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We launched about 8 am and headed North from the Dam. Water level is at full pool, water clarity is very clear, surface water temp is 80 degrees. There is still debris in the water, it depends on where you are. It's concentrated in some areas and clear in other's. When the wind dies the debris spreads out. A few days ago it was pretty settled on the shoreline, but they raised the water again two days ago which resulted in all the debris getting swept off the shoreline and back out on the water.
We were out one day last week and did catch two small Kokanee, but they were nothing to brag about. They were caught on the down rigger lines at about 40'.
Yesterday we fished from 20' to 100' depths and varying our speed from 1.4 to 2.0. The fish we marked were mostly down around 100' +, though we saw them from 40' and deeper depending on the area, but they were not biting. Caught about 20+ new release fish, can't keep them off the lines and they are down deep too so you can't get away from them fishing deeper. No Kokanee with the exception of one pretty nice one ( 2.5 to 3 lbs.) floating belly up...we netted it and took it home to autopsy it. No visible signs of what caused his demise. We tried trolling flies in various colors with and without dodger's, I tried a pink apex, a gold apex and several hoochies, pink, orange and a tractor green/black. Nothing we tried worked for Kokanee, not even dad's trusty ole orange Rapala and hand painted Needlefish!
No Rainbows either. All in all it was a beautiful day on the water and the new releases got some schooling about lure's. We've decided next time out we are going to take a tally sheet and try to keep track of how many we catch and release just for kicks. Dad and I have a tradition, we toast a fish ( a little nip from the flask ), well that's a dangerous endeavor now that the net pen fish are released! Now we toast about every third or one or so if we have time while trying to reel in the dang lil bugger's.
It's been a pretty disappointing year so far for Kokanee fishing here. We had a couple good days a few months back and had hopes for when the water cleared and warmed up. But, it has actually gotten worse as the water conditions improved to what we thought would be perfect Kokanee conditions. We are now thinking and hoping the Koke's will show up this fall. ??
In the meantime we are just enjoying being out on the water with lines in the water, but not expecting much in the way of big Kokanee right now. We have not ventured up to Keller or other area's, we figure if they aren't biting in our usual spots it's not worth the trip to fight the debris in the water to go elsewhere since we have not heard any good reports from other area's anyway.
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