Kokanee- One of the top things on my Bucket List

 

  Some bucket list items can be done just by doing it. For instance, getting a slice of pie in Key West or a drink in a bar that Hemingway went to. Some bucket list items are just seeing something, like Lady Liberty, Independence Hall, or Mt. Rushmore.

    Then there are those that are a challenge. Not only do they require the travel to get to, but there are no guarantees when you get there. These things have the highest risk but when they are accomplished, also the greatest reward. Yesterday, I went fishing for Kokanee in Connecticut, a fish I have wanted to catch for years. 

   Kokanee are a landlocked version of Sockeye Salmon. Sockeye are Red Salmon. The state of Connecticut stocks fingerling salmon in a few lakes in the state. The salmon are caught as adults in nets set out by Fish and Wildlife. The state strips the females of eggs and fertilizes them from the male's milt. They wait for the eggs to hatch then put them back in the lakes as fry and fingerlings. After a few years growing in the lake they try to spawn at the outlets and inlets. Of course, they are unsuccessful but they try none the less. They are wild fish in all ways except for their place of birth. Since they are landlocked and only have a short lifespan they don't get very big. The males reach about fifteen inches and based on the hundreds I saw yesterday, the females an inch less.

  Red Salmon are plankton eaters and while spawning they do not eat. As with all Pacific salmon they die after spawn. When they strike a lure it is out of aggression. They are not trying to eat it. They get annoyed and strike out of anger.

Three years ago I went to catch Kokanee but it was an epic fail. I drove two and a half hours the first week of November to a Kokanee pond. I knew before I stepped out of my car that I wasted my time. The lake was drawn down about six feet. The spawn was over.  I did drive over to the Farmington River and catch a Brown Trout, but overall it was a bad experience.  I wanted to go back the next two years, but birds got in the way.

   Yesterday I went to the same lake to try again for Kokanee. I got there about 9:30 am. I purposely went the last week of October instead of November to avoid the drawdown. Still, I knew very little about Kokanee and just hoped the spawn wasn't over.

  Luckily, when I got out my CRV the water level was high. Also, I saw some dead rotting salmon in the water. I took this as a sign that fish were around as opposed to them all being dead. I put on my waders and made some casts. I know enough about Kokanee to know they are hard to catch. I didn't expect to catch a whole lot. I would have been thrilled to catch one. After making a bunch of casts without any luck, I walked to the other side of the cove to where there is an outlet. I looked in the water and a hundred fish were stacked up right next to the outflow. All of them were bright red in beautiful spawning colors. I had seen a video where a fisherman caught Kokanee from this lake using a countdown Rapala. That's what I had on the line. Swimming it through these fish fifty times produced one snagged Kokanee but no hits. 

  A note about snagging. I knew before I left how hard it is to get Kokanee to bite. I also know that when they are stacked up, there is a good chance of snagging them. I also know that people purposely snag salmon because it is much easier than trying to fool them into biting. On my way down, I made a decision that if I snagged one  I wasn't going to count it as a "caught fish". I wouldn't get any joy out of snagging one. This was a moral decision that I was going to stick to even if I was alone. I really wanted to fool one and catch it the right way. So when I snagged the first Kokanee, it annoyed me more than excited me.

   After fifty casts into a hundred fish, I switched to my fly rod. I put on a bright pink Wooly Bugger hoping the gaudy color would fire them up. Still no luck. I wondered if any of these fish would be "aggressive" enough to take a lure.  About an hour after I started fishing the outlet, another fisherman showed up. He fished near me and caught two Kokanee in the mouth. He was using a tiny Kastmaster and it seemed to be working. He offered me one and I accepted. However my luck didn't change. He caught another while I stayed skunked. 

   It turned out that this fisherman was New England fishing legend Roy Levya. This guy has caught everything under the sun and trophy fish of many varieties. I thought it was Roy while we were fishing. When we finally introduced ourselves it was confirmed. We talked a lot and I asked some questions about the Salmon River in NY. 

   After another thirty minutes of blanking with the Kastmaster I tried a small Pheasant Tail fly on my fly rod. After about ten minutes a Kokanee came up and hit it. Luckily for me it didn't fall off the hook. I netted it with Roy's net. As you can imagine, I was really excited to have caught one and even more so to have gotten it on a fly. Roy was kind enough to take a bunch of photos for me. I took some more of the fish in the net and water. Roy was jealous I got one on the fly rod.

   I didn't catch any more on the fly rod. But I did catch two more on the small Kastmaster. One of them was a beautiful hook-jawed male. I did snag a few others. I tried to shake them off, but a couple I did have to reel in and pull the hook out and release. 

  Thirty minutes before I left two young guys came down fishing for trout. When they saw all the Kokanee they wanted to catch them of course. They had no chance of catching them on Powerbait. So I gave one of them a nymph to use. Before I left, I paid it forward and gave the Kastmaster that Roy gave me to them. Hopefully they got some fish.

  Catching a Kokanee has been something I have wanted to do since I was a little kid. After my first failed attempt three years ago, it has been on my mind. However, it was so much easier the last couple of years to go birding with my friends the last week of October instead of making the five hour round trip drive. Even when I got up yesterday I puttered around for an hour before committing to such a long drive. However, this year I was going to go no matter what. I am glad I did.