Today marks my first day of open water kokanee fishing for 2025.
After a long day at work, I decided to decompress my mind and prepare for the weekend by going fishing on my local lake. Time seems to have become more precious as the years go by and today I decided that it was time to try my luck and see how well the kokanee were biting. Afterall, the reports of kokanee being caught are starting to pick up. And my lilacs are now blooming which I know from past experiences signal the start of the kokanee season due to the warming ground which corresponds to warming water temperatures and increased feeding activity.
We loaded up the boat and pre-tied our starting setups on our rods while we waited for our pizza to cook in the oven. These setups would turn out to be the winning setups of the evening.
I was happy to see the lake was dead calm when we arrived which made launching our boat effortless. We timed our launch time, and it took us 20 minutes on arrival to load the boat with our gear, launch, and start fishing.
Finding the fish took another 45 minutes to an hour. We hooked a couple small rainbows and lost a few small kokanee. Daylight was quickly fading, and the calm water had a soothing effect on helping my mind relax. The air was starting to cool down while we trolled along listening to the hum of our downrigger cables.
Once we found the fish, it was like someone flicked a switch on. My Garmin Striker 4 fish finder was picking up fish, so we waited patiently after going over fish before watching our rod starting to bounce just moments later. We circled back through this mature school of kokanee a few times and put five fish in the cooler.
For the next 45 minutes we hooked into multiple fish, including a couple of double headers and some lost fish. It was fun having a healthy competition with Austin and watch him run his Scotty Fishing downrigger, net his own fish, and also help him land a few fish (and maybe loose a fish boatside due to a jumping fish and rusty netting skills).
Our winning setups were a Brad’s Killer Fishing Gear kokanee extreme dodger paired with an Old Goat Lures OG1 lure with UV on one rod and a Paulina Peak Tackle peak performer dodger paired with a Log Home Lures bear claw lure. Each hook on our lures was tipped with my special blend of garlic corn which is available at Corlane Sporting Goods PG and the Felker Lake Trading Post at Chimney lake. Our speeds ranged from 1.5 to 2.2 miles per hour. With the short time we had, I did not even bother hooking up my electric motor and slow speeds did not seem to matter.
The fish were biting tonight, and I look forward to my next fishing adventure.