Coeur d'Alene Kokanee

[obifishkenobi]

I am completely new to this type of fishing, got my new boat last week. I went out 4 days last week learning how to use my downriggers, fish finder etc. I feel like I got some good time in trolling for kokanee but have been completely skunked, no blood on the new boat yet!

Has anyone been catching any kokanee or Coho in CDA? I could use some guidance. I'm going out again this week to keep try

What part of the water column are you targeting? Early in the year the Kokanee tend to be up near the surface and will not not be easy to locate with electronics. They will scatter as your boat approaches them and you will not see them with down imaging, requiring really long set backs 120+'  to catch. This time of year I'm running my down riggers in the top 10'. As the season progresses and the thermocline, a layer of water about 53 degrees develops, the fish will follow it down as that is where their food source lives. As the fish go deeper you can shorten your set backs and you will start seeing the schools of kokanee on your fish finder, when the fish are down in the 20'-30' range Ill run my bottom lines at 50' set backs and my top lines at 40' back and as the fish go deeper you can keep shorting them in 30' to 40' down 30' and 40' set backs and 40 to 50' depth 20' and 10' set backs. Shorter set backs allow you to make tighter turns keeping you on the schools of fish that you can now see on your fish finder. Another consideration is you should be turning doing S turns as well as varying your speed all the time, most bites come on the turn and depending on which side of the boat the bite comes will tell you whether to speed up or slow down, if on the inside of the turn slow down if on the out side speed up. Nothing in nature swims in a straight line at the same speed all day. I vary my speed from about .9 mph up to about 1.8mph.