I probably spend 50-60 days a year chasing Kokes. While I have not tried at East Canyon, I can say in the case of Strawberry and The Gorge, that the last two years have been rough, with this year being flat out terrible. Jordanelle was great in 2019, had a few bad years, and was great again this year.
I think a combination of drought in their fall spawning streams, increased COVID fishing pressure, reduced stocking, and the proliferation of guides have had a significant impact.
In the case of Strawberry: They put in 300,000 fry this year. Of course, those won't be catchable for 2-2.5 years, so we'll look into the future. Let's assume a 10% survival rate to adulthood (a fairly standard assumption). That makes 30,000 Mature Kokanee in the summer of 2025. Additionally, I exchanged emails last year with the Strawberry biologist wondering how much natural spawning recruitment happens at Strawberry, and he said according to creel surveys, approx. 50% are stocked and 50% are naturally spawned. So let's say 60k catchable Kokes in 2025.
There are currently 4 licensed guides on Strawberry (and I suspect some unlicensed "
" guides, which is another problem entirely). Let's say they are out fishing with clients 75% of the days between May 1 (ice off) and September 10th (season close). That is approx 97 days of fishing, with generally 4 clients on the boat. Of course, their goal is always limits. So if we have 4 boats with 4 clients, fishing 97 days, and assuming they get limits every day (a bold assumption, yes), that is 6,208 fish (assuming the guides and their deck hands aren't also keeping fish),
10% of the fish in that year class!
There's also the problem that people have gotten much more effective at catching Kokanee in the last 10 years, due in large part to Youtube videos and facebook posts "hotspotting" and showing them exactly where to fish, how to fish, and what to use. Many of these Johnny-come-lately tackle companies have their "pro staff" cluttering up every Facebook page they can with stories of how "The Kokes were biting great this weekend on our ultra whiz-bang Moon-Jelly and Gold dodgers, use discount code DUMB*** at checkout for 10% off!" This has taken much of the mystery out of Kokanee fishing, while simultaneously less fish are being stocked.
It's been a perfect storm of factors, and we're all losing because of it.
