Kokanee are Pissing me OFF!

[RiverChromeGS]

Ok, so i like fishing kokanee, but wow. the lakes around bellingham that have them: whatcom, samish, cavanaugh. I have never EVER caught one over 12 inches, or barely over 10 for that matter. ANYONE who has any idea of a place on the westside, that is within 3 hours of bellingham, so lets say not much more south of olympia, that has any decent sized kokanee, let me know. Im wondering if there even are any places? why dont they get bigger? they spawn at 8 inches, so weird.... and yet lake roosevelt and chelan have 2-5 pounders!!! i want some of those. Let me know guys.

[Camron]

i have same question but near olympia

[Stacie Kelsey]

Merwin Res east of Woodland Washington has some beautiful size Kokanee. Travel 20 miles east to Speelyai Bay. Very good launch but it's a good idea to check the reservoir levels prior to making a long trip. You can visit the PacifiCorp website for more info.

[natetreat]

Kokanee eat plankton and other small stuff in the lakes. They also get over populated, and remain small because of the food source/fish ratio. That's why on a lot of lakes the limit is 10 or 15 fish, so that the population gets fished into a better quality fishery. I know that the silvers in Riffe lake get a lot bigger, I've caught them to 19" in the one trip I went down there last year, and another guy had a 21" which is like a baby salmon. I don't know if it's the landlocked coho that get bigger, but even the 10" kokes taste delicious. I don't mind the size, the quality of eating is great! One or two fish makes a dinner. When I want a fight I fish for steel.

[The Quadfather]

American lake. Also, if you haven't already.... get onboard on the washington kokanee forum. It's actually a website/forum that covers many NW states. Just google washington state kokanee forum, you'l find your way. Lots of kokanee freeks and info.

[Jake Dogfish]

Exactly what natetreat said.
In my opinion, alot of the smaller kokanee lakes are over planted around here. The local planted lake produces fish at 10" to 11". One year they only planted less than half as many fry and the fish were 14" to 15"...

[Matt]

Baker Lake and Lake Shannon both have healthy populations of kokanee as well. There are some very large fish in Baker Lake as well, including other land locked species of salmon and bull trout (which must be released). Last year when I was fishing for Sockeye up at Baker we hooked into a rainbow that was easily pushing 6 pounds.

Samish is a great kokanee lake. There are a lot of smaller fish, especially this time of year, but as the season goes on they will pack on body fat and a few inches. I have pulled kokes out of Samish in the 14-16" margin. Also, there are giant cutthroat in that lake. You just have to put in your time to find them, fish deep and use needlefish, cutplug herring, plugs, or a wedding ring with half a night crawler and a large blade around size 3-4 (colorado). There are cutts in there well over 5 pounds. I have also caught a few rainbows pushing 3 pounds, and very healthy.

In all my years of living in Bellingham, I never had the opportunity to fish Whatcom except from the shore do to the counties 4-stroke motors only restrictions. I have heard that there is very good kokanee fishing in there, but that lake is pretty overpopulated by the little buggers and as Natetreat said if someone doesn't get in there and do some thinning on them they will never reach larger sizes. Whatcom also has an abundance of very healthy sized cutthroat, but they are protected and you are not even allowed to target them.... although they will hit the same gear as kokanee.

The bottom line is this, though: All of these bodies of water HAVE larger kokanee, you just have to put in the time and effort to find the schools. The fish tend to hold in schools stratified by age/size, once you find one big one, keep plugging that same depth and location until you find more. Usually the larger fish will hold up below the schools of tiny guys, sometimes going 5-10 feet deeper on the downrigger will produce larger fish (although this is certainly not always the case).

These fish were taken from my favorite kokanee spot North of Seattle:

[RiverChromeGS]

I have heard that baker lake has some nice fish. those are some nice kokanee there matt. I'm going to start looking for some of those myself, and may try samish for a big cutthroat as well. Thanks for the info guys. Anyone know about lake stevens for big kokanee? hear they got some beauties as well as nice trout.

[Matt]

Stevnes is a big lake with lots of fish that receives ample pressure this time of year. If you hit it later into early fall you will find big fish and very little pressuse, but by that time everyones attention will have shifted to salmon! The trout in stevens are illusive and the majority of them are caught on anchor or by shore anglers, and there are some HUGE ones in there, trout lodge has planted fish up to 13 lbs for the last 2 seasons, my buddy landed an 8 lbr last season.

[Stacie Kelsey]

Just an FYI Riffe doesn't have Kokanee. They have coho. The only Kokanee waters we have in my region are Yale and Merwin. Yale is one of those lakes that has a high catch limit. But it has been pulling out some nice size fish lately.

['OL GREY DOG]

just a FYI or lol moment....was do'n a search earlier looking for a tackle company...with Wa and kokanee in my entry....and 1 of the results came bk..."kokanee are pissing me off" 'n a link to WL's

[sickbayer]

just a FYI or lol moment....was do'n a search earlier looking for a tackle company...with Wa and kokanee in my entry....and 1 of the results came bk..."kokanee are pissing me off" 'n a link to WL's

ROTFLMAO

[RiverChromeGS]

Are those "anchor" fishermen fishing powerbait for those big ones matt? Although an 8lb rainbow sounds nice, it pains me to sit watching powerbait all day. Wonder if they would take anything slow trolled. Do you, or anyone else know the best area of lake stevens for big trout and kokanee? north, south, east, west, river mouth anything?

[racfish]

Want Kokes???? Use Maggots or shoe peg corn. Kokes have very soft lips. You cant haul off and set the hook like its a steely. I use a 3' maggot hook with a very lil split shot weight. I fish Lost Lake near Shelton area. I learned this from an older gent who fishes that lake with success.I find that Kokes bite gently. The lesser the weight the better you feel the strike. Lake Stevens was always a good producer of nice size Kokes. Good luck to all.I am a Koke addict.Hehehe

[FishingFool]

check out this kok i caught today out of Meridian, lol.

Pretty sure it's a kok. Hard for me to tell for sure when they are so small.

[RiverChromeGS]

CHROMMMERRRR!!!! lol. Racfish you still fishing those maggots/corn? My dad use to do that in baker lake years ago. Still fishing for 5 pound kokanee and he says you can barely see the bite, sometimes the tiny bend in his pole from a split shot would simply go away and the pole would be straight. Insane!

[The Quadfather]

fishin'freak, you asked about where on Stevens. A lot of people like to fish around the Aerator on the N. end of the lake. You can't miss it.

[RiverChromeGS]

Thanks quad. Ill hit that first if i go this weekend. Is that a general purpose spot bows and kokes? I hear they got monster bows. Id love to get one trolling for kokanee. I bet near spawning time for kokanee stevens has some hawwg bucks. Thanks for all the info guys ill post reports if i start slayin big boys. Needed sonething to keep me occupied until chinook season off vancouver island

[RiverChromeGS]

Thats an awesome kokanee website also quad. Lots of info helped a lot.