Kokanee Fishing, Hoochie colors, and other lure selection?

The Shasta Tackle and Slingblade dodgers are my favorite dodgers to use, since they can be trolled a little faster than the Seps without rolling over.  I like to use hoochies with spinners, wiggle hoochies, and spinners.  Toss in a cripplure and a humdinger in your box too!  For these you can use a longer leader from the dodger, since they create their own action.  Sooo many lure combinations though, lol!

Lots of good suggestions on colors here, and pink is the dominate color it seems for early season. At first I didn't buy into UV stuff, but now i'm looking for it almost exclusivly.  Once I took a black light to my lures, you could really see which ones reflected UV light.  Do you plan on using a downrigger, or a diver?  I think the fish are still below the surface, so you might need to get down a bit to target them.  But in the next month or so the fish should come up to the surface, so flylining will work then too. 

I'm going to wait till after this full moon passes, then probably head out to New Melones or Don Pedro in search of them again.  No slime there 

Are you using those flies with conventional gear or are you actually fly fishing.

What depth are you getting kokanee's at Berryessa?

The 4.5" sling blade style dodgers to match the lure I am using. I tend to use Pink 99% of the time. I also carry chartreuse as well as a silver/blue hootchies. I tie my leaders with nothing but glow beads if I can and use pink beads against chart. hootchies and chart. beads against pink hoochies. I like to maximize contrast when ever possible. Last year I got skunked later in the year once the lake greened up. Talking to a few guys I found out orange and copper were slaying kokes so I tied a bunch of spinners with orange beads and copper blades. Trailing a copper/orange/black slingblade was all that worked for a few weeks.

Pink, chartreuse, orange for kokes and a silver/blue color to target trout feeding on shad covers most all of my kayak trolling. Don't forget the corn!

Are you using those flies with conventional gear or are you actually fly fishing.

What depth are you getting kokanee's at Berryessa?

Conventionoal gear.
Last season I was catching Kokanees in June/July @ 55'

Join the insanely fun cult of Kokanee lure-tyers and make your own, you will find it addicting!

too many combo's to list! i like the color selections you made. I have a couple hundred hand tied combinations of colors, sizes, with blade and without, but if could only have a dozen set-ups or so here is what i would consider a must:

Early Season: March, April, May
Size down...use micro-hootchies with a small teardrop shaped dodger or something UV. I like to try running them without a blade first to see what the fish will react to. This time of year they will be shallow (5-20 ft) so a DR is not a must. Best colors for me in march/april/may at lakes like New Melones, Pardee, Don Pedro, Stampede, ext... are Pink and Orange. Try throwing the little wedding ring piece into the beadwork you put on your rigs, the extra flash is a nice attractant that works (you can find them at Michael's for a good price) Fish the areas close to shallow water and points, although the fish can be pretty scattered this time of year.

Mid Season: May, June, July
Start sizing up and using larger dodgers. This is the time of year to start using combos with blades or wiggle discs. Color combos will be all of the map and will depend on current lake conditions, as the fish go deeper they tend to respond better to darker colors. I too Love the UV hardware. Under a blacklight they become real deadly. Sometime i even throw a small spinning blade above the dodger or slingblade, this proved to be especially effective at Don Pedro last summer. Greens, pinks, oranges, and even blue all seem to work well during this period. Blue is the go to color at
Berryessa for me. You will likely need a downrigger to reach the fish at this point as they will be around 30-50 feet down in most lakes. (search my post history for a cheap way to build a quality downrigger for your kayak) New Melones is an incredibly popular place for Kokanee during this prime season, this is where you will find me at least once a week during my summer vacation from teaching. Glory Hol;e sports will have a lot of good tackle for a pretty high price, i get a lot of stuff from walmart, sports authority, and bass pro in Manteca.
Fish main lake body and off of sharp depth transitions like submerged islands.
Late Season: July, August, September, October
DEEP, DARK, AND BIG. Last year at Melones my father and i were using 5'' hootchies with blades the size of a 50 cent peice to catch 15 inch late season kokes. The UV glow helped the fish to find the lure in 70+ fow. Purple, blue, and ironically clear seem to work very well during this time of year. Pink is always a color i go back to when others seem to stop working, it is basically the year round color. When looking for Kokanee try fishing the deepest parts of lakes this time of year, river channels are good because the fish are beginning to move towards the spawning grounds up-river.

