Black Kokanee

[doitall5000]

Interesting story in Japan. There are kokanee strains in Canada that grow to 4 or 5 years before spawning, getting larger. There are are some that are very successful in spawning on the shore and don't need to use a river.
I've  always advocated planting king salmon in strawberry in place of cutthroat.  There may be good reasons not to plant kings, but they know lots more about this than me.

So I'm not fully caught up with salmon and what all the ins and outs are.  I heard Kokanee are land locked fish that can't get to the ocean to grow up, not sure whether they are an ocean going strain that got land locked and became Kokanee, or if they are a complete separate species, (I thought they were silvers that got land locked, but I don't know if that was from a reliable source or just someone's guess.) but to my knowledge Kings are an ocean going variety and I'm not sure they could stay in fresh water for their full lives and thrive... but again I haven't studied into that enough to know... Would be cool if they would live and grow to full size in a pond like Bear Lake, but that's a wild dream... I caught a really nice cutthroat at Bear Lake a few years back through the ice and as I watching it through the hole I thought it looked like a King salmon with the water magnification it looked huge... It was still a good fish 27", but it wasn't near as big as I thought it was... Later Jeff

Kokanee are genetically identical to Sockeye's or "Reds". The only difference being they are not able to migrate to salt, and some of the additional nutrients and size that allows their ocean-going brothers.

King Salmon are the same way. Anderson Ranch and Coeur d'Alene Lake are a few Idaho lakes that have land locked kings starting to show some size, so it could be done at Strawberry as well. 

I asked the lead biologist about planting Kings at Strawberry a couple of years ago, I believe the concern is how piscivorous Kings are, and that they would not only eat the chubs (the primary role of the Cutts), but also everything else. I also think there is a strong desire to keep Cutts as a prominent part of the fishery since they are "native".

Thanks for the info, that's interesting... now you mention that I can see the reds in the spawning kokanee... except for the size difference..

Sooo don't you think cutts, "are eating everything "?