Heading up this weekend, going to try and break my curse

[TRUBBS]

well the gorge has not been good for me at all this year, but after a break, we have decided its time to go back and kick the curse off the boat once and for all.
heading up this friday tell sunday, most likely will launch from lucerne and head towards WY.

Now here's where I need help. I always think I'm out in to deep of open water trying to catch fish, so Im here asking you guys, How deep of water do i need to be fishing in? and how far down do i need to put my bait?

now that its later summer, where are they being found and what are they hitting on?

 

[Bduck]

GPS is a big help. I like staying in or near the river channel to find kokes. This time of year the kokes are deep as much as 75'. The river channel snakes all thru the lake so you shouldn't have a problem finding the silver bullets. Distinguishing macks from kokes is easy, macks tend to stay deeper. You will catch some pups lurking about within the koke populations.

 

[TRUBBS]

GPS is a big help. I like staying in or near the river channel to find kokes. This time of year the kokes are deep as much as 75'. The river channel snakes all thru the lake so you shouldn't have a problem finding the silver bullets. Distinguishing macks from kokes is easy, macks tend to stay deeper. You will catch some pups lurking about within the koke populations.

kack pups are ok. I actully want to find some of them to lol
we have the new humminbird 999 HD/DI/SI so we have a gps, but not sure i ever noticed it showing channels rather then just a big lake lol

75 to fish in, how do would you say the water itself should be to fish in?

 

[Downrigger]

I don't care how deep the water is where I'm fishing, honestly. The river channel tends to produce a little better but there are exceptions to that. Anything with a cliff is where the old river channel used to run. So fish tend to hang next to cliffs. This year, I've found more out in the middle of nowhere though.

I'd fish 45-60 feet deep for kokanee. If I see one or two fish here and there deeper than 65, they are lake trout. If I see a school of fish at 65 they are kokanee. Lake trout typically hang 10-20 feet under the kokanee. If I catch a small mac, I'll bring my rigger up 10 feet.

 

[lablover]

Downrigger speaks the truth!!!
45-65= kokes any single digit archs under that are macks. Most of the time I would say the bottom was in the 90-130ft depth.
We also seen Rainbows in the 25-40ft depth.
Hope this helps!

 

[liketrolling]

I have been at FG for the last 3 weeks and one day we got Kokes at 75 feet and we got a lot but that was the only day, the rest of the time it was 50 to 65 feet down, I like to check the water temp. kokes like it 52 to 54 deg. I find that and that is where I get most of the Kokes.
the best set up was RMT 5.5" Fusion Signature Dodger, Bubble Gum Signature Squid. at the cleaning place I never saw any one with bigger kokes then what we had. when fishing the WY side. and you could tell the ones that came from the Utah side. one guy had some that were almost red, and said he got them at Anvil Draw area. We got Rainbows at 50 ft. (and we would see hundreds of laker pups under the Kokes. Mon Tue and Wed.)
when you get tired of catching Kokes drop down to 80 ft and you can get a lot of little lakers.

 

[liketrolling]

kack pups are ok. I actully want to find some of them to lol
we have the new humminbird 999 HD/DI/SI so we have a gps, but not sure i ever noticed it showing channels rather then just a big lake lol

75 to fish in, how do would you say the water itself should be to fish in?

this is the way I set up my Humminbird
go to main MENU then Sonar
Beam Select -- set to 200kHz & 83 Khz
then set Switchfire to Max Mode.
Zoom width to wide

Sensitivity 13 to 15 so you can see all downrigger balls and stacker lines.
Upper Range 30 ft I don't care what is above 30 ft
Lower Range 90 ft I dont care what is below 90 ft when fishing for Kokes
Chart Speed 3
Hot keys
one
Split Sonar View displays sonar returns from the 83 kHz wide beam on the left side of the
screen and sonar returns from the 200 kHz narrow beam on the right side of the screen. You can
use the Split Sonar View to make side by side comparisons between the sonar returns from both
beams.
hot key two
Chart (Switchfire) and the lake master map (Split screen) the map has where I have been where I'm going and what is under the boat.