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On a good year at Porcupine we used to catch our limits of 12 fish a trip through the ice, but like mentioned it's very hit or miss... When the fish come through you catch fish till the cloud goes by and then you can sit hours before they come back... But when they are there, it's fast and furious... Without a good finder it would be very tough to do, you need to know where the fish are at and then be able to get back to that depth really quick to catch more while they are there... It's a total blast, even for the small ones at the pig... one of my favorite ice fishing flavors... Later J
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As Jeff said, in years past we have done well for the kokes through the ice on smaller lakes, the problem is the conditions have not been good for a number of years to catch them like that. As far as doing that at bigger lakes like Strawberry or the Gorge, they are such big lakes it is very hard to do with any success, mainly I believe because there is so much of an area where they could be, that it is very hard to hit just that right spot at the right time. We have only caught kokes at the Gorge once and never at Strawberry but I know some members on this site have had some success at The Berry for them. At smaller lakes they seem to be in the same areas a lot more, so that really helps increase your odds. Most of us do use glow jigs while ice fishing for them.
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Not sure if I'm on with this comment, since I don't have a lot of experience on the Gorge or Strawberry, but it seems to me that the koke in the small lakes seem to school up way more than they do on the big ponds... In small lakes when you're on the fish you see a cloud on the finders, however, my big lake koke fishing has usually only shown a few fish at a time when I'm catching kokes... If this is true, it may be why small lake koke fishing is so fun, because you get a ton of fish on you all at the same time and there's usually something hungry in a big bunch of fish... On the big lakes, it's more difficult to target a fish and catch it.... you never know if its a koke or some other kind of fish... Now my lack of experience on the bigger lakes may be showing in this comment, so please correct me if I'm wrong... Later J
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I think you are right
I have seen schools of kokanee at the berry and have got some, not trying to. this time of the year
If I can get my boat on the water Dec. 1
I will look for kokanee and give way points to any one that wants them
and see if they are still there in Feb.
this time of year at FG. I have got kokanee down 100 feet while fishing for lake trout using spoons
sometimes I can tell the difference between a koke and other fish on the fish finder
with this new Solix finder I bought should help even more.
I wonder if they go in the narrows 0r by the dam at SC.
it would take me at least 4 days to cover where I think they may be.
one spot would be in the indian creek narrows but it may be hard to get there to ice fish.
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In porcupine you see fish roaming the big open areas over deep water and will see deep and shallow groups of fish. In general I've found the shallower fish are usually the ones that are actively feeding so they are the best to go after, however, at times the deeper groups have the bigger fish and if you can get them to bite, you do better size wise... But it's pretty hard to get up and down from 60' deep to catch more than one fish out of a school, where the 10-20' fish you usually get a couple out of a pass... I've missed the koke fishing the last two years, i hope we get better ice this year, so I can do it again... Later J
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That is my experience too, bigger schools in smaller lakes but what I'm saying is because those lakes like The Gorge and The Berry are so huge, it is very hard to find those schools of fish because you can't just go over to the areas where the kokes are known to frequent, in those big lake it's a lot easier for those fish to go twenty or thirty yards off to the side of where you are and you will never know they were there.
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That's true there's a lot of ground or water to cover and hard to guess the right spot. Not easy on smaller lakes either. Later J
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Hmm, anyone know if the road to Smith and Morehouse is open in the winter?
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I don't know, but even the Porcupine road can be dicey in the winter, but snowmobiles tend to help. Good idea though and good luck. J
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