Didn't feel like going home after work today so took a drive up to upper Conconully after work. Lots of jetskis on the water when I arrived. I tried trolling up the upper half of the lake past the houses. Fish finder was blank in anything over 50' of water so I pulled my gear and head back down the lake. Marked a few fish off the rope swing and started trolling to the dam from there.
In about 5 minutes the first rod went off. Landed a fat 16" Kokanee. A few minutes later I picked up a second fish on the turn away from the dam. Shortly after getting everything back in the water both lines snagged on something and I lost the entirety of both setups in 55' of water trolling at 30' deep. I hate losing Kokanee gear...grrrr. The sun had already dipped behind the hills before I got everything retied and deployed again. Picked up 2 Rainbows including a beautiful 18" fish. I released both bows and in my last loop back towards the boat ramp picked up one more kokanee to complete my limit.
I caught the vast majority of my fish on silver Paulina Peak teardrop dodgers combined with cotton candy (pink/blue) or wickiup sunrise (chartreuse/orange) microhoochies. I didn't pick up a single fish on pink. Nearly every fish came on the turn on the outside rod so I think they are looking for a little more speed than the 1.5 to 1.7 mph I was averaging.
This was my first time kokanee fishing this lake. The fish are further along in development than other lakes in the region but are still cutting well. This was also my 12th kokanee lake for the year which is a new record for me. I was marking surprisingly few fish but still catching well. They must of developed cloaking technology.


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