07-31-2019, 04:12 AM
Robert, liketrolling, called up Sunday and said he had a guy who was going fishing cancel and asked if I wanted to go to Strawberry for kokes. I said sure and asked if my son and DIL could come too. He said fine but then it turned out that only Hannah would be able to make it. She hasn't done a lot of different types of fishing, mostly catfish and bream down in Texas but she is keen on doing a lot more fishing of different kinds.
I picked her up in Provo at 3:55 and we met Robert in Orem. We spent most of the trip up explaining to Hannah how we would be fishing and some natural history of the kokanee. We got to the launch ramp early enough that he had to put his lights on and it was just getting to "shooting light" when we got all the lines in the water.
At 6:20 Hannah draw first blood with a 16" cutt. Back he went. In the next seven minutes she landed two more. Then she hit silver! She pulled in a massive koke that was about 7" long. But you would have thought it was a lunker to look at her
(see photos). As the morning progessed we pulled in about three times as many cutts as kokes. I landed my first kokanee at 7:05, a 10". We were glad that we were catching some, but we didn't want to keep a bunch of dinks but a few were in bad shape after we got them off the hooks so they went on the ice. Hannah caught an 11-incher at 7:57. I finally caught a 16"er at 8:51. The fishing wasn't hot to say the least. Another boat we crossed was having the same luck.
After the 16"er we took turns catching kokes in steadily increasing sizes: 17, 18, 19 and finally culminating in a pretty 20"er for Hannah.
Later in the morning Robert decided that fishing in the triangle was not the best he had ever seen so we headed to another spot he had yielded some good-size fish. This was where we caught the biggest ones. Evidently the spot hasn't been discovered so there some bigger unmolested fish there.
We finally boated our limit around 11:30 and then Robert took us for a tour. We went through the narrows over to Soldier Creek and then completed the loop around back the launch ramp.
We had our success at 20 and 30 feet back and 35 feet deep. The best scent seemed to be the garlic. One setup with a pink dodger and pink squid tipped with pink shoepeg corn was hit about as much as all the others put together. They turned up their noses at orange and weren't too thrilled about maggots either. One or two bit on a purple/pink squid. Speaking of noses, one fish was starting the development of a hooked jaw. Won't be long now for them to start turning red.
We had a great day and Hannah couldn't have been happier. Now I'll see if can get my son out after them.
Oops, photos to follow.
[signature]
I picked her up in Provo at 3:55 and we met Robert in Orem. We spent most of the trip up explaining to Hannah how we would be fishing and some natural history of the kokanee. We got to the launch ramp early enough that he had to put his lights on and it was just getting to "shooting light" when we got all the lines in the water.
At 6:20 Hannah draw first blood with a 16" cutt. Back he went. In the next seven minutes she landed two more. Then she hit silver! She pulled in a massive koke that was about 7" long. But you would have thought it was a lunker to look at her
(see photos). As the morning progessed we pulled in about three times as many cutts as kokes. I landed my first kokanee at 7:05, a 10". We were glad that we were catching some, but we didn't want to keep a bunch of dinks but a few were in bad shape after we got them off the hooks so they went on the ice. Hannah caught an 11-incher at 7:57. I finally caught a 16"er at 8:51. The fishing wasn't hot to say the least. Another boat we crossed was having the same luck.After the 16"er we took turns catching kokes in steadily increasing sizes: 17, 18, 19 and finally culminating in a pretty 20"er for Hannah.
Later in the morning Robert decided that fishing in the triangle was not the best he had ever seen so we headed to another spot he had yielded some good-size fish. This was where we caught the biggest ones. Evidently the spot hasn't been discovered so there some bigger unmolested fish there.
We finally boated our limit around 11:30 and then Robert took us for a tour. We went through the narrows over to Soldier Creek and then completed the loop around back the launch ramp.
We had our success at 20 and 30 feet back and 35 feet deep. The best scent seemed to be the garlic. One setup with a pink dodger and pink squid tipped with pink shoepeg corn was hit about as much as all the others put together. They turned up their noses at orange and weren't too thrilled about maggots either. One or two bit on a purple/pink squid. Speaking of noses, one fish was starting the development of a hooked jaw. Won't be long now for them to start turning red.
We had a great day and Hannah couldn't have been happier. Now I'll see if can get my son out after them.
Oops, photos to follow.
[signature]
The older I get the more I would rather be considered a good man than a good fisherman.
