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Yesterday we went to a lake about 45 minutes up the road for our first fishing outing. First of all we didn’t catch any fish which was disappointing but not unexpected. Our (my) goal was to learn about the new equipment I have never used before and at that we were successful. This time of the year the water is still cold and the fish (Kokanee) are still pretty shallow. Later in the year as it warms up they will go deeper looking for the cold water they love.

So it’s not necessary to use downriggers right now and in fact none of the other dozen or so boats out there were using them. I chose to use ours as I wanted to learn how to operate them in conjunction with the rod and reel taking into consideration both the depth and the distance behind the boat we wanted the lure to run. I’m sure I was too deep to attract fish and might have been successful just running a 1 oz weight on the line and skipping the downriggers. Talked to one guy who caught seven and watched another boat land two at the same time.

So there we were, a rookie (me) downrigger guy, fishfinder guy and electric trolling motor guy. So I’m juggling all this while trying to rig two rod and reels with dodgers and twin hook spinners. Baiting the hooks with corn and applying a scent gel to the dodgers. Add in a 10 month old puppy who wanted to be involved with everything…well the word rodeo came to mind.

I do feel like I have a much better understanding of the equipment we have and the next trip out will be more of a fishing focus than a learning focus. Here’s the only picture I managed to take as my hands were a bit busy with other tasks.

Sounds like an overall good day on the water.
Good luck on the fishing part next trip.

RP

Nice! Spent many happy hours on the water with my dad when I was a youngster.

Nice! Looks like you had one on there.

Kokanee ===> new one on me, had to look it up .... it appears to be an interesting fish ... you have a fine rig, looking forward to your continued reports

How deep do you run your lures? We sometimes troll for Erie Walleye but we use Dipsy Divers. Usually at depths under 50’.

To heck with the boat I want one of those houses on the lake.

Rifletom wrote: ↑

Fri May 27, 2022 7:34 pm

Nice! Looks like you had one on there.

I wish but that’s just what I learned is called “loading the rod”. You attach the line to the weight on the downrigger via a release and then reel the line in until you get the bend in the rod you see. When a fish strikes the release will let the line go and the bend in the rod straightens out and helps set the hook. This also indicates to us the we have a fish on.

JEBar wrote: ↑

Fri May 27, 2022 8:50 pm

Kokanee ===> new one on me, had to look it up .... it appears to be an interesting fish ... you have a fine rig, looking forward to your continued reports

Kokanee for a long time was a Northwest fish but I understand they are being planted across the northern tier of the country. They are a cold water fish so probably wouldn’t do well in the south. As a kid my dad took us fishing for Kokanee quite a bit and as an adult I have fished for them a lot. The lake I was on the other day is where I used to night fish for them. We would anchor off the shore in about 30’ of water and use glow hooks baited with corn and a piece of worm using very ultra light rods. The fish would strike very softly and it is an art to hook them. But they put up a good fight and are wonderful on the dinner table. There were some nights we would see the eastern sky starting to get light as we were driving home. Those work days following were tough but I was younger then.

Jdl447 wrote: ↑

Fri May 27, 2022 9:53 pm

How deep do you run your lures? We sometimes troll for Erie Walleye but we use Dipsy Divers. Usually at depths under 50’.

I was running one at 25 and the other at 30 but I’m sure I was too deep. As the summer warms up the fish will keep going deeper and I’m expecting that we could fish as deep as 60-80 feet at least at this lake.