Previous Next

Fished from 9-2ish. Started out slow, I should have paid more attention to gfakkema's post cuz I wasted about 3 hrs trolling around with our gear down at ~20' to start out with. After that resulted in no action we anchored up in ~40' of water to see if any fish we had been marking on the bottom felt like biting, they didn't. So back to trolling and I put a top line out and kept the gear up near the surface between 5-10' on the downriggers so I could explore into shallow areas and learn more about the lake (first time fishing Meridian). About 10 minutes in the top line rod bends over and a nice ~15' rainbow comes to the boat, beautiful fish, nice shoulders on it, in the box it goes. Then my buddy gets a smaller 9-10" pretty skinny rainbow that we let go to get a little bigger and fatten up. For the next several hours we saw consistent action with the gear up near the surface. We did have a tough time getting fish to the boat, probably lost 7-9 fish that were hooked up, most briefly but some we saw before they shook themselves loose. The 4-5 we saw were all small 6-8" koks so it was not big loss that they shook loose but concerning that they all came off. Checked the hooks and they were sharp, not sure what that was about. Are kokanee mouths even softer when they're that small or something?
After a couple hrs of losing these little kokanee we called it a day. Weather was great, wind did start to make trolling a little tough but think it helped the bite. When the water was flat calm didn't see anyone hooking up. Couldn't believe fish were so near the surface with how sunny it was, maybe it's the time of year and something I'll keep in mind now, good learning experience.
We used dodgers and wedding rings, yellow fire corn was the bait of the day and only one that got bites.
Wife and I had the bow for dinner sat night, good stuff with the pasta salad she made to go with it. Tight lines all!

gfakkema

4/1/2013 10:28:00 AM

I'm not sure if their mouths are softer when they are smaller, but their mouths are definitely soft at Meridian. Our hook up to boat ratio was at least 2 to 1. I always leave the boat in gear while hooked up, so that is probably part of it. I usually leave my drag as light as it can go and fight the fish as long as possible to avoid getting ripped out. I also use 2 hook rigs, and that really seems to help.

jd39

4/1/2013 11:49:00 AM

Thanks gfakkema! Helps me feel a little better about losing those fish! Will have to try lighter drags while top lining, hard to lighten them up when using the downriggers though.

gfakkema

4/1/2013 12:49:00 PM

If I were consistently losing fish while using the rigger, I would pop the line out of the clip, then loosen the drag. You could also take the boat out of gear (but this gets complicated when fishing with more than one line). Bottom line... kokes have soft mouths, no getting around it. Even if you do get a hard mouthed one, they always freak out when they see the boat. I have found that it is always best to fight them for as long as possible using really light drag (it's not uncommon for me to fight one for 3-5+ minutes, basically just dragging them, not really reeling too much) and keep the rod tip near the water to keep them from thrashing on the surface and spitting/ripping hooks.

jd39

4/1/2013 2:08:00 PM

Yeah, will keep tinkering around until I figure it out, part of the fun. Appreciate the tips and advice! Hope to meet you out there sometime.

fishingbear

4/1/2013 3:12:00 PM

Well after chasing Kokanee for the last 5 years all I can say is Shimano Bantam 201. This reel was made back in the mid to late 70s it is a left hand reel and has a button that you can turn on or off that makes the reel direct drive so the only drag is your thumb. I set the drag so it will hold in the downrigger clip but after I hook a Kokanee I hit the switch and use my thumb after that. After I started using the old Bantam my hook to land ratio went up to about 90 percent.

jd39

4/1/2013 5:56:00 PM

That does sound like a good system fishingbear, thanks for the tip!

FishingFool

4/1/2013 6:18:00 PM

My experience with Meridian is after a planting. The fish are always on the top water column for a few weeks.
They will usually school up near the docks later in the evening ~7PM or so. You should see lots of surface activity around that time near there.

gfakkema

4/1/2013 7:36:00 PM

It seemed to me like all the bows are hanging out by the public park, but I caught almost all my kokes everywhere but that end. The middle of the lake seemed good, but the last few days they seem to be hugging the east side. Marked a ton of fish and saw a lot of surfacing in the cove on the west side, but didn't venture in there too much because of the shallow depth and weeds.

Leave a Comment:

Login

Flag

×

Why is this comment inappropriate?

Close Submit

Delete this comment? Provide reason.

No Yes

Edit

×

Cancel Save