I went out with my dad this morning for my first Kokanee trip of 2012. Started off at around 5:30am. Typically there is an early bit around sunrise, but we either missed it or it was pretty weak today. We did get some hits early on, but they were a mix of very small fish (6-9") or Yellow Perch. Most of these were caught right on the top. We were seeing a lot of boils on the surface which I haven't seen previously and I assume were Perch as well as the typical early morning Kokanee jumpers.

After a slow start, fishing picked up and remained steady the rest of the morning. We zoned in on a hotspot and fished it the rest of the day picking up fish on most passes. The fish got larger and topping out at almost 15", which is as large as we've ever caught from Stevens. The large ones had a ton of fight to them and did their best to stay deep, even going on runs at times. After catching 11 keeper Kokanee (and turning one tiny nose-hooked one loose) we felt like we had as much as we wanted to clean and called it quits. Total time on the water was about 5 hours.

With the exception of the early top-lined fish, the fish were caught at around 50ft. Hot colors seemed to change throughout the morning with the only particular standout lure being hand-tied "Wedding Ring" spinners with copper blades and mostly green beads for the last hour or two. 50/50 (Brass/Nickel) Dodgers, as usual, performed well, but I got a lot of production out of a glow-green "sling-blade" style dodger at the end. Firecorn and Gulp Maggots were both used with the corn being much more effective. Hoochies were a complete non-factor today. We've never had any lucky with them here so they don't get a ton of time in the water.

I bought a lot of bulk components and tied tons of of spinners and built my own dodgers over the winter so it was awesome to catch fish on them.

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