How to catch Kokanee Salmon at Lake Nighthorse

Kokanee Salmon Fishing at Lake Nighthorse in Durango, Colorado. 

There are a lot of little Kokanee in Lake Nighthorse.  By little I mean about 12-14 inches.  By a lot I mean hundreds of thousands. According to CPW Aquatic Biologist Jim White, 100,000 to 150,000 are stocked each year. They are chubby and well fed, if a bit small.  Little Kokanee are delicious, they don't accumulate much Mercury (this is Animas water, after all), and they're pretty easy to catch.  They are easy to fillet, have soft pinbones, and their skin fries up crispy.  The bag limit on Kokanee is 10 fish, and they can be made into patties or cakes that freeze well.  If you're out to have a fresh fish dinner and you're in or near Durango, these are a great choice.

A plump little Kokanee from Lake Nighthorse (Leaf not included)

I say "easy to catch" and that comes with a caveat.  Kokanee are a fish that can be caught by the bushel when they're targeted, but unless you're targeting Kokanee, you're more likely to catch Trout in Lake Nighthorse.  We'll go over two solid and predictable methods to catch these tasty silver fish here and hopefully you'll have some for dinner soon.

A quick search on the web for Kokanee fishing will show you that some people are absolutely religious about the best methods, best lures, and best scents, best speeds, best lines to use.  There are forums dedicated to the "art" of Kokanee fishing, and you'll find many healthy arguments about which methods work the best.  The truth is, most of these methods work. Kokanee are plentiful and they are aggressive towards lures, scented or not.

Fresh out of the hot pan, a crispy skinned Kokanee fillet 

Method 1: Trolling

Apart from being a popular internet pastime, trolling is a reliable way to catch Kokanee Salmon.  It does require a boat, but honestly, most methods of Kokanee fishing do.  While it is possible to catch the odd Kokanee from shore, you're going to have a much more successful time in a boat.  On the Kokanee forums, fishermen discuss the ideal trolling speed, (in 10ths of knots!) they discuss the best colors, the best types of flashers, (basically long lines of spinner blades that precede your lure) and certainly the best lure itself.  Something they discuss the most often is scent. 

A nice morning's troll with a splendid view.  

I've been told that Kokanee do not actually follow a scent trail to a lure, but a scent will entice them to bite when they might otherwise just follow the lure around in a trance. Much of this research has been done by actually putting cameras on downriggers and watching the fish behavior. I'm telling you, these people are serious about their Kokanee. In years of fishing for these guys (you can read the accounts of me learning to catch them on this very blog) I've found that a lure baited with a scented piece of Shoepeg corn will catch fish when a lure without scent right next to it will not.  I've tested it, and it seems to be quite true that scent works.  I've tried anise and garlic and of those two popular scents I've had more success with anise.  I don't know why, but it works.  You want to use anise oil made without alcohol, the stuff in the baking aisle is no good for this purpose.  The reason Shoepeg corn is used rather than other corn is that it has nice firm kernels that stay on the hook through the rigors of trolling.  Can you use other corn?  Probably, but this is well established Kokanee dogma we're talking about, so fall in line and cough up the 2 bucks for a can of Shoepeg! My own personal recipe is boiling a few dried heads of Star Anise in water for a while and letting it steep for hours if possible.  Once that is ready, drain the corn and replace the liquid in the can with this concoction.  I like to let the corn soak at least overnight in the refrigerator and then you've got pure Kokanee gold, that can be used both trolling and in jigging (which we'll discuss later in this entry.)

Some people swear by a rubber "nubber" that is basically is a rubber band tied inline to make your line give more.  Since Kokanee have soft mouths, some say the knubber helps them stay on the hook.  They probably work but it's just another thing to tie into your rig and probably isn't entirely necessary.  If you do use one, tie it in AFTER your flashers.  My favorite lure for Kokanee is Mack's Kokanee Killer, also known as a "wedding ring" spinner.  There are plenty of other lures, and they all work well.  The colors I most often see represented are orange, pink, green and white.  I find myself using orange the most.  Spinner and flasher blades can be golden or silver, and there's a lot said about which works better at which time of day, but I'm not getting into that mess here, you can look it up.  I use a set of flashers with 4 blades, 2 silver and 2 gold.  It seems to work.  Some people use a dodger, which is a large flat hookless spoon that waddles back and forth and flashes.  Again, I think there's little that doesn't work, as long as you put something flashy, colorful and scented in their neighborhood, they'll usually bite.  I like to troll this rig so there is tension on it, but also so it can sink.  The correct trolling speed is pretty slow, but sudden bursts of more speed followed by a slowdown seem to trigger bites.  A lot of people drive in a zig zag pattern that naturally lets the lure speed up and slow down in turns.  It works.  When the afternoon winds pick up at Lake Nighthorse, you can even let the wind push you and you'll probably be going close to the right speed to hook up.

Another part of Kokanee fishing that I find really helps is a fish finding depth finder.  Lake Nighthorse reaches depths of almost 180 feet and the Kokanee aren't shy about diving deep.  You can recognize schools on a depth finder because there will suddenly be a lot of fish at a particular depth.  They're typically from 20-80 feet, but really they can be found all over the water column.  I have a notion in my head that the deeper the bigger, but that is probably silly.  A big weight at the start of your rig will help get it down where the fish are.  Downriggers work too, but we're getting pretty complicated for a 13 inch fish, aren't we?

Once you have a fish on, be very careful not to horse it in.  It is very easy to lose Kokanee at the boat and it happens even when everything is done right.  You definitely want a good net. 

To recap, your increasing ridiculous Kokanee trolling rig looks like this:  A baitcaster reel on a stiff but not too stiff rod, 10 pound test because this is a big honkin lure for a small honkin fish, a weight of up to 3oz, a set of flashers with or without a stabilization blade, a rubber nubber (I never use one), and finally a lure, ideally tipped with a scented piece of Shoepeg corn.  One last thing I do is replace the default single hook on the Kokanee Killer.  I'm not here to catch and release these silly things, we're catching dinner.  For that reason I replace this single hook with a nice sharp aftermarket treble hook.  Do all this stuff in your boat or canoe, and you'll find Kokanee out in the open water.

Method 2: Jigging

This method is all together less complicated.  Use a nice big flashy spoon (I like the Crocodile spoons available everywhere) or a heavy Kastmaster.  Tip the hook with your scented corn, put-put around the lake till you see a school of Kokanee on the depth finder and drop your lure to that depth.  Wham! This method does not work well in Lake Nighthorse's frequent high winds unless you have a REALLY heavy spoon.  I find that 50 feet of monofilament really stretches when you try to set the hook, so braid line is ideal for this situation.  You can also tie in different colors of braid at different lengths so you can accurately know the depth of your lure.  This method is more fun, simpler, and very effective, but you definitely need a still day to make it work.

Whichever of these methods you use, you're sure to have a nice day on the water and to partake in a fantastic resource that your hunting and fishing dollars sustain.  Kokanee Salmon Fishing is a safe and healthy way to enjoy a safe and healthy fish that exists in huge numbers right over the hill from the City of Durango.