Went yesterday and caught 6 kokes. Probably 10 boats out fishing, most were catching fish. The bite was from 20-35 ft. Pink seemed to work the best.
Game and fish was out doing net survey, be interesting to see what they report.
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Went 2 days ago and there were probably 30+ boats on the water. The parking lot at Juniper was packed and a number of boats came down from Blacktail. And only 2 were non-fishing boats. Kokes were hitting on top of the water probably only 10-15 ft at most down on green (chartreuse) and pink. Caught a number of them and so were others with long lines and down riggers both. F&G had their gill nets out but by 11 they had them pulled.
Most everyone fishing was off the water by noon.
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I want to hit Ririe Sunday. I haven't done much kokanee fishing. Can anyone help me with what to use? Do you use a big flasher and then the lure? I've always herd pink was the color, but what lures do you use. I want to take my lady friend and she loves salmon. Please help me so I won't look like a idiot out there. Lol
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I was out on Friday and it was slow. Caught 4 trout and 2 kokanee. The kokes were caught on pink squid with bill and pink dodger. Trolled 1.8-2.1 mph using lead core line out 140 ft. Just a plain pink squid will work.
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Thank you for that fine report. I don't think I can get in to buy squid. Do you ever use small pink lures like triple teasers behind a 4 or 5 inch flasher? I guess I'll just have to try it. Good to know the trout are bitting. If my pink lures don't work I will just target them.
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Triple teasers work well behind cowbells/popgear for salmon in Montana, just straight silver was a good color for us.
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I have a bunch of old pop gear around here somewhere. I need to find it. Thanks for the idea Lyle.
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Your welcome Randy, I'm sure it will work for you, seems some guys used to use a wedding ring spinner behind them too. Good luck tomorrow.
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I did make it up to Ririe Tuesday. You were right about the wedding rings. They were catching them on the pink color with pop gear or just a silver flasher. I only got two to hit on a green triple teaser.
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Sorry to hear your trip didn't work out so well. Now you have a idea of whats working. I usually don't expect to do well on my first trips to new waters as I know it can be hard to figure out whats working.
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Caught and kept six kokes Friday. Actually kind of slow. Fish were spread out and ranged from 20-45 fow. Pink and orange squid behind silver and orange dodger did the trick.
The fish and game were taking creel surveys. I asked about the gill netting survey but he didn't have any information. I asked if the results of the netting survey would be published in the paper and he didn't know. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
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Good to hear you picked up some kokes but it seems the numbers are way down this year. I sent a PM to IDFG_Fisheries, to see if he can help with your question about the gill net survey. Here is a link to his profile in case you or others want to send him a PM:
http://www.bigfishtackle.com/profiles/IDFG_Fisheries/
By the way, are the kokes you are catching average sized this year?
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The size seems normal for this time of year, up to 16 inches. It's just the numbers that's down. The gill netting survey should tell us the same.
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Here is the answer I received from the PM I sent:
[quote IDFG_Fisheries]Greetings Curt,
Ririe Reservoir surveys are managed by Brett High in the Idaho Falls office. I'll get in touch with him and see if he can give me a summary of what they found.
If you guys are seeing 16" kokanee, it probably means that there are going to be fewer of them around. Kokanee all eat the same thing - plankton - so when there are a lot of kokanee, they compete for the same food. Few kokanee means less competition and much higher growth.
I'll see if Brett's crew has had time to look at the survey data yet. This is a very busy time of year with all the various surveys, so they may not yet have gotten to crunching the numbers quite yet.
I'll keep you posted.
Martin Koenig
Sportfishing Program Coordinator[/quote]
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Greetings folks,
I had a brief conversation with Regional Fishery Manager Brett High (Idaho Falls office) regarding the kokanee survey from Ririe Reservoir this year. Here's a basic summary of the fish data:
- Average catch was 50 fish per net, average is more like 80 per net.
- Lots of age-0 kokanee, some age-2, very few age-1 fish. Consequently, the fish size is bigger than average.
- People catching fish seem to be happy about the size
- Nets in the northern half of the reservoir had more of the bigger, older kokanee
Kokanee populations often cycle up/down between years, and high runoff years can affect the populations as well.
Feel free to contact Brett directly for more details.
208-525-7290
Martin Koenig
Sportfishing Program Coordinator
Idaho Department of Fish and Game
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Thanks so much for getting back to us on the gill net survey Martin.
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As I interpret the survey it seems that a little more than 1/2 or (5/8) of the population is available. When we were ice fishing at the north end we didn't see nearly that many fish. The available fish will certainly grow with the food source present, it was a great run off this spring. I hope the low cycle has worked it course and this year's 320,000 stockers will not be affected in a negative manner.
The most kokanee I have seen on the screen and caught have been in the power line and narrows area. Very few fish near the dam and Juniper area. All we can do is keep fishing and hope for the best.
Thanks for the report. An official report in the post register would be nice.
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The report's interpretation would be you had 2 successive years of class collapse as I feared. We really need this year's class to come storming back to show that the fishery is healthy.
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Certainly agree with the interpretation. Seems there are half or less fish in the lake;
however, the size of fish is much larger. Last two days I caught 15 with one of them a whopping 18 inches. All the fish were heavy and over 13 inches. All the fish caught were between 40-60 fow. Must be plenty of feed around. Hopefully this springs stickers are growing well.
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