sawtooth
IDAHO Kokanee Forum Moderator
Best of luck to all this year.
has anyone been doing any kokanee fishing at Dworshak this year yet?Best of luck to all this year.
I might be able to head up next Tuesday. I assume they are still down by the dam? Deeper?
3 of us fished for 6 hrs yesterday around the dam and towards Merrys. Not one bite, nada, zilch. Talked to one other boat and they had caught 1 dink. We trolled with 1, 2 and 3 ounces at 1.3 mph, 60 to 100 ft. out. Corn an Power maggots. Could find any live maggots. Are we too early or do we need better skills?
Mark any on sonar? They tend to be shallow this time of year, probably under them with those weights.
Put in at Big Eddy Marina 5-26 & had to go as far as Dent Bridge to find ANY Kok's at all.
We fished adjacent to the camp ground on the far side of the reservoir marking lots of fish @ 25'-30'
Turns out all the fish we caught were in the 6" to 8" size
Talked to a few local people & all said the reservoir is loaded with fish but due to an over population & not enough feed
their growth has been stunted.
Dakota
tried some kokanee fishing today (6/9/22); started at Burce's Eddy (no bites); then motored up to Canyon Ceek (few bites; landed 6 small ones); then motored up to Elk Creek and fish back down to Dick's Creek; few bites; landed 7 small ones)
Strange part was never marked one fish on the fish finder; so don't know where they are?
anybody else having any luck??
later
Hey thx for posting your Koke fishing experience. A friend caught 27 but didn't say where or how deep. They're dinky this year. Maybe you didn't mark them due to being so small/sonar sensitivity, they're near the surface, or further up the lake due to the Dam spilling big time? What size did they average? Did you measure them?
they were all approx. 6/7 inches
my sonar showed fish where I was parking the boat so it was showing the small fish.
I tired every dept from 3 ft to 30 ft; ones I caught were with 2 oz. and 70 ft out.
Thx! When they're that small it can be hard to detect bites and I've drug em' around not knowing they're on.
Kokes prefer water temps of around 54F, but will move into warmer water to feed on plankton, then back down to cooler water. I use this site to help me know what depth to initially target, then adjust from there knowing temps vary some throughout the pool. https://www.nwd-wc.usace.army.mil/ftppub/water_quality/tempstrings/
My guess is catching will improve when the dam flows decrease. Hoping F&G will double limits to help thin out over population.
2022 was at a virtual standstill so people quit fishing. I don't even see the moderator post to start 2023! So here's what I think happened in 2022....I only went once, around the first week of June. I found very big schools of kokanee, especially a huge school near Elk River, but the fish were 150'-180' deep. In all the years that I have successfully fished Dworshak, the fish were always in the top 30' of water, so I was not geared up for 150-180'! I believe IDF&G ceased putting fertilizer in the reservoir, due to the high cost, which resulted in the small fish size and a return of the fish to depths where they were finding plankton.
The only way I have ever fished kokanee at that depth is to anchor and handline for them at PendOreille, too many years ago.
i will be geared up this spring and see what happens.