Strawberry Help/Advise needed.

[SamDaFishMan]

As I stated in an earlier post, this is the first year targeting the kokanee, with a new boat. I have 2 downriggers, with what I feel is an adequate amount of various flashers, squids, rings, to start off, (one cannot have to much though).

I have watched a lot of Robert's posts and youtube videos and others this winter/spring just to beef up and learn as much as possible.

Went to Flaming Gorge in May and only caught one. After reading others here found that I was not trusting my fish finder, (depth to shallow).

Went to Strawberry June 19th, with oldest son and was skunked out. Only caught cutthroats. Still not getting out on the water early enough, (usually 9:30 to 10) as it is hard to drag the younger generation out of bed! Arrg.

Went to Strawberry for over the 4th weekend and camped. The 2 days we did fish then seemed to be way more productive, with 8 in the boat on the 2nd, and 6 in the boat in 2 hours on the 3rd. (confidence building!) I think I got this down.

So yesterday, I took my youngest son and his girlfriend to the berry, got on the water at 8:30 and went the south side of the triangle and up the east side first. got 4 cuts we had to release and one kok on the line only to be lost by aggressive handling from my son, (learning lessons for him). all in the first hour.

After that had several lost getting them to the boat and only one 20" kok in the boat for the results of 5 hours of fishing before the afternoon thunder head came in with a few lightning bolts and the "breeze". Off the water at 2:30.

Details. Have a Lowrance Elite TI 7 that showed fish at 25-35' early, and down to 40-55 toward the afternoon. I used the downriggers in the morning with one side down at 25' and the other down to 39' with a stacker at 32'.. So I am thinking I am covering 15-20 feet of the column I am seeing fish at. I adjusted downward as the day went on and the temp climbed. I changed out the flasher/squid combos trying to find the secret weapon, Used silver dodgers, pink, orange, watermelon, green, and various squid combos as well including UV white, pink/white, pink, orange, green, sents and gels. with my Lowrance using sidescan and downscan combos I could see school after school, but with poor results.

More Info. Tipped both hooks with Pink Gulp Maggots, tips of hooks exposed. Speed of boat ranged 1.3 to 2.0 mostly, averaged 1.7. Lots of s-turns to vary. Length of most squids was 12" but had a few at 16", bend in the flashers to get more action. spray scent on flasher and squid, some gels on flashers but none on squid. using some y blades on some squid, others just plain. (post revised at others suggestion for more detail)

Help, Advise needed.

Also, if you see a white Maroon Warrior boat out there, give me a wave and some advise.
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[Tjet]

While I haven't been to the berry yet this year, I spent the week before the 4th at Flaming gorge,, you didn't say if you were tipping the hooks with anything, I like to use the gulp maggots in pink or natural, and I use the rmt sockeye Slayer gel I put it only on the grubs, the gel sticks the squids together to much if applied directly to them, because Kokanee don't actually bite the lure and just swat at them make sure the point of the hook is through the maggots. Or you will miss a lot of hookups, also try a wiggle hooches or a bill squid, they have more action, or just shorten up the leader between the Dodge and squid, I have ran them as short as 6 inches to get more action, now I pretty much use bill squids and leave the leader at about 18 inches. One thing that worked great are the gorge was the Kokanee Creek osprey spoon in pink or chartreuse, they are made of nylon so the really move around, and very your speed and do s turns a lot, if I keep showing fish and not catching any I changed up about every 10 to 15 minutes.. hope this helps you get more fish in the boat, let us know how u do next time, I'm about due for a strawberry trip...
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[mtncat1]

your doing fine , there is no instant recipe for catching kokanee it is a learning process ,you just need to find what works better on certain days and refine it or exploit it to put more fish in the boat.
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[liketrolling]

if you can go on a week day, I could take you but I'm at Strawberry by 5 are 5:30
some day's you don't catch a lot and other day you can't keep them of your hook
If you see a lot of fish on your fish finder at 25' down there is a good chance they are chubs.
it sounds like you are doing a lot of things right
My leader between the 5.5" dodger and squid is 10" on a 4.5" dodger go with a 8" leader

right now I'm using a spinner or blade on my squids
I soak my Pink Gulp Maggots in a scent.
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[OCF]

If you go back and review posts from"liketrolling" and "Brookie" you will glean a lot of good info & these fellers know how to catch the kokes at Strawberry.

Just a couple of comments:

(1) If you are loosing a lot of fish, check your hooks. I take a lot of rookies out and they seem to torque the hook when removing from the mouth of the fish and bend the point so that it doesn't properly hook the next fish up. Retie new hooks & dispose of the bent hook.

(2) On the fourth, I started out fishing at 38 feet at 5:30 a.m. & ended up at 45 feet at 9:00 a.m. You may not be getting down deep enough. With this heat wave, they are going to be deep. We saw a lot of fish at 20 to 30 feet; however, we did not even target them thinking they were chubs or cutts.

(3) I also use Berkley maggots. However, I like contrasting colors. Most of the time (like 98%) I use the chartreuse. Put it on the very last hook & thread it through the end (like through it's head). You do not want the maggot to dampen the action of the squid. I place a drop of scent on the maggot - usually in the following order of preference; kokanee, anise & garlic. I use both Procure's and lunker lotion. Somedays the scent will make a big difference.

(4) When fishing this deep, I like to use silver dodgers with a silver reflective tape & white squids. Usually have some kind of blade & bead combo ahead of the squid. Straight UV beads with a spinner blade also work well in lieu of the squids.
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[Littlebuck3333]

I agree with mtn cat u can drive us elf nuts with a lot of this bull
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