the less fish the larger. So Lake Trout are getting smaller and no kokanee to eat. I think any lake in the state that can support the spawning of Kokanee should be protected. The fires a few years ago destroyed spawning in Anderson tributaries. As I understand it is coming back now.

https://idfg.idaho.gov/press/payett...ee population, along,fresh crop of young fish.

Lake Trout make good cat food.

 

[pollackoke]

Well MaGoo, this is a great topic and something we, as a group, should get involved in. My problem is ignorance, a common affliction these days. Even after reading the linked article by Roger Phillips there, I didn't get a sense of a clear path forward. As I said, my issue is ignorance. Does anyone else on the Forum have experience or insight as to how we Kokaholics should weigh in? I mean has anyone seen this problem worked out before in other states, or read about this elsewhere? One issue hinted at by Phillips is stocking more Kokanee into Payette at the expense of stocking amounts for other Kokanee waters. This sounds a little ominous - we know we have had lower than desirable stock out of Deadwood for the statewide Kokanee program recently. It would be great if we in the Forum could kick this around intelligently and come up with our arguments to push F&G on. I mean it is easy to say, "kill the lake trout because I like Kokanee more"; but it would be great to come up with some scientifically (environmentally) sound basis to our arguments. THANKS.

 

[pollackoke]

MaGoo - I forgot to ask: What forum did you read about opposition to the gill netting? THANKS

 

[MaGoo]

Payette

MaGoo - I forgot to ask: What forum did you read about opposition to the gill netting? THANKS

It was on BigFish site. It sounds like the F&G have the lake trout under control in PendOrelle, along having a good Kokanee fishing. But I think Priest lake is also having big issues with lake trout and koks. I don't know if they are using the poor late run Koks up north. Just hope they never plant late run in the southern part of the state. In my option I would like to see the lake trout reduced to a point that Payette koks could support a good fishery. The way it was 20 years ago. Taking fish that come from Deadwood, is not the answer. However I think the ones F&G put in CJ would have been better placed in the Stanley basin, Warm lake, or even Payette to feed the lake trout. I will be surprised if 1000 koks are caught in CJ.

 

[Spit the Hook]

Just wondering, why don't you think more than 1000 kokes will be caught in CJ? Is there something different there than Arrowrock or Lucky Peak?

 

[MaGoo]

Just wondering, why don't you think more than 1000 kokes will be caught in CJ? Is there something different there than Arrowrock or Lucky Peak?

The water is warmer to start with, second a lot of predator fish, and they planted 3" fish. As F&G have found the 3" fish survival rate is very poor, even in colder water. They had to free up space at Mackey hatchery to let the fish remaining reach 4".

 

[terek]

Just wondering, why don't you think more than 1000 kokes will be caught in CJ? Is there something different there than Arrowrock or Lucky Peak?

For one, the water temp gets up to 80* in the summer. And two, 90% of that lake is only 25-30 feet deep. Its just not a good habitat for kokes. I bet 95% of the stocked ones get eaten, or die by 2021
It was a waist of stockers. They should have dumped them into anderson. Especially since they admitted that the wiers they had in the creek in 2016 and 2017 didn't allow any fish to spawn. Thsts why anderson sucks this year. There are no fish. No spawn, and several years of mass people pulling 40-50 fish out of it every day

 

[mowrus]

For one, the water temp gets up to 80* in the summer. And two, 90% of that lake is only 25-30 feet deep. Its just not a good habitat for kokes. I bet 95% of the stocked ones get eaten, or die by 2021
It was a waist of stockers. They should have dumped them into anderson. Especially since they admitted that the wiers they had in the creek in 2016 and 2017 didn't allow any fish to spawn. Thsts why anderson sucks this year. There are no fish. No spawn, and several years of mass people pulling 40-50 fish out of it every day

Very on point Terek..

 

[MaGoo]

For one, the water temp gets up to 80* in the summer. And two, 90% of that lake is only 25-30 feet deep. Its just not a good habitat for kokes. I bet 95% of the stocked ones get eaten, or die by 2021
It was a waist of stockers. They should have dumped them into anderson. Especially since they admitted that the wiers they had in the creek in 2016 and 2017 didn't allow any fish to spawn. Thsts why anderson sucks this year. There are no fish. No spawn, and several years of mass people pulling 40-50 fish out of it every day

Nope 99 % will get eaten, F&G plant 6" rainbow and they have very low survival rate. The big rainbows eat the 6" plants. I would be very surprised if 20 % of the 3" koks are still in the lake. Any place that holds koks would be better than C.J.

 

[Pauli]

Slow Slow Slow

I spent about 4 hours trolling Arrow Rock Res this morning. Had only 2 bites....one of which ended up being a pike minnow. Tried all the popular colors, Shoepeg and Big Gulp maggots, at 15 - 50 feet. Marked a few at around 40 feet...
I doubt if the marks were Kokes, probably Rainbows or pike minnows. What a sad state of affairs our reservoirs are in.

Pauli

 

[Mad Angler]

Yesterday's report

Hey all,

Thought I'd finally post here, since I've been reading this forum for a few years but never registered until recently.

My buddy and I fished the reservoir yesterday, got in the water just before 7AM, headed over and trolled most of the day, we packed up and drove out around 6:30PM.

The day was slow and we used almost everything we had in our tackle boxes, but at least it was sunny and wind wasn't bad. Not a ton of fish on the finder, but we managed to pull up a bunch of rainbows (kept two @ 16") as well as a bunch of pike minnows and one bull trout around 10" (yep, we threw him back).

Pink and green were the colors that worked best, but managed to catch a few on a brown crappie crawdad lure (like I said, we had plenty of time to try everything we thought might get a hit). Most of the 'bows were planters around 8-12" size, we let them go too.

Unsurprisingly, not even one koke was seen yesterday. We caught a couple of them about 3 weeks ago, but they were small and went back in the water, this trip yielded nothing at all.

Will probably try again in a couple weeks, weather depending...

 

[MMDON]

Thanks for the report! The bank guys are saying the fishing has been slow as well.

 

[pollackoke]

Arrowrock Road - bad, very bad

Drove up past the south fork area yesterday. Potholes are very deep and numerous, especially near the dam. But really there are bad stretches all along the road to the USFS outhouse and boat launch. Beautiful day though. If you have a small boat and willing to go reeeallllly slow, you could do it. Saw a guy come kayaking out of the South Fork - he had to have some big stones (good ballast though).