Beating the Power Squadron

[Paddler]

I spent the morning on Jordanelle today.  Water was 65 to 67 degrees and a dark brown color in the Rock Cliff arm.  We put 9 kokanee in the boat between 7:00 and 10:00.  Most were caught before 8:30.  Green and pink were the best colors.  

Several of the kokanee were small but we caught a couple 18" kokanee on a pink Yakima Spin-n-Fish.  Pink @ 15 feet, Green @ 20 ft, Spin-n-Fish @ 35 feet, and green hoochie @ 40 feet all morning.

We had a great time until the Power Squadron rolled out.  One ballast boat decided that we needed to be their personal whipping boy, running back and forth by us 6 times before I gave up and called it a day.  

I don't understand these folks.  The lake wasn't busy.  There was plenty of space even in the Rock Creek arm.  But, for reasons that elude me, the best water to surf was right where my lines were.  These boats that throw giant wakes are selfish and ruin lake use for everyone else.

Sounds like a good day.  How many were caught at 20' or less?  I'll check the thermocline tomorrow but I'd be surprised if it was below 60F at 15'.  Kokanee aren't supposed to tolerate temps above 60F.  From Mack's Lures website:

Kokanee are very sensitive to water temperatures.

They prefer water temps ranging from 45F to 54F, with 53F being optimum. Any prolonged exposure to temperatures greater than 60F can be fatal to the fish. This is one of the many reasons why Kokanee do not handle catch and release well.

The best remedy for proximity violations is to take photos of the bow numbers of the offending boats and call it in.  I have done that a couple of times and have had rangers respond to the scene. Each time the rangers wrote citations.  When I have honked at boats they sometimes become very apologetic, but they're not nearly as sorry as when they're on the receiving end of hundreds of dollars in fines.  I'll be taking a camera tomorrow.  

By the way, the proximty rule is posted at Jordanelle, or has been in the past.  Unfortunately, it was on the pullout side of the ramp.  In my opinion, they should have signs on both sides of the road by the boat check trailer.  That way they'd be hard to miss.  Perhaps the checkers could also point out the signs to the wakeboard and ski boats.

I'm sure the surface temperature dropped quickly.  We had two little kokanee on the 15' downrigger.  It was not our hottest zone.  

I need to take the camera next time.  Those boaters are ridiculous.

Here are the thermocline photos from this morning.  Note that the temperature actually increases from the surface temp at 5', 10' and 15'.  Probably because the air temp was lower overnight than the surface temp.  The temp finally drops a bit at 20', the drops sharply. 










Optimum temp is supposed to be 53F, which was between 35' and 40', so I fished at about 38'.  I hooked 16 fish, and landed more than half.  Had a couple of netting SNAFUS as my AP was turning side to side trying to go into the wind.  

The majority came on a pink squid with a hammered silver Colorado blade in front behind a Rocky Mountain UV pink splatter dodger.  A couple came on green, but only a couple.  

Lots of small ones, my largest was 16.5", and in general they weren't as thick as in previous years.  Makes me wonder if there isn't enough zooplankton to go around.  

Couldn't find the bigger fish despite working all the way down to near the dam.

The power squadron wasn't a problem, only a couple of wakeboard boats out.  Had one ski boat violate the proximity rule, and also an older white Tracker went by at ~30 yards.  I didn't do any photography today.