I had a couple of guests coming to visit on Friday, May 9, so I thought it best to get my big boat up and running as they wanted to fish Deka and Bridge Lakes for kokanee. What better place than to put it in than right here on Horse Lake near my house and see if everything worked?
On Monday, I phoned Brenda Grant, another member of the 100 Mile Fly Fishers, and asked her if she wanted to try for kokanee since I was on the lake anyway. She showed up around noon, while I was still going over my boat checklist. We got on the lake shortly afterwards.
The previous Saturday, my neighbour helped to put a new starter solenoid in as the old one was acting up. I put on my 6 HP Yamaha that I use for trolling and wanted to make sure it was running okay, too.
Before launching the boat, I tested both motors; the Merc 40 started immediately, while the 6 was stubborn. After both motors ran, we launched and headed out on the lake. I knew from experience that the kokanee would be shallow in the water column, so even though I had two spare spools of lead core line with me, I started with just the full sink fly lines on my fly rods.
As a matter of preference, I like using fly rods as they are softer and have more give to them, an important factor as the kokanee really get excited when getting close to the boat. I think these limber rods often prevent the hook from being ripped from their soft mouths.
On Brenda's rod, I put the same white hoochie I used in Green Lake last August behind one of my friend Bill’s famous spinner rigs. The trailing hook was tipped with corn liberally drenched in garlic oil. I choose to put a Mack’s Imperial Spoon in UV pink on my fly rod. We let all the lines out to the backing and began trolling at around 1.8 miles per hour in 30 to 35 feet of water. It wasn’t long before I had a take but missed. Brenda had a take on the hoochie rig shortly afterwards, but the kokanee got off at the boat.
The 6 horse was acting up, running poorly, and dying at trolling speeds, but I kept nursing it along for another hour of this nonsense before I noticed a small crack in the fuel line just before it got to the connection to the motor. I nursed the engine along for a bit longer but finally decided to cut off the short piece of rubber line and eliminate the leak. The fix worked, and the motor ran perfectly the rest of the day.
We kept hooking kokanee and landing about every second one. Towards the end of the afternoon, the fish stopped hitting the hoochie, so I switched to a Mack’s Spoon on Brenda's rod too.
By 5 p.m. we had our limits of kokanee up to 1 ½ lbs plus one rainbow about the same size.
It was a beautiful day on the water, sunny, 22 C, light variable breeze, and surface temp 52 F. The size 14 chironomids were emerging in about 35 feet of water, and they were being fed upon by lakers, as they were evident on the sonar just above the bottom at that depth.
The kokanee were full of small green daphnia, the odd chironomid, and one even had a leech in it. All went well with the fishing and the boat. I thought I just might get out and try for them again before the guests arrived on Friday.
