07-23 REELLIFE digital - Flipbook - Page 23
"The result is such an
overabundance there isn't
enough food for all the fish. So
they are stunted," Struble said.
Struble estimates he has caught
25 or 30 chinook between two
and ten pounds while fishing for
kokanee.
In less than two minutes, we had
the first bite. The fish came fast,
sometimes with two or three rods
bouncing at once. As quick as we
could put fish in the box and put
fresh bait on hooks, there would
be another bite. Our kokanee
averaged eight to nine inches
each.
"When they are small, I'm not
sure what they feed on, but inside
that 16-1/2 pounder was a mostly
digested kokanee about eight
inches long."
The direct beneficiary of the
kokanee experiment is a little
known landlocked chinook
salmon fishery created by ODFW
almost 20 years ago.
"They wanted to see if the chinook
salmon would migrate through
the dam and return. For seven
or eight years, ODFW put 20,000
chinook smolts in the reservoir,"
Struble said. "After some high
water flood years that blew out
the catch nets, the project was
abandoned."
Technically, the experiment didn't
prove successful, but the chinook
are still there. "They turned Green
Peter into their ocean and spawn
up in the creeks," Struble said.
How big do they get?
"The biggest one I have caught
was 16-1/2 pounds, while trolling for
kokanee with a dodger and a little
hoochie," Struble said.
Those landlocked chinook are
growing big on the kokanee.
By the time the Ford was pointed
back toward Central Oregon, the
windshield wipers were working
overtime. We had boated 45
kokanee in two hours. We hardly
put a dent in them.
We didn't have time to target
Green Peter rainbows, but that is
another facet of this interesting
fishery. Ahead of every Memorial
Day weekend, the state plants
10,000 rainbows. Anglers don't get
them all.
"Come springtime there is a
really good population of hungry
holdovers that range from 12 to 18
inches," Struble said.
While we worked back and forth
above a biomass of kokanee, the
eagles and ospreys watched.
When we lost a fish at the surface,
a raptor would swoop down to
pluck it out of the wind-riffled
water.
At Green Peter, the kokanee
limit is 25 per day in addition to
the daily five-trout limit. There is
no size restriction for kokanee.
Landlocked chinook salmon may
be retained as part of the kokanee
limit.
Damon glanced at the western
sky, which had suddenly filled
with clouds and said, "Unless you
guys want part of that, we should
run for the dock!" And run we did.
GARY LEWIS BIO
Gary Lewis is an award-winning author, TV host, speaker and photographer. Recent books include
Fishing Central Oregon, 6th Edition, Fishing Mount Hood Country and Bob Nosler Born Ballistic.
Gary has hunted and fished in eight countries on three continents and in the islands of the South
Pacific. Born and raised in the Northwest, he has been walking forest trails and running rivers
for as long as he can remember. Lewis is twice past president of the Northwest Outdoor Writers
Association and a recipient of NOWA’s Enos Bradner Award.
FOR A SIGNED COPY OF FISHING MOUNT
HOOD COUNTRY, SEND $29.99, INCLUDES
SHIPPING TO:
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Contact Gary Lewis at
garylewisoutdoors.com
JULY 2023 | 23