First trip of the year...

[freshie]

Fished on Friday, May 13th with great weather.

Embarrassing to say, caught 4 out of 17 koke strikes through the day. Of those caught, 3 were hooked just on the skin of there lip. HOLY SHORT STRIKES BATMAN! Maybe the hardest I've ever struggled for kokes on the gorge.

We struggled to find any concentrations of biting kokes. Went from Buck Board all the way to Middle Marsh. Fished around several "boat schools" but only saw a couple of small kokes caught. Most all koke bites were in the top 10 feet of the water column. Surface temps ranged for 51 to 57 degrees. Best bite of the day was when the wind picked up around 3:00pm (go figure). Any baits below 15 feet were hit pretty quickly by lake trout. Lake trout were easy just about every where. Released one around 14 lbs.

Would love to hear if anyone else did any better.

~Freshie

[liketrolling]

when I was up there I could not see the kokes on the fish finder. so it is luck finding them. One day they would bit the next day they would not bite. I got the big ones at 21 and 26 ft. down with a set bake of 100 ft.
I did not lose a lot what size hook are you using? I had size 2 on. and I have very good koke rods. and use p line floroclear. I think you were fishing were the big kokes are.
I think the wind gets there food moving.

[freshie]

when I was up there I could not see the kokes on the fish finder. so it is luck finding them. One day they would bit the next day they would not bite. I got the big ones at 21 and 26 ft. down with a set bake of 100 ft.
I did not lose a lot what size hook are you using? I had size 2 on. and I have very good koke rods. and use p line floroclear. I think you were fishing were the big kokes are.
I think the wind gets there food moving.

I only saw a couple of koke marks on the finder. Didn't expect to see much at this time of year. I did see one swim by the boat down about 4 feet when setting lines. I'm using good hooks (two hook combos) on a 10lb flourocarbon leader. Those that fish w' me know my gear is pretty top shelf. When they are hitting good, the hooks are usually solid in the jaw. They seemed to be "nipping" at it when we were out.

Those who fish kokes know they can have their off days. Then again, I've had days when I thought they were easy and no one else around camp could touch a fish. I only had one lure (home made with a smiley blade) that got hit consistently all day. I ran another one quite similar that never got touched. I ran my favorite spoons, assasins, squids (got a couple hits), billed squids, but none were the trick.

Hoping someone else had better luck and can share some info.

[liketrolling]

If you saw my video you saw that a lot would only nip at the lure, most of the time when I went through schools I would get one
I know you are good at catching Kokes. a lot better than me. The smiley blade was working best for me I had it on 3 squids and silver dodgers.

[Dorado]

If you saw my video you saw that a lot would only nip at the lure, most of the time when I went through schools I would get one
I know you are good at catching Kokes. a lot better than me. The smiley blade was working best for me I had it on 3 squids and silver dodgers.

That video was very informative! I always assumed that when you get multiple "pecks" while trolling, it is the same fish coming back and biting at the lure. To see a whole bunch of fish following and taking turns was quite surprising to me.....