Surprise from Strawberry

[RedNekFishR]

Fished by the ladders on Sunday 1-28.  Setup in 17' of water.  Had lots of fish swim past, even one that stuck around for a couple minutes attacking my transducer.  Between me and a buddy we were only able to pull 6 fish from out of our holes.  We both had more missed hooksets then we would like to admit and a few lost at the hole. The surprise of the day was a Kokanee who looked like she was getting ready to spawn.  Has anyone seen a Kokanee in this phase this time of year?

[SkunkedAgain]

Thanks for the report and every once in a while we see some Koke that stay colored up... I don't know if they are supposed to die like Alaska Salmon when they spawn or if they go back to a silver bullet condition, but I caught one years back and tried to eat it and it was not good... Hope yours turned out better... In the future I'll return mine... Later J

[joshomaru]

A couple of years ago my buddy caught a really nice buck koke in brilliant red this time of year through the ice.
J- They die after spawning transition.
I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling they are "lake spawning" fish- fish that were planted in the reservoir instead of the tributaries.

[wiperhunter2]

Cool about catching the koke, too bad the overall catching was slow. I've smoked plenty of kokes that color or even with more red color and they tasted fine, not sure how they would be if eaten without being smoked. Just about every year we read of someone catching a red koke, so it's not something we haven't seen before.

[Fisharefriends]

Fished by the ladders on Sunday 1-28.  Setup in 17' of water.  Had lots of fish swim past, even one that stuck around for a couple minutes attacking my transducer.  Between me and a buddy we were only able to pull 6 fish from out of our holes.  We both had more missed hooksets then we would like to admit and a few lost at the hole. The surprise of the day was a Kokanee who looked like she was getting ready to spawn.  Has anyone seen a Kokanee in this phase this time of year?

I caught one very similar to that the last week of December up there.  Even had a slight hook in the jaw.  I was really surprised because I was only in about 12 feet of water in the East Portal area

[RedNekFishR]

Thanks for all the replys everyone, I plan to smoke it later this week with another rainbow we caught. Hope it's good eating.

[liketrolling]

I have got some like that at Flaming Gorge trolling in Dec. Feb are March down 90 feet fishing for lake trout;