Sorry Patience you are fishing without a hook
Patience your reference to Wallowa to support your theory that somehow the hundreds of guys that successfully fished LP for years on kokanee but now in 2018 can't seem to remember how to catch them is a little off base. FYI, the giant kokanee of Wallowa were supported by a shrimp population as their primary food source and the OFG reported an issue with that food source population. There are a bunch of little fish but they aren't the roided out monsters of the past and it's no longer a trophy pool like in the years gone by. That situation was widely reported as a food source issue that resulted in size not fish count results.
LP is a fish count issue. It's a three year cycle resource with a huge percentage of the volume of adult take fish being from planting programs and not from the very limited natural reproduction cycle spawn of that fishery. It's fractional of Anderson in that regard.
Here's a little economics lesson for reference. If you don't put money in the bank annually but continue to take it out plus suffer from inflation, you end up with a BIG NET ZERO pretty quickly.
LP is at net zero and that means poor fishing for a couple seasons to come. We aren't seeing a mass of 8" to 10" one year juveniles being caught. The spring plant fry will be 8" to 10" right now if they were there. We used to drag in hundreds of those little buggers and now we don't see hardly any and that means they simply are not in the pool.
Yes there is still plenty of "fishing fun" to be done at LP with a healthy population of bass, trout, squawfish ect but this is a kokanee forum and that is generally what I am after at LP. We've caught and released a limit plus of trout every single time this year at LP. It used to be 20 to 1 kokes versus trout. This year it's been exactly the opposite and that is an indicator of a serious problem. FYI I caught and released well over 100 planted trout in McCall Sat and Sun but that really isn't the point of this post!thumbsup
Going to do an evening fishing trip Fri & LP
Keep my fingers crossed. I have a 20 Ft Marlin
Center Console beige with a black Marlin stripe. Say hello if your up there tomorrow.
DEALMKR
Friday Eve. Winds Up To 14 MPH
I'm seeing this wind Report ? To ruff at the boat launch at Spring Shores this eve? Your thoughts?
I'm not a good fisherman, I just love to be out on the the water...
It's so beautiful at LP and we are so lucky to have it in our back yard...