Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3720 Sept 14-18 | Page 17

FRESHWATER
VOL.37 • ISS. 20
GONE FISHING
There were lots of fish on the graph,
and we were soon hooked up with our
first Flaming Gorge koke! I was running
a Vance’s watermelon dodger with a pink
Yakima Bait Tight lines kokanee rig with
a plain piece of shoepeg corn at 55 feet
deep when my rod in the aft downrigger
bowed to the water.
I jumped up and grabbed the rod just as
a silver missile erupted from the surface
of the lake 75 feet behind the boat and
the fight was on! Everyone who has
caught kokanee know how well they fight
for their size, and this one was about
19 inches long and tearing drag off the
Daiwa Lexa 100 reel like a freight train!
After that first jump, he headed straight
down, keeping a tremendous bend in my
lightweight Cousins Rod. He stayed down
and fought valiantly until I was able to
ease him the back of the boat and Mark
netted him. What a great way to start our
trip!
We fished until about 2 pm. It was
unusually hot – up to 95 degrees in the
afternoon, even at the six-thousand-foot
elevation. We ended up catching a total
of 34 fish, which included 4 mackinaw
to about 3 pounds. The kokanee ra