05-20-2007, 03:57 AM
I had a chance to get out with two of my brothers to fish for kokanee salmon, lake trout, and rainbows on Flaming Gorge on the UT/WY border. The rainbow and mac fishing were about the same as they've been all year for us. Lots of fish, but nothing too big yet. The kokanee were the real fun on this trip! The water has warmed a bit and the koke bite is starting to warm up as well. Theres nothing like a kokanee hitting and then jumping up out of the water!
The best rig was once again rocky mt tackle UV squids trailing behind their dodgers. I tried to match the color of the squid to the color of the dodger and that seemed to improve the bite. Orange and pink were the best colors, but thats nothing new with kokanee. The hyper plaid dodger did awesome too. We used spinners behind the hyper plaid, and also had success using tasmanian devils behind them.
Pop geer and wedding rings produced well at first, but it is always a pain to use that rig. Once the bite really turned on I put the pop geer away. Another reason I don't like pop geer for early season kokes is that they have pretty soft mouths. The added pull that the geer gives causes more fish to be lost to ripped mouths. By using the RMT dodgers, which pull very little, we increased the percentage of kokes we got to the net. Later in the season their mouths firm up a bit.
This trip was a lot of fun, and now we have some good fish to eat! It will be a couple more weeks before I can get back up there, so I'll have to make it last!
Take care, bkidder
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The best rig was once again rocky mt tackle UV squids trailing behind their dodgers. I tried to match the color of the squid to the color of the dodger and that seemed to improve the bite. Orange and pink were the best colors, but thats nothing new with kokanee. The hyper plaid dodger did awesome too. We used spinners behind the hyper plaid, and also had success using tasmanian devils behind them.
Pop geer and wedding rings produced well at first, but it is always a pain to use that rig. Once the bite really turned on I put the pop geer away. Another reason I don't like pop geer for early season kokes is that they have pretty soft mouths. The added pull that the geer gives causes more fish to be lost to ripped mouths. By using the RMT dodgers, which pull very little, we increased the percentage of kokes we got to the net. Later in the season their mouths firm up a bit.
This trip was a lot of fun, and now we have some good fish to eat! It will be a couple more weeks before I can get back up there, so I'll have to make it last!
Take care, bkidder
[signature]