Lake Stevens Kokanee

[h20hunter]

I think enough of us fish kokes we should have a thread. I titled it Lake Stevens but I welcome all kokanee reports.  I'm especially interested in other Snohomish county reports as well.

Today,  fished a few hours from sun up to 930. Only landed 2 for 5 but nice fish.  I added two eagle claw rod/abu garcia set ups to the boat so I'm running a top long line off both sides and two weighted lines off the stern. I have an inline weight of 1/4 & 1/8 oz to get down just a bit. Standard gear with scented corn and smelly jelly on the dodgers. Speed varies from 1.1 up to 1.5 or so. Talked to a few boats along the way, seemed a bit slow this morning.

Here are my two after a slow but decently hot smoke.

[Alchase]

Yum!

[h20hunter]

Yup, let them cool and set up. Peeled the skin off and the meat stayed moist and delicious.  My favorite way so far to eat 'em. Max meat utilization.

[Alchase]

I use to wait until I had about 20-25 lbs then smoke um all up, pull the meat off and store in gallon ziplock bags. Always hand a bag in the fridge. The rest go in the freezer until needed.
We took it for granted, never thought I would be transferred to a state without Kokanee 

[Blacklab]

Good eats   

Might go koke Wednesday, jury is still out. Thursday for sure will give report and fish pics I hope😉🥃

[h20hunter]

Did you get out? Weather looking good this weekend.  I'm adding more scent and looking to include something shrimpy. Also, lake Stevens is legal to chum. I'm thinking of adding a chum bag over the side to create a scent cone behind the boat. Those little buggers will be overwhelmingly compelled to bite!

[Angry Perch]

Maybe a frozen chum ball attached to a rigger!

[Alchase]

If you can find a chum ball of zooplankton or tiny fresh water shrimp you would be killing it!
They make up the majority of a Kokanee’s diet.
I have heard of people using a can of shoe peg corn with holes punch in it as a chum bag though I have not tried it.

[h20hunter]

Checking Amazon prime.....zoo plankton with a hint of krill and finished with a flourish of white shoe peg corn......found it. No problem.

[Alchase]

Checking Amazon prime.....zoo plankton with a hint of krill and finished with a flourish of white shoe peg corn......found it. No problem.

 

LOL

[kodiak10]

How do these guys taste compared to their Sockeye counterparts? I cant get my mind off summer and catching reds in AK!

[Alchase]

My family loves smoked Kokanee, they put it on everything from salads to to cheese and crackers.
Compared to sockeye?
Smoked sockeye is pretty hard to beat. Living on the wet side of Washington I was able to fish for Kokanee year round and keep the freezer full.
I could not get that in Sockeye. And doing the Lake Washington sockeye fishery, I gave up that madness years ago.
I wish I could, if I lived in Alaska I probably would, LOL

[kodiak10]

I had a native Alaskan friend on kodiak who would salt dry and smoke sockeye I caught for me and that had to be the best fish I've had in my entire life! Soak it in salt water, dry for 3 days then hot smoke with cottonwood, man I wish I had some right now! Well awesome info, I would really like to catch some of these guys sometime. Especially if I can catch them so close to home.

[h20hunter]

They taste great to me.

[Stein]

Lake WA sockeye were absolutely crazy good.  The thing about sockeye in my experience is there is a ton of variation.  Some are real dry and some are crazy good and Lake WA were up there with the best.