Vandal you should get yourself a BLUE AND ORANGE #11 hoochie...IT SCORES EVERY TIME! thumbsup
LP just like any compound has it's patterns. I see days when the fish will only take at one consistent setting and speed...sometimes even combined with one direction of your trolling pattern.
Our standard starting program
At LP we pretty much begin the hunt at 15 and 20 on our two dr systems...and fish our known productive lures at 1.5-1.8...looking with the sonar to make sure we don't consistently mark fish deeper. Obviously fishing in the regular spots where the masses are having success. I actually like to not see anything on the sonar in known packed areas...my theory is the fish are being herded away from our boat at that shallow depth plus you only see tiny portions of area at 15ft. Shallow depths I run the contraption further back from the ball thinking it will give the fish time and space to close back in...seems to work!
If we can't connect in a reasonable time at shallow we just keep moving down in 2-3ft increments until we do. Once I get to 25ftish I start setting my contraption closer to the ball like 20ft max. Closer absolutely gives you better hit to hook ratio plus your lure is closer to the actual depth of your ball so you have some idea at what depth the fish will take. Then once again you hunt until you have success and then the absolute KEY to kokanee fishing is to repeat what you just had success on. Same lures..same depth..same speed...and most importantly the same spot as quickly as possible. You can normally get at least two fish from a hot spot and sometimes more so it's a good idea to immediately go right back and try to do the same thing over quickly. Depth is super critical on days when it's not a free for all. That is why it's important to run the same exact stuff so that you are fishing exactly the same depth, action, and speed.
Now when it's slow for us but we see someone else that has the hot hand. Phew that is hard on a guys ego to admit! If you want to catch fish you had better go and try to do what they are doing. A small portion of the fisherman catch a huge portion of the fish. I can observe that hot boat and quickly see the pattern, when the crank up the rig you get a good idea on shallow, medium, or deep, you get an idea on flash and color. Sometimes you'll have similar flash and colors to try then you get to try to guess the depth and you're back at it.
It's always somewhat bewildering to me that guys won't help other people with color and technique out on the water. My buddy is the king a$$hole about such things. I always remind him that we aren't in a fishing contest and this is fun and why wouldn't we want help someone else have fun? I guess his fun is being the envy of some other poor sap that can't catch fish. We aren't guides (and there aren't any at LP or any other place we fish down here) that are competing for success so it's a bit beyond my understanding. It isn't like if I show you some successful stuff then I'm not going to get to catch fish either..there's a lot of them down there!
GO BRONCOS!thumbsup