I had heard a sprinkling of reports of giant Kokanee once again appearing in Wallowa Lake. This lake produced the world record fish over 9 lbs about a decade ago but the fishery declined soon after with the lake largely producing abundant small fish. The weather was less than ideal when I arrived at 4:45 AM with bouts of rain and cool weather and I struggled at first to find any large fish but small Kokanee and Rainbow Trout under 10" were fairly common. After a couple hours of trolling on the first morning I stumbled across my first large fish a fat 18" Kokanee in 30' of water. I decided to focus on this depth the remainder of the morning and caught several very large fish pushing 20" and with innumerable planter Rainbows released. By 11 AM the rain was steady and the bite had slowed. I called it for the day. I tried again the next morning repeating the same tactics I used the day before and caught a few Kokanee between 17 and 18" before calling it and heading home.

Pink moon jelly dodgers and pink microhoochies tipped with corn were by the best producing gear for me. Most fish were caught 15-30' deep in 30-50' of water.

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