Kokanee fishing improves for some at Ririe Reservoir

“Here comes a school of kokanee,” Steve exclaimed to his brother, Kent, as both began bouncing their fishing rods.

“I am getting light hits but no fish,” replied Kent.

“Got one,” said Steve and he landed a small silver fish about six inches long.

“Plenty of bumps but no fish,” Kent dejectedly said as the large school moved on.

This scenario has been repeated by numerous groups of fishermen on Ririe Reservoir since freeze-up in December – schools of kokanee with an occasional small one landed. “Where are the larger kokanee?” has been common question from fishermen on Ririe.

Many Ririe kokanee fishermen turned to the abundant perch numbers and then they in turn abandoned the “dead” lake. But a few fishermen stuck with it, experimented with different lures, baits and areas and in the last two weeks a few limits and near limits of large kokanee have been their rewards.

Last week, brothers Steve and Kent from the Idaho Falls area, harvested 26 “keepers” – kokanee ranging from 12 to 18 inches. I have limited out in three of four days with kokanee up to 19 inches and Bob Johnstone, the Juniper camp host, gladly shows pictures of a few 20- to 22-inch kokanee caught by some of the lucky fishermen.

The large kokanee are not schooling! They are usually a single or what appears to be a loose group less than 10 fish and they are rarely found in deep water. Success has been found by fishing in water from 40 to 70 feet deep with lures/bait within 10 feet of the bottom. Often times they are in mixed company with perch and trout as all three are caught when the loose group shows up.

They also appear to be spooked easily and will tolerate two or three fishermen in a small area, but more than that, they do not show up. This may because of the number of fish-finders and the sound waves that multiple machines may be emitting. I prefer fishing from 50 to 100 yards away from other fishermen and if people move in close, I chose to move and have found that success follows moving away from the others.

As for lures and bait, every day is usually different. One day it is pink lures tipped with dyed corn and the next day it can be glow-in-the-dark chartreuse tipped with mealworms or a sling dodger with corn or wax worms 14 inches below it. I prefer a “pink-ice” Swedish Pimple with a small treble hook tipped with a mealworm fished from 35 to 45 feet below the ice. Another is a glow jig spoon with a red/white skirt-tail eight inches below, tipped with a half of the mealworm. Change color and style of jigs quickly if the fish are ignoring your offerings. You can have five rods to experiment and to play with. The large schools that turn your fish-finders red are usually six- to seven-inch fish. Occasionally larger kokanee will be below or trailing the large groups of small fish.

Why is all this necessary? Where are the numbers of “keeper” kokes? For that I called and visited with John Heckel, a Regional Fishery Biologist stationed in the Idaho Falls office.

There are two types of kokanee, the early run and the late run, that have been planted in Ririe.

“In 2018, there was a shortage of early run statewide to stock so we planted about 300,000 late run fish,” said Heckel. “Those late eun kokanee did not survive well and we lost a lot of them. So in 2019 we planted 300,000 early eun again and those are probably the schools of small fish that you see in the reservoir. We also do not have any natural spawning at Ririe. In our gill netting last summer we saw some three- and four-year old fish and those are probably those large fish that are being caught now.”

The difference between the two types can be seen when you clean them. The early run have bright orange meat while the late run has much lighter flesh. It is interesting to note that the large kokes being caught, those between 12 to 14 inches have light flesh while those 15 to 18 inches have all been the Early Run type.

With the weather warming up, the 12 to 14 inches of ice on Ririe is starting to melt. Many of the experienced ice fishermen are predicting that we have from a week to 10 days before the ice gets sketchy. Thursday afternoon the side-by-sides that got on the ice when it was solid, broke the edge making it very difficult for four-wheelers and snowmobiles to get on the ice now. Foot traffic can still get on the ice for those who want to walk about a mile to get to the best kokanee fishing down near the canyon.

As always be very careful, stay safe, enjoy yourself and give fishermen space enough to be successful.