Lake Trolls / Dodgers

[Kokonuts]

I fish mostly at Lake Merwin in Washington and now its thrown me another curve! Early this year Lake trolls like the Ford Fender were working great with Wedding Rings & Apex, but not now. Now I cant seem to find anything that works as well. I can locate the fish but they seem to have lock jaw!

Ive tried a lot of different combos, colors, Dodgers, lures, large & small but still nothing. tooexcited

So whats your goto set up when the fish arent hitting? worthy12
Kokonuts

 

[jzell]

"I can't seem to find anything that works as well."

It's enough to drive a guy....Koko-nuts!!!!

 

[sweetpea]

well kokonuts i am going up to merwin tomorrow. havent been in a few weeks so i'll let you know my success or lack there of when i get back.

 

[twisted lines]

My go to has changed as well thrown it all at them and I have pretty much given up. Unlike you I am not finding schools or I would Jig. On one day I put the flash lights in front of the dodger and it worked but I hated it because the feel was gone but it turned it to catching instead of fishing.........TL

 

[MMDON]

In late season Kokanee can view lake trolls as a school of hungry predator fish. This may give you a flight rather than fight response. Move to a mid size or 3/0 dodger and experiment with speed. You might find the bite moves from as slow as .9 mph to 1.7 mph. Most likely the deeper the fish the slower the presentation. Where the Kokanee have moved deeper in the water column you will want your colors to reflect what they can see at depth. Lose the red and pink colors and work on the chart, green, blue, and purple colors. Glow will be a good option as well. If you are seeing fish at 40 feet be sure to try fishing at a depth of 5' below what your screen is showing as well. This helps to produce larger fish.

 

[Kokonuts]

Thanks for all the help!

I've got some new Hoochies to try & will try adjusting my depth like MMM said. Tl Glad to know I am not the only one going blank out there!

 

[sweetpea]

merwin today

well kokonuts a buddy and i hit the lake at 7:30 this morning and fished till about 3:00. we ended up with 9 but i lost one about 10 ft back from the boat. so i guess it was telling me we had enough. we were using ford fenders and i had a few takedowns trolling a hot pink fly. switched to a hot pink apex and thats what i stuck with all day. my buddy was using a pink/blue apex and we were about 75 ft out on the line counter with 3 oz weight. they are difinately deeper and not schooled up. not many people are fishing the north side of the lake..... dunno why? water levels are also very low.

 

[SilverBullets]

Kokonuts- From my experiance a good selection of Apex's is very important, seems they change their minds alot and what worked one day usually wont work the next. The trick with them is to keep changing, seems there's usually one they'll hit on. To entice strikes do speed changes, lots of turns, and troll perpendicular to the sun. If your useing a short set back with no results, go farther back. Try pink corn to see if makes a difference. Like MMM mentioned adjust your depth, sometimes just a 5' adjustment is all it takes. Also, stop and give the jigs a workout! thumbsup

 

[Cariboospeed]

In my little local lake, Kokes have a strong preference for pink and white. 80% of my catch is on a pink/white spin n glo, but I almost never run the same on two rods. (Except for dodgers). I do have a couple p/w Apexes, but they lose the most fish too. My arsenal:

I have a dozen dodgers now, and none work as well as the 000 Luhr Jensen. F Fender type things work too, but I don't like the weight of them or lake trolls.

Defying what I read, I use at least 18" of leader, often 2'. Now that the surface is quite warm, ~68*F, I put a 1oz weight on ~6' ahead of the dodger, that gives me a depth of ~15'. Despite having to go deep, there's still lots of fish coming to the surface. I see lots rising or jumping, and the Ospreys make out like bandits.

Last couple weeks, I tried the shoepeg corn. If I went anywhere shallow I picked up Rainbows, couple 3 lb'rs, but as far as I could tell its worth absolutely nothing on Kokes. Got tired of getting hooks stuck in my finger tips putting the stuff on too, I use a stinger hook on most lures. Always the red Gamamahmastsu (sp?) hooks.

If its nice and calm, I limit out (5) in ~3 hours. My lake was stocked 3 times since 2005, so there's 3 different sizes. I only keep the larger ones, 1.25+lbs. Got one 1.75 lb freak yesterday morning. Put up an epic battle, if it hadn't been so big I'd have tossed it back for a future rematch. Throw back, or lose at least 4 for everyone I keep.

 

[HiTechKoke]

Definitely the Kokanee off the bite can drive a person insane when they were biting 10 minutes ago like crazy I always try to keep an open mind and when they aren't biting it pays to dig into your tackle box and run the opposite of what you thing should work at some depth or color / leader length etc but always have a go to lure or two out there. Being able to run four rods most of the time really helps. The kids are a great source for inspiration when you have them on board to root around the tackle bags. Rotate that gear early and often if you haven't dialed them in and you see them on the finder.

Lake Trolls / Ball Tolls etc always has its pros and cons along with a ton of debate.. I love the fact that they do attract the fish year round but it can also distract them from your lure, also dependent on where the Kokanee approached from and how far back is your lure from the ball troll for example. I've captured a a good year's worth of video to see this happen throughout the season and have experimented with ball troll placement (below or inline with the lure) If the fish are aggressive it won't matter IMO and helps you attract them but if they are finicky or just curious you get them to look but they may not be ready to bite. It's a balancing game in the end from my observations.

Kevin