"Arrr" Nice Job Cap'n Dave!! Fine Silver treasure indeed! those are some beauts!!! Care to tell where one might find em?

What allows them to grow so big???

As I recall Walleygator77 you put up some awesome kokes the other day. I will say that you can find kokes many places from the dam to fort spokane. I seem to find them In front of the sandy shorelines. Join me on on of my seminars and I will show you the methods to my madness. Cobrar543 food and lots of it. Several lakes over the past several years have produced huge kokanee. In several cases the koke population was depleted which left more food available for the remaining fish. In the case of Roosevelt it seems that we have lots of feed possibly with the help of last years warm water possibly assisting insect growth. All I know is that fish this size only think about one thing. Food. Find the food, find the fish.

WOW!! nice fish!!

I am going to give my two cents on the Kokanee in Rosey..Walleye were the reason Kokanee had a hard time lately..Ever since the 16 fish any fish limit every other fish has benefitted ...Up North there is a lot of small sturgeon being caught..Like it or not, the Walleye were over populated and nothing could get past the huge mass of Walleye to survive...If I am wrong feel free to counter...Just kinda funny when the Walleye get hammered on for a few years the Kokanee explode..Now as for Walleye there is still big ones being caught and the little ones are kept in check..I was even against the new limits for Walleye...Now I am for it all the way, it is even benifitting the Walleye...

Huntelkhard. I hadn't considered the walleye reduction as a factor. I think you are correct that fewer walleye means more trout and Kokanee will survive. If this were the only variable I would find it odd the the rainbow population seems to be down this year and they aren't as robust as the kokes are. I think the abundance of food helps to explain their size an fewer predators are one of the factors that explain their population. The best part is that all my theories can be dead wrong I still get to enjoy catching monster kokanee from this lake.

Thanks Cap'n Dave for the recall and yes you are right in saying in front of sandy beaches and especially where the rock cliffs end and the sandy beaches start, so far my son and I have found 5 spots up above Spring Canyon but my last trip to Spring Canyon was my first and we still limited but I am a wonderer and like to find new places it just ups my odds in catching those HUGE Kokanee, when and where are your seminars going to be? I would love to meet you in person. As for the reason why the Kokanee are so big and so abundant is because the Tribe raised and planted how many thousands of them in the lake and because the food source has been restored" Zooplankton". I am a big fisherman of Walleye hence my name "walleygator77" and have fished for them hard for the last 25yrs in Lake Roosevelt and enjoy the taste of them immensely and over the last 25yrs have not once come across a Kokanee of any size in the stomach of a walleye, lots of perch and smallmouth bass though, just saying. Anyway Tight Lines and Keep Reelin. This sight is a very good resource for fisherman! Thanks Again.

Walleygator77, you have these kokes winter/ spring haunts nailed to a tee. As far as locating the "huge" fish. What would you call that 23" you got the other day. I may need to start following you around. I don't always head straight for my hot spots. I like to continue to poke around alway finding more schools I can rely on. It's no bueno to get locked into one spot, style, flavor. Confidence first, exploration later. I have to disagree about the tribes. They say that all of their released fish are clipped. I have yet to catch one that is clipped. Sooo? Something's not adding up. I wouldn't mind adding a few of those clipped fish to my pile. BTW I liked to see the "fly reel" I think it makes it a lot more fun , but hard to use with guests.

I'm scheduling my seminars around the schedule a of those interested. If your interested feel free to give me a call. I'll get you on the list.

This has been a good conversation..We will never solve the world's problems... That is why we fish, it's that one time when you have no problems and life is just life.. Thanks guys I value your input..

Thanks Cap'n Dave for the recall and that fly reel (Pflueger) was given to me by my father and still has the colored mono underneath the 7 colors of leaded line and it is on a 8ft Eagle Claw fiberglass rod with the original wood handle , he used it for trolling for Big Gerrard Rainbows up on Lake Pend Oreille. I totally agree on the fin clipped Kokanee they don't exist because I think they pulled a fast one on us and left them all with adipose fins, which I think is a good idea, it leaves more of them to grow for a longer period of time, hence the size that they are, and I agree with you totally" huntelkhard" I love to be out on the water fishing and" No Problems and life is just life", Nice quote! Well Cap'n Dave I am interested in coming to your seminar so I need a phone number? Tight Lines and Keep Reelin!

