rogerdodger
the moon is often considered a factor in fish activity and I think that I experienced it first hand this week at GP...details below after the basics of our kokanee harvest:
Doug (brother-in-law) and I fished GP Mon, Tue, and Wed. from the Crab Bandit (16" Alumicraft) We know what we are doing but are not 'super experts' at harvesting kokes, at times it was a slay fest, slower others, we ended up boating 60 (most all 10" to 12") and lost about half that many on the way to the net. We were both double stacking on manual Attwood riggers that worked really well, no problems ($52 at Cabela's), fish were mostly 45 to 70 feet, most catch was on sling blade, short leader (18"), then the normal variety of: wedding rings, smile blade lures, small hootchie stuff, mostly green but some on red, also apex 1.5" trout killers. koke schools were everywhere, HD sonar was showing swarms of them and you could see them changing depth to match our flasher depths....and we caught fish going slow slow slow, 0.8mph was our best catch rate speed....
what I found really interesting was the relationship between moon set and the kokes. we hit the water at 5:30am each morning and fished until about 10:30am each day. Monday was the full moon, it set at 6am, already below the hills when we launched. Monday was a slay fest right off, probably 10 in the cooler within 40minutes, then it went slow and we picked up another 6 the whole rest of the morning. Tuesday, the moon was still up, fishing was slow for about 45min, 2 in, then it went crazy, at least 10 in the next 30 minutes, right at moon set.
and then we went out Wednesday, needing 16 fish to hit 60, that was our goal then we would go in and break camp. moon was higher and things were slow, and slow, and slow, so much so that we started to doubt getting 16, then about 8am, getting close to moon set, it went crazy, 12 in by 8:45am, then it went cold, trolled back towards the launch as it go closer to 10am and got one last koke near the launch....
so for the 3 mornings, we were basically fishing through the same density of fish/schools from start to finish, what changed each day was the time at which they were hitting lures at a high rate, and each day it was hot for about 30min, and each day it happened damn close to 45min later into the morning, right around moon set. I find this very interesting..and continue to consider Kokes to be 'good eats'..cheers, roger
Doug (brother-in-law) and I fished GP Mon, Tue, and Wed. from the Crab Bandit (16" Alumicraft) We know what we are doing but are not 'super experts' at harvesting kokes, at times it was a slay fest, slower others, we ended up boating 60 (most all 10" to 12") and lost about half that many on the way to the net. We were both double stacking on manual Attwood riggers that worked really well, no problems ($52 at Cabela's), fish were mostly 45 to 70 feet, most catch was on sling blade, short leader (18"), then the normal variety of: wedding rings, smile blade lures, small hootchie stuff, mostly green but some on red, also apex 1.5" trout killers. koke schools were everywhere, HD sonar was showing swarms of them and you could see them changing depth to match our flasher depths....and we caught fish going slow slow slow, 0.8mph was our best catch rate speed....
what I found really interesting was the relationship between moon set and the kokes. we hit the water at 5:30am each morning and fished until about 10:30am each day. Monday was the full moon, it set at 6am, already below the hills when we launched. Monday was a slay fest right off, probably 10 in the cooler within 40minutes, then it went slow and we picked up another 6 the whole rest of the morning. Tuesday, the moon was still up, fishing was slow for about 45min, 2 in, then it went crazy, at least 10 in the next 30 minutes, right at moon set.
and then we went out Wednesday, needing 16 fish to hit 60, that was our goal then we would go in and break camp. moon was higher and things were slow, and slow, and slow, so much so that we started to doubt getting 16, then about 8am, getting close to moon set, it went crazy, 12 in by 8:45am, then it went cold, trolled back towards the launch as it go closer to 10am and got one last koke near the launch....
so for the 3 mornings, we were basically fishing through the same density of fish/schools from start to finish, what changed each day was the time at which they were hitting lures at a high rate, and each day it was hot for about 30min, and each day it happened damn close to 45min later into the morning, right around moon set. I find this very interesting..and continue to consider Kokes to be 'good eats'..cheers, roger
