Palisades resevoir in idaho

[Muskybee]

I'm heading to palies tomorrow for a family reunion. I'm bringing my fully set up boat. Anybody have any past or recent advice or reports on the fishing?. Targeting kokanee and will be launching towards the dam.

[obifishkenobi]

If you get into the Kokanee I would like to hear your report, Every year my family spends the 3rd week in July camping at Palies so, my wife can pick Huckle Berrys and I fish, but honestly that place is one of my least favorite, because I can’t seem to find the kokanee, I can catch all the cutthroat and browns I want, but I’m a kocanut, at least one of the days Ill pull my boat and run over to Ririe where I know I can get into the kokes. I manage to catch kokes consistently at Ririe, Mackay, Strawberry and Flaming Gorge with basically the same tactics, I have been told Big Elk Creek and have fished there with out much success. I run Rocky Mountain Tackle Sling blades with a variety of different of hooche bead and blade combination usually in orange and pink or watermelon pattern tipped with Berkly maggots or my corn concoction at differant depths and speeds. Any advice would be welcome. I spend most of my time on the northern end of the lake near the dam and can consistently catch Browns and Cutts trolling along the face of the dam and the cliffs along the east side of the lake, I also regularly catch decent Browns along the south side of Bear creek, especially near the confluence with main lake. I catch them on my standard kokanee gear, but when I'm targeting the trout I do well trolling spoons like, Jakes, Little Cleos and Kastmasters. Use your electrons to find the fish and you should have no problem catching trout.

[FishwithKids]

obifishkenobi,
I'm in your same boat. I live by palies and fish it often. The kokanee have me scratching my head. I consider myself an average kokanee fisherman but have yet to hook up on one in Palies. Hopefully someone on here has some information that can help us.

[POk3s]

This could be one of those lakes where the kokes stay really shallow all year. It’s worth a shot to troll around with everything in the top 10 feet of the water column and see what happens.

[obifishkenobi]

I’m going to be there Wednesday to Sunday this week do you have a report Muskybee or anyone else. I’ll post reports while I’m up there, I’m thinking about running over to Ririe friday morning. I’ll be in a Blue 20’ Wooldridge boat if your up in that part of the world say hi and we can talk fishing.

[Muskybee]

I’m going to be there Wednesday to Sunday this week do you have a report Muskybee or anyone else. I’ll post reports while I’m up there, I’m thinking about running over to Ririe friday morning. I’ll be in a Blue 20’ Wooldridge boat if your up in that part of the world say hi and we can talk fishing.

We only made it up to the resevoir in the boat one morning. We launched at the boat ramp by the dam. We mainly fished to the right of the ramp in the first big cove. We marked a ton of fish from 35 ft to 10 ft. We ran the typical squid and Dodger set ups . The pink cotton candy hoochie caught the most. We didnt catch any kokes out of the resevoir, but did down below in the river throwing rapalas. We caught a couple of browns,  and some cuts. When we first started fishing we hooked up twice the first couple of minutes we dropped the downriggers down at 30 ft. Fishing really slowed down after that with a fish here and their. After a couple of laps around the cove. We noticed schools of decent size fish swimming all around us. They were only a couple inches under the water. We tried to catch them with no luck. Saw over 100 fish easy right on the surface. The sun came out and the bites stopped. We left the lake by 1030 and it was a mad house full of boats and people at the boat ramp.

[obifishkenobi]

I finally found a couple Kokanee at Palies, I met a guy from the Idaho Kokanee Facebook group at 6:00 pm at the Calamity ramp and we ran up the lake to Big Elk Creek but we got blown farther up lake by strong wind we ducked in behind a big point on the west side of the lake where we got two nice kokes 17” and 18” several Cutts a brown and several chubs before lightning and rain chased us off the lake a little before 9pm. I’m fishing Ririe in the morning but will be back fishing Palies tomorrow evening and Saturday and hope to find some more. We got both on a watermelon squid and dodger down 50’ going 1.7.

[OK_Sooners]

I finally found a couple Kokanee at Palies, I met a guy from the Idaho Kokanee Facebook group at 6:00 pm at the Calamity ramp and we ran up the lake to Big Elk Creek but we got blown farther up lake by strong wind we ducked in behind a big point on the west side of the lake where we got two nice kokes 17” and 18” several Cutts a brown and several chubs before lightning and rain chased us off the lake a little before 9pm. I’m fishing Ririe in the morning but will be back fishing Palies tomorrow evening and Saturday and hope to find some more. We got both on a watermelon squid and dodger down 50’ going 1.7.

Nice looking Kokes there Obi! Glad you finally found those things.

[FishwithKids]

I finally found a couple Kokanee at Palies, I met a guy from the Idaho Kokanee Facebook group at 6:00 pm at the Calamity ramp and we ran up the lake to Big Elk Creek but we got blown farther up lake by strong wind we ducked in behind a big point on the west side of the lake where we got two nice kokes 17” and 18” several Cutts a brown and several chubs before lightning and rain chased us off the lake a little before 9pm. I’m fishing Ririe in the morning but will be back fishing Palies tomorrow evening and Saturday and hope to find some more. We got both on a watermelon squid and dodger down 50’ going 1.7.

That's awesome!  So you caught them on the West side?  South of Big Elk Creek?  How did you find them?  Were you seeing them on your electronics?  I've always thought I was fishing too deep but 50' is deeper than I normally go.  Did you learn anything else about Kokanee on Palies from the Facebook guy?

[obifishkenobi]

I finally found a couple Kokanee at Palies, I met a guy from the Idaho Kokanee Facebook group at 6:00 pm at the Calamity ramp and we ran up the lake to Big Elk Creek but we got blown farther up lake by strong wind we ducked in behind a big point on the west side of the lake where we got two nice kokes 17” and 18” several Cutts a brown and several chubs before lightning and rain chased us off the lake a little before 9pm. I’m fishing Ririe in the morning but will be back fishing Palies tomorrow evening and Saturday and hope to find some more. We got both on a watermelon squid and dodger down 50’ going 1.7.

That's awesome!  So you caught them on the West side?  South of Big Elk Creek?  How did you find them?  Were you seeing them on your electronics?  I've always thought I was fishing too deep but 50' is deeper than I normally go.  Did you learn anything else about Kokanee on Palies from the Facebook guy?

The guy who came had never tried for kokes at palies and was interested in figuring them out we ended up where we where because of the 30 mph wind I’m going back tonight I always mark lots of fish at Palies getting them to bite is another matter I noticed today my meter on my down rigger that can get the kokes was off, so maybe they where slightly shallower I’ll let you know after tonight we went to Ririe this morning and put 30 kokes in the box between 7:30 am and 11:30 am

[obifishkenobi]

Our annual trip to Palies was great and I’m looking forward to next year when I hope to build on what I did this year. I ended up putting 7 kokes in the box all 17-18” And got to spend quility time fishing with the kids and husbands while the moms picked buckle berrys.

[meancuznalfy]

Looks like you had a great trip, figuring out fish makes it even better.

[FishwithKids]

Thank you for your report and information.