Anatomy of A Kokanee Attack - Melones 06/07/09 Pic Heavy

Nice report Ben those Kokes are Fattt you were staring to scare me with that bathroom shot 

I waited at the ramp till 5:30 dude, where were you?!:smt005
Just kidding!! Nice haul Ben, where were they at Pardee??
How do you cook them, I BBQed the one I got from Berr. but it was to tiny for the q I think...

thanks for the report.  Kokanee are so good, I usually grill em up in a foil pouch...yum

haha ben, if you were waiting for me on sunday you'd likely have had to wait a while - i was all out of sorts in the morning.  I'm lucky that melones is only an hour drive from me.  next time i go out will probably be even later since i plan to bring the wife out to take a shot at them.  that will probably be july, so it will be like 140 degrees by then.

i was wondering where kokes of any size are at pardee.  i found a school up the moke arm at pardee but that was all little tiny guys.  no one is fishing for them there either right now because of the tiny size.  they are talking about big ones over at berry, upwards of 18 inches! wow!

Ben: I put a Scoty Lake Troll on my Hobie Sport. If that's what you're planing to do, on your gal's ride. I will ask Jed to take a pictures of mine to post. Maybe someday I'll have that technology also. dave...ps My plan is to buy another Hobie Sport for my bride soon.

What does it mean to "Farm one"?

Given my board name (we literally run a fish farm) I'm wondering if I've been advertising myself in a negative context 

Ben

just means i lost em (and it was my fault - like a baseball player who screws up enough being sent back to the farm)

so yeah in that sense, your name might be in a negative context, unless of course its also true for you 
if not, I could take the name since i'm so good at it! 

In that case my board name works on a number of levels 

Good job Ben. I found replacing the wire with 30# spectra really made trolling with downriggers easier. I carry a small soft sided ice chest with ice when I am fishing Koke's. I think they taste a lot better if you bleed and ice them right away. Molly is a lot bigger now but still pretty wild.

Scott

Nice job, that's inspirational.  I live about 15 minutes from Whiskeytown Lake which has a pretty good Koke fishery, but I've never given it a shot.  Do you have any pics of your downrigger setup?

Tight Lines,
-beenfishin

beenfishin, sorry no pics on the downrigger setup.  it is a really simple one, just a scotty laketroller 1073 (got it from fishermans warehouse for 44.95 during their no tax sale!) and i just plug it into my rear scotty flushmount.  i will eventually get pics of my entire yak up as it is set up almost to the way i like it.

2 1/2lb cannon ball with a downrigger release hooked to it, although I would like something with a little more volume since i have trouble marking it on my FF for whatever reason. i might move to 4 lbs, but i didnt want to spend the money on a full blown downrigger weight so i will probably stick with what I have and insert a fin into it.

scott, i replaced the wire with 65lb braid.  much better than wire and no memory problems.  i used my shimano livewell bag and filled it with ice since it has rod holders on it already.  works pretty much just like an ice chest inside.

i didnt bleed them, just iced them.  from what i've been told by other kokanee fishermen is that bleeding is not 100% necessary on kokes because they have so little blood in them anyways.  make sure the fish doesnt actually touch the ice - best to put them in ziplock bags then drop them into the ice.