Fishing Forum

Out on Lake Washington, anglers catch sockeye on bare red hooks trolled slowly behind a dodger.

Just a thought, but you might increase your hookups switching to small red hooks. They are the same species of fish, after all.
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My dad uses small red hooks wrapped with a small amount of off white rubber band wrapped on it for his wedding rings (instead of corn) for kokes and it works great. []
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up on ririe I troll using red hooks with a trailer hook set up. Putting a piece of corn on the front hook seems to work pretty good. I think I boat more fish using the 2 hooks. If you miss them with the first hook the second usually gets them. I used that set up for chinook this year also.
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For what it's worth:
A good number of kokanee lures come with red Gamakatsu lazer sharpened hooks; usually in a two hook "stinger" set up. I usually retie the lures that don't come with them. Has always been controversy over whether corn or bare hooks both catch fish or which does better. I go with conventional wisdom; two hooks with white shoepeg corn. Two on the top hook and one on the trailing hook. You hook the corn through the wide end or head with the narrow end as the trailing edge. I soak the corn wth pro-cure scents. I've also used commercial fire corn.
I think each lake is different as well. Dodger and lure colors vary depending on depth, cloudiness, etc. If you follow the kokanee forums there is a ton of "science" (or technique anyway) in chasing kokanee.
I find that solar lunar tables usually help but there is still a huge "luck" component.
A good fish finder in sonar mode will locate suspended kokanee. Ideally, you locate a column or school at whatever depth (they prefer around 50 degree water) and then troll back and forth through them.
The guys that consistently target and catch kokanee employ everything from black boxes, zig-zag patterns, downriggers, gps speeds to different setups.
I usually try to locate the fish first and then change setups if they are not hitting. Action can be non-stop with multiple hookups to nothing more than a pleasant boat ride...
A bare red hook behind a dodger would catch a certain number of kokanee; especially if they are on the bite. I don't personally think this setup would outfish the typical kokanee rigging.
Just my take...
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Quote:A bare red hook behind a dodger would catch a certain number of kokanee; especially if they are on the bite. I don't personally think this setup would outfish the typical kokanee rigging.
Just my take...

I use pretty much the same set up as Aluma does but I dye my corn pink. As far as lures I carry close to 1000 every time I hit the water as well as several 100 different dodger set ups. Once you find the depth and color, I then tweak that by dropping 4 different lures at a time until the cream rises to the top, as it were.
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Not saying that people should just troll bare red hooks. I'm saying it might be a good idea to switch to red hooks on your usual rigging. That way if your bait comes off without you knowing, you still have a chance of catching fish.
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Now that makes sense! Very few Koke lures come with out red hooks these days. I retie the few that don't!
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Couldn't a person do a similar thing to what is done during ice fishing and just park their boat over a group of fish and jig for them?

I would think this would work, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone doing it.
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Jigging for kokes during the summer is very popular in Oregon and Washington and works well. You do need an electric motor that will hold you over the fish as well as good electronics to see them. They don't tend to travel like they do under the ice in the winter so your fishing needs to be much more targeted.
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Just something I've wondered about is the use of red hooks, I remember seeing adds on TV for red line made by Cajun I think it is and they claim red is one of the first colors to disappear when it goes in the water. I to use red hooks on my Crankbaits especially when trolling for wipers here in Utah, but I have often wondered about their claim.[fishin]
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[quote PACKFAN]Just something I've wondered about is the use of red hooks, I remember seeing adds on TV for red line made by Cajun I think it is and they claim red is one of the first colors to disappear when it goes in the water. I to use red hooks on my Crankbaits especially when trolling for wipers here in Utah, but I have often wondered about their claim.[fishin][/quote]

I've thought the same thing about red hooks. This guy wrote an article which seems to say red is the loser when it comes to showing up at any depth.

http://www.bigfishtackle.com/fishing_art...or_85.html
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While it's true that red fades quickly to our eyes, remember that fish don't necessarily see the same way we do. Who knows? Maybe they can distinguish between the shades. Red hooks do work, though.

The people who fish the bare hooks for Lake Washington sockeye typically troll from 65 to 80 feet down.
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Their claim is bogus. I'm friends with the author of "What Fish See," Dr. Colin J. Kageyama. Red doesn't disappear, it simply turns to gray at about 25 to 30 feet. Of interest is gray scale. We know colors turn gray at the depth past that of color spectrum penetration but . . . the does not mean that fish can't discern different colors, it simply means the colors are no longer a vibrant range of the natural spectrum of daylight above water. Colors that are still in their active or vibrant range should key fish easier then those that have turned gray. A theory is that all colors are still different at depth below the light penetration, simply in gray scale much as a black and white television shades each color in the spectrum differently.

To test this theory fish with red lures at 90 feet when Kokanee are in spawning colors. Match the red of the Kokanee and watch for violent hits.
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The article doesn't say red disappears.

"In other words, if you were trolling a red lure at a depth of 15 meters in the open ocean it would appear to a fish at that depth to be a dark color."
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[quote mudsucker]The article doesn't say red disappears.

"In other words, if you were trolling a red lure at a depth of 15 meters in the open ocean it would appear to a fish at that depth to be a dark color."[/quote]

You quoted packfan. Just something I've wondered about is the use of red hooks, I remember seeing adds on TV for red line made by Cajun I think it is and they claim red is one of the first colors to disappear when it goes in the water.

I didn't refer to the article at all, simply the information you chose to quote.
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[quote StacyR]Out on Lake Washington, anglers catch sockeye on bare red hooks trolled slowly behind a dodger.

Just a thought, but you might increase your hookups switching to small red hooks. They are the same species of fish, after all.[/quote]

And that's been going on for a long time- the summer of 72 my brother had me rowing a boat at 5 AM every morning for a month on Lake Wa. He fished- I rowed.
He did catch Sockeyes on a red Gamagatsu.
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