* ALWAYS TIP YOUR LURES WITH SCENTED SHOEPEG (White) CORN, THIS IS A KOKANEE FISHING MUST. Anise, Krill, Garlic, Herring, and Kokanee special are popular and effective scents made by pro-cure. get some tuperware, fill with corn and the desired scent combo and place in your freezer. Keep this cool as you fish so the corn stays firm and on your hooks.

Join the insanely fun cult of Kokanee lure-tyers and make your own, you will find it addicting!

too many combo's to list! i like the color selections you made. I have a couple hundred hand tied combinations of colors, sizes, with blade and without, but if could only have a dozen set-ups or so here is what i would consider a must:

Early Season: March, April, May
Size down...use micro-hootchies with a small teardrop shaped dodger or something UV. I like to try running them without a blade first to see what the fish will react to. This time of year they will be shallow (5-20 ft) so a DR is not a must. Best colors for me in march/april/may at lakes like New Melones, Pardee, Don Pedro, Stampede, ext... are Pink and Orange. Try throwing the little wedding ring piece into the beadwork you put on your rigs, the extra flash is a nice attractant that works (you can find them at Michael's for a good price) Fish the areas close to shallow water and points, although the fish can be pretty scattered this time of year.

Mid Season: May, June, July
Start sizing up and using larger dodgers. This is the time of year to start using combos with blades or wiggle discs. Color combos will be all of the map and will depend on current lake conditions, as the fish go deeper they tend to respond better to darker colors. I too Love the UV hardware. Under a blacklight they become real deadly. Sometime i even throw a small spinning blade above the dodger or slingblade, this proved to be especially effective at Don Pedro last summer. Greens, pinks, oranges, and even blue all seem to work well during this period. Blue is the go to color at
Berryessa for me. You will likely need a downrigger to reach the fish at this point as they will be around 30-50 feet down in most lakes. (search my post history for a cheap way to build a quality downrigger for your kayak) New Melones is an incredibly popular place for Kokanee during this prime season, this is where you will find me at least once a week during my summer vacation from teaching. Glory Hol;e sports will have a lot of good tackle for a pretty high price, i get a lot of stuff from walmart, sports authority, and bass pro in Manteca.
Fish main lake body and off of sharp depth transitions like submerged islands.
Late Season: July, August, September, October
DEEP, DARK, AND BIG. Last year at Melones my father and i were using 5'' hootchies with blades the size of a 50 cent peice to catch 15 inch late season kokes. The UV glow helped the fish to find the lure in 70+ fow. Purple, blue, and ironically clear seem to work very well during this time of year. Pink is always a color i go back to when others seem to stop working, it is basically the year round color. When looking for Kokanee try fishing the deepest parts of lakes this time of year, river channels are good because the fish are beginning to move towards the spawning grounds up-river.

* ALWAYS TIP YOUR LURES WITH SCENTED SHOEPEG (White) CORN, THIS IS A KOKANEE FISHING MUST. Anise, Krill, Garlic, Herring, and Kokanee special are popular and effective scents made by pro-cure. get some tuperware, fill with corn and the desired scent combo and place in your freezer. Keep this cool as you fish so the corn stays firm and on your hooks.

Nice, thanks for the info Motherlode. Now where to buy some whit shoepeg corn? Going to start stocking up on them. Oh yea, anyone ever have any luck with the shuttlehawk or luhr jensen model dr release? That would help a bunch to have. I'm really excited about going for my first koke on a yak!

Hey StephL, I always use my Shuttle Hawk when trolling with a downrigger. I changed out the release to a Scotty release.
I know Safeway in Windsor has Shoepeg.

Motherload, thanks for that writeup!  Very good information!

Nice, thanks for the info Motherlode. Now where to buy some whit shoepeg corn? Going to start stocking up on them. Oh yea, anyone ever have any luck with the shuttlehawk or luhr jensen model dr release? That would help a bunch to have. I'm really excited about going for my first koke on a yak!

You should be able to find corn at your local fishing place if they sell kokanee tackle.  Try Safeway as well, just make sure you are getting White Shoepeg Corn.  No other corn works from what i've heard.  You can add scent to the corn as well.  If your going to go to New Melones, try and stop by Glory Hole sports.  They will have tons of current information on how the fish are acting, and have been very useful to me in the past.  Yeah, i've spent a bit of dough there, but hard not too when they say you need something you dont already have    They sell corn there too, scented and/or dyed colors, for like .50c.

