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After a blown tire on the trip up, making my way though the thin ice field outside Honeysuckle, transducer malfunction (probably due to the ice), downrigger bracket coming loose, and dead battery in my iPilot remote, I finally got my lines wet at Hayden. Fished Saturday and Sunday mornings. The fishing wasn't red hot, but there were some schools of decent fish to be found. Lots of boats on the water. Heard word there was some sort of bass tournament so lots of bass boats going up and down the lake and also some pike fishers in the mix. I'm no guru, but I have my suspicions that the increased traffic caused the kokes to be a bit weary and I didn't have quite the action others have had. That could also just be an excuse...

Saturday I started at Clark's Point and worked my way up lake from there. I was marking some small schools in open water 80-100' down. Ended up finding some fish about mid way up lake with the plenty of other boaters hitting the sweet spot with me later in the day. Hooked my first fish at 10:30 and hit the same school for a second at about 10:45. Also had one hard take in bewteen the two fish but it didn't stick and robbed my corn. A guy in a small jon boat was catching them right with me. There appeared to be lots of good feed in the water where I was fishing and the first school that had biters was stacked nearly top to bottom. About a hour later same thing, hooked my third fish and then hit the school again for a fourth. Both of these groups were in water that went from about 80' to 120' off points and were thick. That finished the day out for me with the biggest fish at 14".

Sunday I went straight for the cove where the fish had been the day before. At about 8:00 I marked a school over 160' of water 40-60' down and had my first fish on the boat shortly after. After another pass or two I decided to explore. I ran to Mokins Bay thinking the SW wind on Saturday might of moved some feed up lake, but it seems pretty shallow for kokanee and I just had bass jiggers as company. My Navionics chip doesn't have a depth chart for Hayden to my amazement. Kind of a let down and I was shooting in the dark most of the time trying to read the landscape and figure out the lake with sonar alone. Anyway, I wouldn't take the time to fish up there for kokanee again. After the misadventure I ran back down lake and headed into the productive spot. Marked a school over 120' of water running 60-80'. Dropped my rigger down to them and a minute or two later at around 10:45 it was fish on! Biggest fish of the trip at 14 and 1/2 inches. Marked one more small school 30-60' right after that and nothing else the rest of the day. They really seemed thinned out from that particular spot, maybe they've moved further down lake as CoyoteCrazy mentioned. It's hard to say with that 38 degree water seems like they could be anywhere as the lake is pretty uniform at this point.

To sum it all up I went basically 6 for 6 (other than that one take that didn't stick), got the dust off my gear, cured a little spring fever with some much needed fish, and got the freezer stock pile started. What awesome meat on these fish. My fish came from 30-60' of water and my advice for anyone wanting to get out and kokanee fish right now is slow down and less is sometimes more. Tight lines all!

CoyoteCrazy

3/24/2014 6:26:00 PM

Which boat is yours? I am sure we saw each other out there. What are you using for flash/lure out of curiosity?

Fishman_Kuzan

3/24/2014 10:03:00 PM

I run a blue and tan smokercraft stiletto, I use chrome 4 inch luhr jensons (size 0000 I believe). Had some sling blades to try out but never got them out of the bag, saw you mentioned them. Do they work for you? Looks like you had some bigger fish, hats off!

CoyoteCrazy

3/25/2014 8:16:00 PM

I always run one pole with a heavy flash like a beer can or ford fender on one of the bottom rods off the DR about 75ft behind the ball and then stagger my other 3 rods (depends on how many guys in the boat) with a sling blade. The heavy flash gets bit the least, but I think it draws the fish in and then they choose the smaller sling blades. I always bend my sling blades to give them more action and then run a short leader 12-14" so that hoochie or fly is whipping pretty good. I use the same setup on Rock lake for Browns and Rainbows with great effect but with apex style lures and a 16" leader.
The biggest koke was 16" and the smallest was 14".

Fishman_Kuzan

3/31/2014 6:36:00 PM

Sounds like you have a system pretty dialed in and that you give a yes vote for sling blades. I'll have to try them out next time. I was setting my lines back about the same fishing about same depths as you (besides the 75' line). I agree with a longer leader for lures like apex that have their own action. Short leader on the hootchies imparts action to the hootchie and this is why I like the luhr jensons. Out of the bag they give that rotating motion like larger hot spot flashers. This short of fishing is my roots, my koke style is mini-salmon. Thats why I love kokes, getting dialed in for salmon in the salt! What kind of boat do you run Coyote? I'll give you a nod if I ever see you out.

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