2017 Dworshak Reservoir Kokanee Fishing Report

[sawtooth]

Hope your season goes well and you have lots to report from Dworshak.

[kenbarb]

Has anyone fished Dworshak this year for Kokanee (2017) ?

[amxerhull]

Hi Ken and Barb. We haven't been there yet but Toby Wyatt in his recent newsletter said that he caught a limit of 25 between 10 and 13 inches long. His letter had a picture and they looked nice and fat! He didn't include any details.

John

[kenbarb]

Thanks John, The Snake here in Hell's Canyon is high & cloudy, up until a week ago it was really good Steelheading. Think we may try Dworshak for a day soon, will make a post when we go, some fresh Kokanee would be pretty good. Will you please send me the email address for Toby Wyatt's newsletter, didn't know he put one out. Thanks again, Ken & Barb

[amxerhull]

Thanks John, The Snake here in Hell's Canyon is high & cloudy, up until a week ago it was really good Steelheading. Think we may try Dworshak for a day soon, will make a post when we go, some fresh Kokanee would be pretty good. Will you please send me the email address for Toby Wyatt's newsletter, didn't know he put one out. Thanks again, Ken & Barb

His website, reeltimefishing.com, has a short form in "contact" you complete to get on his mailing list.

John

[amxerhull]

We fished Dworshak for the first time this year last Thursday. We put 6 in the cooler, the biggest was 12" the others were 10". We made passes near the dam and Indian/Canyon creeks. Talked to a group who had landed 20 using 4 ounces of lead. The fish we caught were scattered between 20 and 60 feet on the downriggers.

[smartingale]

Has anyone fished Dworshak this year for Kokanee (2017) ?

i'm going up to dworshack june1-5 will report on fishing, i start fishing 20-30 feet early in morning, and deeper as upper water warms will give report when i get back , I love at lewiston,idaho if any can add today or tell may 31 please let me know thanks smartingale

[ricks]

Dropped in at Bruce's on Saturday at about 6:40 AM. Cruised on up to Indian Creek. Came across Icelander right off, in fact got right in his way as my son Tyler and I dropped a couple lines in the water and proceeded to get an instant tangle. While working that out we were worse than a derelict as every once in a while one of use would toss the kicker tiller left or right to correct the dizzying random twists and turn of a driverless powered boat. Most fun you can have at 1.2 MPH :D Afterwards, looked up and we were within talking range of a tinny that reminded of a post here, apologized for being a hazard and got to introduce ourselves and ask if he was a forum poster. Sure nuff, Icalander introduced self and we said our hello's and went to trying to be less of a hindrance to safe boating while we fished.

We marked some nice clumps around Indian. Dropped a couple of long lines in and went to work on rigging the downriggers. Wasn't long until we had several nice 12 inch fat boys in the ice, all on long lines. I noticed the fish were in small clumps and you could hit them in the same area and go hitless most everywhere else. We were also losing LOTS of fish. I have never lost that many. As well, lots of times get solid hits that never turned into hook up. Really weird day.

With marking fish around 35 foot we stuck the downriggers at 28 and 32. Never once, in the entire day, did we get a hook up on the downriggers. Nada, nuthin. Up, down, different gear. Even running identical gear as the longlines and working the depths up and up. The long lines ruled and the downriggers were silent.

On the long lines we ran chrome, brass, scarlet, green, black, UV, whatever. Most hit was fancy multihued taped up 4 pop with a half green half red wedding ring with a scarlet smilie. At first red dyed corn was best, later on no dye with Mike's kokanee lotion. As the day went by we swapped our pop gear to shiny and bright as we could and kept hitting fish. We ran mostly 3/4 to 1 ounce weight on 60 foot of line. Largish and bright for the pop gear, the littler pop gear was pretty quiet. The dodgers and squids and super light gear hanging on the downriggers never got a hit, as far as I could tell. And I tried almost everything I own.

Trolled on up to Canyon to see how the circus was doing. Generally I won't join the circus, I'd rather find a quiet place and tempt fate my own way. But saturday everyone was going kind of around each in random directions, no order at all, which is always amusing as long as you don't get run over. So we stayed for an hour or so to see if anyone had a wreck, ran aground or got sunk. Next the sheriff boat showed up and pulled up next to almost everyone for a check, which kept making things even more chaotic. Nothing extraordinary happened though. What finally drive us off was the fish we were catching were significantly smaller than what we were catching down at Indian, so back down we went. On the way, watched another boat pull a couple nice ones out about 100 yards off the big rock pile beach 3/4 of the way back to Indian, so headed in ourselves and hit all three long line in the water simultaneously. One of those was a 14 incher. Nice. Made a second pass, got one, kept going to the dock and pulled everything out and headed back before noon. Total catch was 16. Lost at least twice as many, which is something hasn't happened to us in a long time. And had dozens of hits that only amounted to cardio workouts with no fish on the line.

A beautiful day on the water. Nice to meet ya Icelander, thanks for being so forgiving.

Rick

[icelander]

Dropped in at Bruce's on Saturday at about 6:40 AM. Cruised on up to Indian Creek. Came across Icelander right off, in fact got right in his way as my son Tyler and I dropped a couple lines in the water and proceeded to get an instant tangle. While working that out we were worse than a derelict as every once in a while one of use would toss the kicker tiller left or right to correct the dizzying random twists and turn of a driverless powered boat. Most fun you can have at 1.2 MPH :D Afterwards, looked up and we were within talking range of a tinny that reminded of a post here, apologized for being a hazard and got to introduce ourselves and ask if he was a forum poster. Sure nuff, Icalander introduced self and we said our hello's and went to trying to be less of a hindrance to safe boating while we fished.

