July 30, 2022

The best kokanee fishing is when the skies are blue and the sun is shining, right?

While I have often said, the best time to go kokanee fishing is when you have the time, today I found myself questioning if that statement still held true. Over the last couple days, daily temperatures have been close to 30 degrees Celsius and above. This has been keeping surface temperatures high which helps push the fish into an easy to locate zone of the lake. While the kokanee have been easy to locate, I question what the temperatures are like at the depths I have been finding them and how this warmer temperature has been affecting their behaviors.

Today was my second trip this week with sunny skies, hot weather and calm waters. I was excited to try jigging again and see if we could get a limit of kokanee in the cooler.

We arrived at the lake, Tyee Lake, around 730am and were greeted by a friendly camper drinking their morning coffee (or tea) as we started loading up the boat. The temperature was perfect and we took advantage of the cool 13 degree Celsius crisp morning sheltered in the shade (and so did the mosquitoes). When I went to the bathroom before we left, the mosquitoes feasted as I walked up the trail to the outhouse. Then, when I opened the door of the outhouse I was pleasantly surprised (not by the smell) by a nice painting on the wall. To the artist who made the painting, great job!

Tyee has been on my list of lakes to fish this year, because we have not fished it in the summer in a while. I was curious to see if kokanee sizes increased since the start of the brood stock program and the reduced daily limit.

We started fishing straight out from the boat launch and marked the most fish we would see there through out the day. That being said, we found more active kokanee in another favorite location of mine and ended up hooking two kokanee (loosing them at the boat) and getting many bites. We toured the calm waters of the lake and did some scenic touring around the whole lake to see if kokanee locations and habits had changed since the last time we fished it.

I tried various sizes and colors of kokanee slammers, an ice fishing set up and Big-Nasty Tackle rattle jig. All jigs got hit, but the successful jig of the day was a medium sized kokanee slammer.

As the day got warmer and our landing ratios continued to be unspeakable, I started wondering what was happening. I noticed a trend at every location we fished. The main depths we were marking kokanee was from 30ft to 45ft. Most fish seemed to be in pairs or triples and when we dropped down to them, and sometimes before we got our jig to them, they went deeper. Fish at 30ft were diving down to 45ft and deeper. I found this interesting and have never seen this trend before. That being said, this is my first year targeting kokanee by jigging and maybe the boat scares them and pushes them deeper when the surface water is calm and the water clear?

I eventually landed 1 kokanee and it was an average sized fish for what Tyee is known for. We started making our way back to the boat launch under the heat of the sun. Our empty water bottles on the floor of the boat and half empty sun screen bottle was a sign that we had been in the sun without a cover for too long. I was thankful to be bringing at least one kokanee home in our cooler of $11 ice, but I was disappointed that we were not able to catch a better sample of the size of kokanee in the lake.

On the way home, we rehydrated with Gatorade and a couple of cold, fresh bottles of water. The afternoon sun made the truck air conditioning work to cool the inside air in the cab. I was feeling the after affects of a day under the sun. With safety in mind, we pulled over half way home and grabbed a couple more cold water bottles out of the cooler.

As we drove home, I started thinking about going back to Tyee to try again soon. Next time, maybe cooler temperatures will yield better results. Either way, I had a fun day and look forward to testing out my new “warmer is not always better” thought process.