And about the shuttlehawk; I have re-tried my Seps Downrigger diver the last time I went to Don Pedro and it actually worked fairly well.   I think before when I used it I still had a cable for my downrigger, but have since switched out to braid.  Now it dives just fine, but it takes a longer time than just re-setting the DR.  Because you have to be moving for it to go down, or come back up, which isn't that a big of a deal, but it does take a bit of distance for the shuttlehawk to make it's way back down to the DR weight depth, and come back up again (less of an issue for me, if a fish released it ). 

All that time i'm trying to get it to dive I feel my lure isn't in my target zone until I've gone a long distance.  Compared to setting out your line, and then dropping the DR to depth.  But if I was trolling really deep, and didn't want to re-set the DR I would probably use the diver to save my arm from bringing up a weight from 100ft over and over again.

OH yeah, why dont ya post up that pic of your tackle you had on Facebook? 

Nice, thanks for the info Motherlode. Now where to buy some whit shoepeg corn? Going to start stocking up on them. Oh yea, anyone ever have any luck with the shuttlehawk or luhr jensen model dr release? That would help a bunch to have. I'm really excited about going for my first koke on a yak!

You should be able to find corn at your local fishing place if they sell kokanee tackle.  Try Safeway as well, just make sure you are getting White Shoepeg Corn.  No other corn works from what i've heard.  You can add scent to the corn as well. 

The shoepeg corn is firmer, and stays on the hook better.  As far as being the only corn that works?  People over think it.  If it was the only corn Kokes like, why dye it other colors and make it smell like something it isn't.  Does it work better than other kinds? Possibly.  Is it possible to catch a koke with other corn? Yes... It is possible to catch them with no corn at all and a lure with the right action?  Yes... I know someone will argue with me about that, but I have first hand experience.  Kokes can be caught with nothing but a lure... no dodger, no flasher, no corn.  I'm not saying you shouldn't use corn and flashers and whatnot... I'm merely an advocate of simplicity.  Sometimes people make koke fishing sound like you are trying to catch the boogie man. 

but have since switched out to braid

Hey Al.

What weight did/would you use?

but have since switched out to braid

Hey Al.

What weight did/would you use?

Scotty makes braid for a cable replacement, it is what I run on my laketroller.  I think it is like 250lb test or something crazy like that.  I used to run 80lb braid on my homemade downrigger and it works fine as well.

I think that i'm running something crazy like 150lb PowerPro, which I got a small spool on eBay for 15$.  Diameter of braid is way smaller than any SS cable, so I went a bit big, also because I found it so cheap.

The shoepeg corn is firmer, and stays on the hook better.  As far as being the only corn that works?  People over think it.  If it was the only corn Kokes like, why dye it other colors and make it smell like something it isn't.  Does it work better than other kinds? Possibly.  Is it possible to catch a koke with other corn? Yes... It is possible to catch them with no corn at all and a lure with the right action?  Yes... I know someone will argue with me about that, but I have first hand experience.  Kokes can be caught with nothing but a lure... no dodger, no flasher, no corn.  I'm not saying you shouldn't use corn and flashers and whatnot... I'm merely an advocate of simplicity.  Sometimes people make koke fishing sound like you are trying to catch the boogie man.

I used to be told that using corn for Trout was illegal when I was a kid, for some reason like it was what they were fed at the hatchery or something.  So for many years I thought that, not sure if it ever was or not now    But I hear you on the you can catch kokes on just about anything.  I've seen many video's of kokes hitting trout spoons and even nightcrawlers which sounds weird if they only eat plankton.  If the fish is in the mood to bite, I guess they are gonna bite!  And yeah, so many scents and what not, there must be a shoepeg corn scent you can just get.    But all the old guys swear by the corn, so I have to think there is something too it, so I use it.  Simple is better, I'll always pretty much always agree.  But I cant tell you how many hours i've spent just trying to simplify my tackle!   

Corn is bad for fish... at least that is what I have read.  They don't have the enzymes in their stomach needed to digest the cellulose that makes up the husk of the kernel.  One bite here or there is no big deal... but it's really bad to chum for fish with corn.  That is illegal, of course all chumming is illegal in fresh water.  Too much of it can plug their gut and kill them.  I just read that recently... assumed it was true.