I had a few days off, so I brought my family down to Roosevelt to harvest a few Kokanee for canning. We had a great time together. I figured I’d share a few things we encountered. First of all, there has been a ton of debris in the water. Anything from small sticks to 40’ logs. It’s critical you keep an eye out, because some areas are like a mine field. Secondly the warm temps will turn your prized Kokanee to mush in a very short time if they aren’t iced. And by iced, I’m not talking about 5 Kokanee stacked on a frozen water bottle in the cooler. We have been getting them into an ice bath right after they are bled out. Thirdly the surface water temps have reached a point that have drastically reduced a released fishes chance of survival. We had one fish fall off the hook halfway up to the boat, and to my surprise it floated belly up right to the surface. In this case the fish did swim off before we could retrieve it. We also witnessed several eagles and ospreys flying off with fish I presume were unsuccessfully released. These Kokanee are quite special fish. I know it’s more impressive to go home with 20” fish vs 15” ones, but in doing so most of the released fish probably won’t make it. I was pleased with our stringer of these fat little buggers. Right down to the 14” piggy’s.

Tight lines and stay safe out there.

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