It’s official. We went fishing again while my lilacs are in full bloom. There is no doubt in my mind that nature gives us subtle clues as to what else is happening at certain times of the year around us.
For those who haven’t read any of my previous posts, I am now a true believer that nature “tells” me when the kokanee fishing in my area is picking up. Last year, I noticed the kokanee fishing picked up as soon as my lilacs bloomed. This year, I re-confirmed what I believe is a correlation between the two. Again, my lilacs are in full bloom and the kokanee have started to get aggressive and are biting more than they were a few weeks ago.
One of the benefits to living in the Cariboo is definitely our proximity to so many great fishing lakes. Last night was a prime example of this. After a full days work, we had a great dinner and dessert. Grandma was visiting and we decided to spend the evening on the lake and see what we could catch.
We arrived at the lake around 19:00 and were fishing shortly after. A slow troll over to our “starting point” gave us ample time to untangle the mess of intertwined fishing rods, fishing line and dodgers that had seamlessly become one gigantic puzzle. After solving the puzzle and declaring victory over chaos we baited up with corn we got from Ryan of Rynos Answer Baits. We would later confirm yet again that his peaches and cream corn “Killer Krill” still had what it took to catch a limit of kokanee. I might add that this kokanee corn has been sitting in my fridge since ice fishing season. It definitely raised one debatable question; “Does peaches and cream corn last longer than shoepeg?”
Our setup consisted of 3 rods, 2 rods in a downrigger and one surface rod setback at various distances behind the boat. Without a line counter reel, it was a guessing game trying to measure how much line was left on the reel spool each time. We kept our Luhr Jensen dodgers on all 3 rods. The surface rod had a larger, heavier 6 inch dodger on while the downrigger rods had 4 inch dodgers on. We decided to follow the K.I.S.S. principal and leave the tackle box at home (I might have snuck some pre-tied lures into my fish finder tackle box just in case). We fished the same pink hoochies as previous trips. Each hoochie was fitted with a different style spinner blade or wiggle blade. Amazingly, the Gibbs bling blade hoochie, Paulina Peak blade hoochie and Mack’s wiggle bill hoochie produced the same results in hook ups and strikes.
Finding the kokanee was a bit of a challenge. We picked up a few here and there, but couldn’t find the larger school until everyone on the boat was getting cold and the sun had dropped over the horizon. We targeted a starting point of 8ft off the downriggers, which was the most successful depth (some were caught/hooked at 10ft). Surprisingly, we marked quite a few kokanee at 15-25ft but had no interest. So, back up to 8ft we went for the remainder of the evening.
We made one pass along an area I had not fished yet this year and only picked up one kokanee. It was disappointing because the water was so calm and peaceful that we could see at least what looked like 100 fish rising all around us. We turned around and started heading back to the area where we had more success earlier. And then, as if someone turned a light switch on, we were back into more kokanee. A triple header happened and a double header would also happen.
The best part of the trip might have been catching 9 kokanee in 2hrs and losing 6. However, one could argue that having the whole lake to ourselves (plus two other brief boaters) was the best part. Choosing can be a difficult task.
At home, I got to cleaning and “dissecting” the kokanee. Again, there were lots of chironomids and worm like organisms in their stomach contents. One kokanee also appeared to be eating some darker colored food than normal. I was curious to see if this kokanee would taste different, but I forgot to put it aside and save it for sampling.
Now, how does a person choose which is the best part of a trip? As always, I asked the boys if they had fun and what was their favorite part of the trip (which as they get older is becoming a challenge as they are ready for bigger fish). Surprisingly, Ethan said he “did actually have fun because he was able to catch a limit of kokanee.” Next time, I’m hoping we can do the same for the rest of the family, but if we can’t make it happen, I’ll be happy just to spend some quality time with my family while we learn together and dream about a future of exciting times to come.