We marked some nice clumps around Indian. Dropped a couple of long lines in and went to work on rigging the downriggers. Wasn't long until we had several nice 12 inch fat boys in the ice, all on long lines. I noticed the fish were in small clumps and you could hit them in the same area and go hitless most everywhere else. We were also losing LOTS of fish. I have never lost that many. As well, lots of times get solid hits that never turned into hook up. Really weird day.

With marking fish around 35 foot we stuck the downriggers at 28 and 32. Never once, in the entire day, did we get a hook up on the downriggers. Nada, nuthin. Up, down, different gear. Even running identical gear as the longlines and working the depths up and up. The long lines ruled and the downriggers were silent.

On the long lines we ran chrome, brass, scarlet, green, black, UV, whatever. Most hit was fancy multihued taped up 4 pop with a half green half red wedding ring with a scarlet smilie. At first red dyed corn was best, later on no dye with Mike's kokanee lotion. As the day went by we swapped our pop gear to shiny and bright as we could and kept hitting fish. We ran mostly 3/4 to 1 ounce weight on 60 foot of line. Largish and bright for the pop gear, the littler pop gear was pretty quiet. The dodgers and squids and super light gear hanging on the downriggers never got a hit, as far as I could tell. And I tried almost everything I own.

Trolled on up to Canyon to see how the circus was doing. Generally I won't join the circus, I'd rather find a quiet place and tempt fate my own way. But saturday everyone was going kind of around each in random directions, no order at all, which is always amusing as long as you don't get run over. So we stayed for an hour or so to see if anyone had a wreck, ran aground or got sunk. Next the sheriff boat showed up and pulled up next to almost everyone for a check, which kept making things even more chaotic. Nothing extraordinary happened though. What finally drive us off was the fish we were catching were significantly smaller than what we were catching down at Indian, so back down we went. On the way, watched another boat pull a couple nice ones out about 100 yards off the big rock pile beach 3/4 of the way back to Indian, so headed in ourselves and hit all three long line in the water simultaneously. One of those was a 14 incher. Nice. Made a second pass, got one, kept going to the dock and pulled everything out and headed back before noon. Total catch was 16. Lost at least twice as many, which is something hasn't happened to us in a long time. And had dozens of hits that only amounted to cardio workouts with no fish on the line.

A beautiful day on the water. Nice to meet ya Icelander, thanks for being so forgiving.

Rick

No worries Ricks. Didn't even notice as we were busy hitting the schools of bigger fish (thx for sharing your fish finder intel)! Pleasure to meet you too.
We found Kokes shallower early, then 3 oz and 45' after wind died down around 8:30. They seem to be softer this year so added rubber bands, and kicked into neutral to bring more fish into the boat. Limited by noon. Joined the mob at Canyon and like Ricks said smaller fish; except for bigger farther in Canyon Cr bay. Gotta hunt for the bigger fish! If you figure a way to stay on em' let me know!

[jumperzee]

Dropped in at Bruce's on Saturday at about 6:40 AM. Cruised on up to Indian Creek. Came across Icelander right off, in fact got right in his way as my son Tyler and I dropped a couple lines in the water and proceeded to get an instant tangle. While working that out we were worse than a derelict as every once in a while one of use would toss the kicker tiller left or right to correct the dizzying random twists and turn of a driverless powered boat. Most fun you can have at 1.2 MPH :D Afterwards, looked up and we were within talking range of a tinny that reminded of a post here, apologized for being a hazard and got to introduce ourselves and ask if he was a forum poster. Sure nuff, Icalander introduced self and we said our hello's and went to trying to be less of a hindrance to safe boating while we fished.

We were also losing LOTS of fish. I have never lost that many. As well, lots of times get solid hits that never turned into hook up. Really weird day....

......Total catch was 16. Lost at least twice as many, which is something hasn't happened to us in a long time. And had dozens of hits that only amounted to cardio workouts with no fish on the line.


Rick

Think I pulled into Indian right as you were wrapping that up scene up Ricks. I was in the white Duckworth with a couple little girls. Recognized your boat from your profile picture, was going to troll up and say hi, but you outpaced me up to Canyon. We did a few generally unproductive laps in Indian then headed down to Merry's where we found the motherlode and action was non-stop between 15 and 30 feet. I was running 2 downriggers, with a shuttle hawk off one and one long line off the back. Most of the fish were on the DR and shuttle hawk. Pink was the color with the most strikes, regardless of where we put that rod.

Glad to hear someone else was having trouble with landing fish too. Never been so frustrated myself. Probably lost several limits at the side of the boat over the course of the weekend. Lost 12 in a row boatside yesterday and got to the point that I wasn't even interested in trying to mess with popping the rod out of the DR and reeling in the fish till they were on there for a while. And then, most would be gone by the time I got them to the surface or they'd flop off just out of net range. I was about ready to huck a rod into the water! I have no idea what is causing that, but I'm not doing anything different....

Nice sized fish though (the ones that came home) and still managed enough for a worthy canner and smoker session.

[ricks]

jumperzee,

Thanks for the tip on Merrys Bay. Sorry we missed you - next time for sure. This last Saturday was my first trip of the year, so I don't mind trying different stuff and not limiting out. Maybe someday I'll get to be a good kokanee fisherman. Until then, I'm having a blast learning.

My son is going to work for Columbia Grain full time, and playing Legion Baseball with the Orofino team - which travels all over the PNW. I doubt I get him on the boat again for a while. I guess I'm gonna have to find a regular fishing partner who likes 1.2 MPH.

Great times ahead this year! Thank all of you on this forum for sharing techniques and equipment. Helps us poor folks who are addicted.

Rick