The following is my column published in Wednesday's Coloradoan.
Fall brings us gorgeously colored foliage, crisp morning air, bugling elk, and exceptional fishing. Many species go on feeding frenzies in preparation for winter. This makes for fast action with little competition, as many are hunting, watching football, or otherwise engaged. Plus, now is when the kokanee make their annual spawning run.
Kokanee are landlocked sockeye. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) maintains this non-native through stocking due to the difficultly of developing self-sustaining populations. Annually, fry are stocked in deep, cold water reservoirs where they spend the next 3-4 years feeding primarily on plankton and dodging lake trout and fishers. At maturity, the typically 14-18 inch salmon, make their spawning runs back to their home waters. In this case, their point of release which, on many reservoirs, is some section of shore. Finding those points is relatively easy as CDOW generally stocks the same areas annually and fishers return with the same dependability as the kokanee to fish (snag) for them (check the regulations for specific waters and dates).
Popular because they’re excellent table fare, kokanee are also scrappy fighters. However, outside the spawn, catching them can be challenging. Being open water feeders they are difficult to catch from the shore, and boaters often require specialized equipment, such as trolling small brightly colored (orange, chartreuse) spoons deep, often with lead core line, steel wire, or down riggers, to be successful. However, once the fish start their run, the advantage swings to the shore fisher.
Like all Pacific Salmon, once kokanee start their spawning run, they quit feeding, undergo major morphological changes, and ultimately die after they’re spawned out. As a result, snagging is permitted by CDOW as a legal method of taking them during the fall. Check the fishing regulations brochure for specific dates and waters.
Even though spawning salmon no longer feed, they will readily strike a fly or lure. And, when salmon run up rivers, they are especially attractive to fly fishers. Two rivers, the Gunnison (and East River upstream) above Blue Mesa Reservoir and South Platte (Dream Stream) between Elevenmile and Spinney Mountain Reservoirs have excellent runs. It’s the latter that is the easiest to reach from Fort Collins, but if you have a weekend, the trip to Gunnison is worth it.
First, locate the fish, which is easy to do as their bright red spawning colors and the abundance of fishers quickly reveal their presence. Conventional wisdom suggests that bright patterns and heavily weighted nymphing rigs fished through schools is the way to go. It works. But from my viewpoint, most are essentially snagging with a fly rod, as the majority of fish caught this way are foul hooked. I use lightly weighted trout nymphs, sizes 12-16 and sight fish. This typically reduces the foul hooking to less than one in ten fish.
Regardless of approach, snagging, lures, or flies, now is the time to head to the high country for some fast kokanee action.
