Lake Stevens Kokanee from 4/7

Kokanee are starting to turn on. Fish are accessible right now as I was catching between 15-20 feet down. Others had success fishing the surface.

Nice!

Nice! I've never fished lake Steven's, but I am thinking of giving it a go Friday.

Nice! I've never fished lake Steven's, but I am thinking of giving it a go Friday.

Fish should be up top near the surface. Very accessible right now. Good luck if you go! Weather looks a bit sporty this week.

Friday looks to clear up some, but yeah, Saturday and Sunday look dicey.

Lake Samish has been hot but you have to get there at the crack of dawn. Kokes have gone deeper recently, 25 to 40'. Orange seems to be the color. I use a tequila sunrise hoochie with good luck. (BTW, the AIS patrol gets there at 5!)

How big have the Kokanee been running at Lake Samish? This spring it seemed like all I could find was the 8 inchers.

Kyle

Is there a good "rule of thumb" or guide on kokanee movement depending on the time of year/season/temps?

How big have the Kokanee been running at Lake Samish? This spring it seemed like all I could find was the 8 inchers.

Kyle

I was on Samish last weekend. Fish were about 12 inches. Bite was hot.

Is there a good "rule of thumb" or guide on kokanee movement depending on the time of year/season/temps?

Actual movement to different parts of the lake depends on the lake itself. Typically kokanee can be anywhere on the lake, but as fall approaches they will start staging closer to creek mouths as spawning approaches. For depth, as the water warms they move deeper as they are very temperature and oxygen level sensitive. Back late April/early May I was finding most kokanee in the top 15 feet of the water column. Right now I am finding them on most lakes in the 35-50 foot range.

Thanks Josh Lake Stevens is my "home" water for kokes so will keep that in mind the next time I get out there for these little guys! 

Yesterday (Sunday, 8/4) on Lake Stevens, I found the most kokanee in the center to southern area of the lake. I saw fish that appeared to be kokanee from 25 feet down to 70 feet. All my hookups happened between 35 and 47 feet down on the downriggers. The hot ticket for the day was a fire tiger God's Tooth spoon,  with an added stick-on eye on the painted side and glow tape on the silver side, on a 12" leader (bottom end of dodger to bottom hook) behind a 6" UV glow slingblade dodger.

I think I brought home 8 or so and had about 12 hookups. I could have easily limited but wanted to get in some testing of setback lengths and additional "attractors" attached to the back of the downrigger weight while the fish were biting. The results of the testing is that the fish clearly wanted shorter setbacks and weren't fans of dodgers/flashers attached to the rear of the downrigger weights. The optimal setbacks were 10 to 15 feet from the clip to the dodger, and that performed significantly better than longer setbacks (tested out to 50 feet). Note that I don't use standard downrigger balls. I have one 4lb sparkly blue fish-shaped downrigger weight and one 3lb downrigger weight that I made from a rock cod weight that I plasti-coated black and stuck reflective tape on it.

I thought to test much shorter setbacks when I noticed a big fish visibly change depth on my fish finder to swim right with my sparkly blue fish-shaped downrigger weight. That reminded of the same thing happening with sockeye up at Baker Lake where very short setbacks are often used. Sure enough, when I shortened the setback the bite got a lot hotter.