It's been a great season for Kokanee this year so far. I've been out just over a handful of times, and man are the fish this year big! I had some friends from WI that recently moved up here call me and say, "hey are those crazy looking fish running yet?" I just laughed and said yea, I think they are, you want to? That was a no-brainer question, as they said yea.
It didn't take us long to get our first salmon, and to my surprise it was 22 in! Not bad for the first fish of the day. The big kokes just kept coming! My buddy caught his first koke ever, and it came in at 23 inches! His wife caught a nice female that was 22 in also. It was a fun morning of catching kokes, and out of the 20 or so fish we caught, 13 were 20 in or above! It was just simply amazing to catch so many bigger kokes, and we even caught a few females 20-22 1/2 inches, and fat! As far as the weather went, you couldn't have asked for a better day to fish in South Park!
A few days later I decided to head back out there again to try my luck, and invited two of my buddies and fellow FXR members Snipehuntin, and Sport Fisher to come along. After about "15" minutes or so of getting ready in the truck, we decided it was time to catch up Trevor (snipehuntin) who we had dropped off at the river since he didn't have waders to put on. Once again it didn't take too long before we started catching kokes! We ended up catching about 10 MA sized kokes, with both Snipehuntin and Sport Fisher nabbing their own personal bests, and MA kokes! I landed a nice 21 1/2 in brown, and a few moments later I hooked into a hog! After a few minutes trying to get this monster off the bottom and ripping along the rocks, I managed to get it to come up for a first glimpse at what is was. It was a monster brown, and just as Sport Fisher was about to net the monster, it decided it wasn't done fighting, and did one last gator roll along the rocks, and SNAP! The final battle proved too much for my line as it frayed enough to snap my line. The worst part of it was that the brown was around 30 inches easily, and sat just out of reach briefly while we all looked at it, then swam away with a new tube jig lip ring. It still ended up being an awesome day of fishing, and between the 3 of us, we nabbed a Grand Slam catching Browns, Kokes, Cutbow, Cutthroat, Rainbow, a sucker, and a giant Crayfish! Also I got my personal best koke of 23 inches, just to break it an hour later by catching a 24 inch male!
This past weekend my fiance, and my buddy Jeremy decided to head up there and get Jeremy his first true Koke. We met up with Coyotehunter, and it didn't take him long to get the first koke of the day! It was chilly and windy all day, and ice was present on the shoreline throughout the whole day. The fish were smaller than in weeks past, but we caught quite a few fish, and I managed 2 over 20, and my buddy Jeremy got a nice 20 in Female, and lost a huge male right at the net! Also met Steve and his two dogs down at the river, and stopped by his shed after fishing for some good fish stories!
It's been fun so far this year, but remember, you CANNOT keep kokes out of the Dream Stream, nor can you snag them. I've had a few people who walked right past the sign, and still ask me why I was returning the kokes, and had one guy who was watching me say, "WOW! you don't even have to snag the kokes here, they bite pretty good." Yea, no snagging, even though every year I pull out a handful of snagging hooks with my line, or step on one with my boots. On a brighter note, it was good times with good friends!
