2020 East Idaho Kokanee Report (Ririe/Palisades/Island Park Reservoirs)

[sawtooth]

Best of Luck to all you East Idaho kokanee fishermen.

[Armondo]

We fished Ririe on Tuesday from about 9 am until 5 pm, from the Dam up past the "S" bends. Water temp was around 62 F warming to 64 F. It was really slow in the morning. We caught one 12" rainbow, then nothing for a long time. We ended up with probably 10-12 rainbows, the biggest was a hefty 15" fish. We also caught 2 cutts and a perch. Finally at the end of the day when we were ready to quit, we caught a 10" kokanee. We tried lures on the surface, 1 oz of lead with 70-100 feet out, and downrigger from 10 ft to 40 ft. Tried different color combinations of flashers, dodgers, spinners, small spoons and hoochies. Nothing seemed to really interest them. We did mark what appeared to be some small plankton blooms, and some had some fish around them, but no luck trolling through them. Wind was an issue, it was not strong enough to blow us off the lake, but we had to troll a bit faster than I prefer so we could steer the boat. Several times we had to really goose the trolling motor to avoid being blown up on shore. Hope to get out again in a week or so, perhaps after the cold front this weekend.

[Armondo]

Fished on Palisades today from 9:30 to 6:00. Water temp was 58 F when we started and warmed to around 62 F. We explored the west side across from Blowout boat ramp until around noon. We marked lots of fish around a small cove at Big Springs, but did not hook anything except for a sucker. We finally rolled up and moved to Big Elk. It was slow there, but we caught some fish. It was a mix of small cutts, most around 11-12”. We did catch a pretty nice 16” brown. We also caught a few smaller browns. We caught 2 kokanee. One was 15”, the other was 16”. We tried downriggers from 15 to 45 feet and caught the browns at 30-40 feet. The confusing part was that both kokanee were caught on small gold spoons we were running on the surface for trout. A slow day, but it is always good to catch kokanee on Palisades.

[MMDON]

That's very cool. I guess everything in Palisades will hit a gold spoon with some orange on it! LOL

[Armondo]

That's very cool. I guess everything in Palisades will hit a gold spoon with some orange on it! LOL

MMDON, I will take the kokanee any way I can get them. They are tough to find at Palisades, but when I do, they tend to be nice fish.

[MMDON]

MMDON, I will take the kokanee any way I can get them. They are tough to find at Palisades, but when I do, they tend to be nice fish.

The old timers that had cabins up at Palisades used to use pieces of canned bay salad shrimp instead of corn as bait on their Koke lures. They would microwave it for a very short time just to toughen it up so it would stay on the hook. It's the only thing I've seen that worked consistently on the Kokes up there.