Got a late start and wasn't on the water until 8:00 or 8:30. Spent most of my time trolling in the vacinity of the dam. Watched the video so I started out with all things green. Had a few short srtikers swing and miss first thing. Finally got a good take down and played the fish to the boat. It put up a good fight so I was hpoing for a nice koke, but alas it was a RBT about 14". Badly hooked in the eye and chest so it went in the box. Had a couple other fish to the boat but all RBT caught and released. One probable kokanee popped off right at the boat.

Moved up the lake to where Toni indicated she caught her fish a week prior. Got one more to boat there and again a RBT. Also foul hooked so ended my day with 2 RBT in the box and another 2 or 3 released and one self-release koke.

After wathcing Randy, Nate, and Mike beat up on the kokes I was hoping for better but at least I caught a few fish for my first time on this impoundment. On the bright side, I did get a fairly close view of an osprey doing a high-angle plunge to grab himself a fishy lunch - WAY COOL!

Trolled a small green fish flash with a two tone green cha cha squidder that did most of the damage. Also ran my Wallowa Lake special without attracting a bite. Gave the sling blade and green wiggle hoochie a ride and tagged one of the RBT on it. Also trolled a 50/50 dodger with pink squid for a while without any luck. Ran a chartreusxe ace hi fly for a while and had a good hard swing and miss on it. Trolled at depths from 18' to 50' chasing meter marks. Most fish bit in 20' - 35' of water (of course, mostly bows).

Sorry, no pics this trip as I didn't find any of what I caught to be photo-worthy.

I did mark quite a number of what I'm fairly sure were mackinaw along the highway side of the lake not far from the dam in 120' - 200' of water and hugging the bottom. Ran the Ace Hi Fly down there for a short spell to see if I could fool one. Unfortunately, the bottom contour is very inconsistent there so it was hard to stay near bottom without snagging, especially with the breeze making navigating a straight line challenging. This bears further investigation on a future trip as the schools I marked were MASSIVE.

Tight Lines!

Fish Dawg

Acefishon

7/10/2012 8:11:00 PM

well hate tell you there are zero koks in riffe lake them fish are land locked silver best place fish for them are down at dam just ten feet down put slip bobber on with shrimp catch as many you won't but they are not koks.

bryanpeck

7/11/2012 1:39:00 PM

I know, not all lanlocked salmon are created equal. At the same time, the average land locked silver and land locked sockeye are about the same in habit and come out about the same on the smoker rack. Thanks for clarifying, just the same.

Mike Carey

7/11/2012 8:04:00 PM

sorry you didn't have more luck. Did you use downriggers? BTW, no macks in Riffe lake (that I am aware of)

bryanpeck

7/11/2012 8:59:00 PM

@ Mike - Yes I was using downriggers. By the looks of some reports I was probably too deep. Looks like most people are catching fish in 6' - 10' of water and the shallowest I fished was about 18'. Usually I run a surface line along with riggers but didn't have any of the kids with me this trip and didn't forego either of my rigger rods for a surface line. Good learning for the next adventure there.

I went back and found a post from sometime last year where a guy mistook a large pike minnow for a laker. If those were schools of pike minnow I was makring along the bottom in deep water it could spell trouble for the trout and salmon populations in the lake as they were mostly large marks and there were scores of fish marked in each school. Traveling over some of the larger schools I was metering fish for 100 yards at a stretch pretty consistently. That would be a really large school of predatory junk fish - EWWW!

The pattern of fish hugging the bottom contour was similar to what I observed at Chelan recently which is why I was hopeful for lakers in Riffe. - C'est la Vis!

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