Kokanee at Billy Chinook

I took my kids to Lake Billy Chinook yesterday to stay overnight and an let them play at the beach on the upper Deschutes Day use.  I brought my 9ft pontoon along to set crawdad traps.  No luck with crawdads at the upper Deschutes Day Use, probably because it is mostly sand/gravel.  The Kokanee were breaking all over the entire lake, not just at the day use I was at.  Everywhere you looked, even inside the marina...you had Kokanee busting the surface.

I was distracted all day, dreaming of how good I might do if I had my kayak.  The sound of fish was driving me nuts.
At about 5pm I could not take it and pushed the pontoon out just beyond the Slow/No Wake bouys and cast out a silver spoon.  BANG!

The spoon only dropped maybe three or four feet before the hit.  I laughed to myself because that was classic.  I fished for maybe twenty-thirty minutes and landed four Kokes!  Just perfect.  Never have I seen so many Kokanee on this lake (fishing it since I was a little kid).  It is like a freak bloom of salmon.  The last Kokanee I caught was by trolling the spoon back to shore. 

If you were thinking about hitting Billy Chinook for Kokes, now is the time.  The main camp is closed but the upper camp on the rim is still open.  It was probably about 80 yesterday and the lake is very green with a heavy algae bloom.
-Scott
 

Sounds like paradise! Thanks for the report.

The Coho are doing the same thing here in the Siuslaw. Too bad you can't keep them.

Sunday went back to the Upper Deschutes Day Use and tried for Kokes.  Your into fish just 100ft off the shore.  I actually cast off the dock at the launch and hooked up!  I landed 7 and they all are just 10 inch fish.  Trolling vs sitting and casting is getting the same result.  I was using the kokanee killer in the cool UV colors.  Had to share the Deschutes arm with two other boats, but they didn't show up until noonish.

The biggest problem I had was keeping the fish from tearing free.  The mouths are so soft it was really difficult to keep them on.  I lost more than I landed.  Still can only keep 5, and they are running pretty small.

I put out four crayfish traps.  I used canned catfood which has always produced good catches of crawdads.  This is not the time of year for crawdads I guess, nothing-nada-zilch. 

The lake is like a ghost town now that school is in.  The geese were hanging out and mergansers were diving.  I saw a muskrat swimming from the day use park across the lake, pretty ambitious!

Our weather report shows cool evenings in the 30 degree range (brrrr) but the days are still expected to hit 65-70 through Sunday.  You can add 8 degrees to that when your in the canyon at the lake. 
-Scott

Nice reports Scott!

Sounds like heaven.