How do you target larger fish?

[DLM]

For some reason this year on Green Peter the schools were of mixed size fish more than I had experienced in the past. I would see a school, hook a fish, but never know if it was going to be 8" or 17". It started that way in the spring and continued all summer.

I wonder if there is anything any of you do to target the larger fish in this kind of situation. Faster speed, slower speed, larger lures, more erratic action, slower action, etc. I tried all of these to some degree along with trolling over and under and through the schools.

 

[SilverBullets]

I did some experimenting this past season trying to get into some larger one's as well. I found trolling below the pack helped. My target depth is usually at the 40' level, and going down another 10' helped to get us into some 1/2-3/4" larger. The real difference came when jigging off the bottom. These fish are guaranteed to be larger by as much as a couple inches. Last season we jigged deeper than we've ever fished for kokes. At this particular lake, if you check out a limit of kokes caught jigging off the bottom and compare them to a limit caught trolling, you'd swear they came from two different lakes because of the size difference.

 

[SmokeOnTheWater]

Try increasing the sensitivity on your fish finder to atleast 80% and switch to the fish icons, this will show little ones, medium ones and BIG ONES. Fish where the BIG ONES are!
laugh hysttongue2thumbsup

On a serious note: Do turn up your fish finder's sensitivity as stated above. Start out whith a variety of lures (baits) at various depths. If your getting bit on one lure substantially more than others, switch all lures to that one then start to vary your depth again followed by speed adjustments. This method is absolutely trial and error and may vary from one day to the next depending on wind, cloud cover, water clarity, etc. This has been my method over the past few years for the kokes because they are a schooling fish and tend to prefer the same things. Also, because they are a schooling fish, be willing to be schooled on every trip.


I look forward to reading all the comments your post draws.

 

[TopFuelKokanee]

When HiTechKoke and I went with our families to Wallowa Lake last June we caught the biggest kokes I had ever seen in real life (he had been to FG and already had this experience). We marked fish from 25-65 ft if I remember correctly, and caught fish from within that range. But our biggest fish all came in the 35-40 ft range, including my 23" 4 lb 5 oz personal best. Some of you are familiar with HiTech's underwater videos of kokanee, but if you're not go to this link. http://www.youtube.com/user/HiTechKoke
No footage from Wallowa, but very interesting to see how the fish respond to his offerings. I'm still learning but I think the more I do learn, the more I find out I don't know.

 

[DLM]

We marked fish from 25-65 ft if I remember correctly, and caught fish from within that range. But our biggest fish all came in the 35-40 ft range, including my 23" 4 lb 5 oz personal best. .

Do you have an idea of the temperature at that 35-40 foot depth? That may be a key to where the big buggers hang out.

I remember at the 2008 GP derby there was a guy fishing shallower than I was and catching bigger fish and I suspected a the time it may be a temperature thing.