Rich Landers: Wild kokanee drive the limit at Lake Roosevelt THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015

By Rich Landers
richl@spokesman.com
(509) 459-5508


Thanks to Idaho, Anglers have been hooking a bumper crop of kokanee in Lake Roosevelt since last year. Unfortunately, they’ve had to release most of the delicious land-locked sockeyes.
“Almost every one we catch has an unclipped adipose fin,” said Clarence Rief, a Davenport-area kokanee enthusiast, who said he’s concerned about the waste.
“We can keep only fin-clipped hatchery kokanee. But I know a lot of those fish we’re releasing don’t survive.”
Colville Tribe biologists have tested and linked the increase of kokanee in Roosevelt to the rebound of Lake Pend Oreille kokanee, which are unmarked. Fishermen can keep up to five kokanee a day from the Roosevelt, the Columbia River reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam, but only two of them can be unmarked.
The rule was established to protect Roosevelt’s wild strain of kokanee, said Chris Donley, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife inland lakes manager.
The situation is similar to restrictions on fishing for salmon and steelhead elsewhere in the region.
“We want hatchery fish to be caught, but we have to regulate to protect the wild fish,” he said. Rief caught Washington’s record kokanee, 6.25 pounds, from Roosevelt in 2003. But the kokanee fishery has had many ups and downs since then. Net-pen releases of kokanee ended around 2005 in favor of direct releases from the Spokane Tribal Hatchery.
Production of kokanee from the tribal hatchery has been dramatically reduced in recent years, from about 500,000 in 2010 to about 200,000 in 2013.
Last year, no kokanee were produced and released into Roosevelt because of a disease outbreak, said hatchery manger Tim Peone.
This year, about 85,000 kokanee will be raised, fin-clipped and released, he said.
“When we were releasing smaller fish, predators like walleye and bass got most of them,” Peone said.
“By raising fewer fish to larger sizes – four to a pound this year – we hope to get more fish into the angler creel.”
This year marks a new program in which the hatchery kokanee will be“triploids,” that is, sterile. Peone said this should help them grow larger faster and be more resistant than previous hatchery fish to following their sea-running instincts and heading downstream through Grand Coulee Dam.
“These fish will be released at Fort Spokane-Seven Bays area and will be showing up in angler harvest by July,” he said.
“Our goal is for 100 percent harvest. We want these fish to be caught.”
Less emphasis on kokanee stems from years of research showing that Roosevelt kokanee are a poor investment of fisheries mitigation funding from the Bonneville Power Administration for impacts caused by Grand Coulee Dam. Changes in dam operations have increased drawdowns in many years, leaving the eggs of naturally spawning kokanee high and dry.
Hatchery kokanee were found to be significantly impacted by predators or flushed downstream. The money is better spent, researchers say, on raising rainbow trout in net pens.
But some hatchery kokanee effort continues because the tribes have a cultural link to salmon and the fish support other wildlife. In addition, anglers love to catch and eat them.
The increase of kokanee in Lake Roosevelt starting last year is the result of kokanee restoration in Lake Pend Oreille as well as good numbers at Lake Coeur d’Alene, Donley said.
Fish researchers working with the Colville Tribe have been able to link fish from the big schools in Roosevelt to upstream Idaho sources, he said.
“They’re not the big 19- to 21-inch kokanee that Roosevelt anglers are used to,” he said. “They’re smaller fish, running 14-16 inches.
“There’s a lot of them. Good fishermen can catch 20 a day and they’d like to keep more of them, but the Idaho fish are unclipped.
“If we had a way for anglers to positively ID the Idaho fish, we’d let them keep more of them, but we have to protect the Lake Roosevelt-origin wild kokanee.”
Donley said he understands the frustration of anglers who catch mostly unclipped kokanee.
“I went through it while fishing this winter, too,” he said. “We’d get into massive schools where we could catch kokanee at will, but it’s no different than Puget Sound chinook: the number of wild fish – the lowest abundance stock – drives the limit.
“There are more kokanee in Roosevelt than we’ve seen in a long time. Only a fraction are marked.”
Limits could be changed, possibly on the basis of size, if this year’s abundance of kokanee became consistent, Donley said.
“But this could be just a one- or two-year event,” he said.
Responding to anglers who say the kokanee they release aren’t surviving, Donley is direct: “Catch two kokanee and stop,” he said. “Go on to other fish. If it’s in the summer and you’re going deep to catch kokanee, troll closer to the surface after you catch two unclipped kokanee and you’ll be in the rainbow zone.”
The challenge for fisheries managers is getting anglers to value the fishery as it is. The option is a flat two-kokanee limit, as it is downstream in Lake Rufus Woods.
“You can reduce hooking mortality on kokanee by releasing them in the water and avoiding a net which just knocks scales off,” Donley said.
“But the best way conserve what we have is to catch two and stop.

I found this article and thought you all might find it good reading

I remember when this fishery was a peacful place to go and spend a day enjoying nature with friends. Sad when guides announce to any and everyone who will listen for the sake of a dollar. Then cut you off or are disrespectful on the water, act like your friend to get info and then dismiss disrepectfully. Lets all utilize this fishery and be respectful. This is a great blessing to have this please dont disrespect. Thanks Dave