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I kayak fished Riffe Lake for the first time ever. I did quite a bit of research on the lake before heading out and consider myself a skilled kokanee fisherman so I had high hopes. I also was hoping to use this opportunity to shoot another episode of the Cascadia Kayak Angler focusing on the research and techniques I use when exploring a new body of water.

I launched out of Taidnapam at around 7 AM and was the second boat on the water. A few hundred yards north of the ramp I saw several salmon busting the surface and decided to drop my gear in. I was using a Yakima Bait Fast Limit dodger paired with a Paulina Peak UV green micro-hoochie with chunks of cured coon shrimp. I didn't need to wait long and within a couple minutes I had my first fish on! These coho are not at all timid like kokanee and they slam the lure with intent. I was really impressed with the quality of fight these fish put up and was even more impressed with their size and condition (all were very fat). The bite was ridiculous and I caught a limit of five in less than 40 minutes. Average size was 16" and most fish were caught 20-70' back with a 1/2 oz weight trolled at 1.5 mph although they clearly can swim a lot faster than that (see video). A couple I caught just dropping the gear back. If there ever was a "stupid easy" fishing kind of day this was it! I felt kind of sad leaving the lake by 8:30 AM and only wished the limit was higher.

I owe a very special thanks to the Northwest Fishing Reports member "laketroll" for his reports and answering my questions.

Toni

5/16/2015 6:10:00 PM

Nice report and video. I love those fish...almost as much as kokanee

Hunter757

5/16/2015 6:48:00 PM

Nice video, wow when I used to fish there it was 15 fish per day. times have changed.

KING KONG COHO

5/16/2015 9:56:00 PM

Nice report and NICE knife skills on those fish! Thumbs up!

mav186

5/17/2015 10:57:00 AM

Very nicely done Sandpiper! Those are some great quality fish. I enjoyed seeing the school chasing the Hootch...that dodger is working great...you had the perfect speed dialed in for it. I have a 18.5' boat and seem to never have enough room in it, then I watch video from you and other Yaks out there and I'm amazed how you prepare your work area. Always learning, thank you!

afk

5/17/2015 5:27:00 PM

As always, a great video! Thank you!

Mike Carey

5/18/2015 7:11:00 PM

nice, those fish are bigger than last time I fished the lake. How's the worm situation?
And Thank You so much for the "shout out" in the video. We really appreciate it!

laketroll

5/18/2015 8:50:00 PM

nice video my friend, man im impressed and im glad you had fun and caught good fish....hope to catch you out there some day

uplandsandpiper

5/18/2015 9:16:00 PM

Mike - Thank you for providing such an awesome resource. I can honestly say I would catch far fewer fish if it wasn't for this website. Kayak fishing takes a lot of planning and this website just makes it so much easier plus its a really supportive community. As for the worms only 1 fish had them but it didn't seem to detract from the quality of the meat. Its funny because I am usually quite pleased to find parasites on the fish I catch in the Columbia (e.g. sea lice) so a few worms inside the gut don't really bother me.

Laketroll - Thanks again! I plan on returning to Riffe again in the near future. Thanks for your posts and inspiring me to get out there and explore a new fishery.

SnoKing

5/19/2015 7:07:00 PM

Thanks for the info and Great video! What color flashers worked best? I noticed you were using scent; what flavor?

uplandsandpiper

5/19/2015 7:30:00 PM

I used a silver Fast Limit dodger with pearl and glo tape. That "pearl" tape that Yakima Bait uses is weird it can look blue, white, or even gold depending on the angle and you can see that in the video. I ran a gold dodger for a short while that saw no hits. As for the scent I was initially putting on a dab of krill but stop after it was apparent that the bite was so hot and it didn't make a difference.

fgfgf

6/2/2015 1:02:00 PM

I've quit fishing Riffe because the majority of them have intestinal worms in their guts. Some to the point where they have a yellow-orange liquid puss in their guts that squirts out when you clean them. I just caught my first trout that had the worms, downstream on Mayfield yesterday. Did any of your fish have the worms?

uplandsandpiper

6/2/2015 1:06:00 PM

About 1 in 5 have the worms.

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