I’ll be fishing down in Rocky Mountain National Park next week. Can anyone tell me what flies I can use on Kokanee Salmon?
Thanks.
I would suggest Woolly Buggers, Egg patterns, San Juan worms. I have had the best luck with bright colored (gawdy) patterns. One of the best patterns I have used was a red tailed, green body Woolly Bugger.
I am told the salmon stop feeding once they enter the river to spawn. I dont know if that is true or not, but I throw attractor patterns at them anyways.
I fished years ago on the East River by the Roaring Judy hatchery and absolutely hammered them using glo bugs (Egg pattern)!
just put 20 of them in the smoker an hour ago.
All were caught on 3/4" gap north fork fly.
{snag hook}
gonfishn,
Is this a “spawning run fishery”? If so, are they very palatable? I know danged near all of our local salmon are not. Even the taste of the very freshest of fish during the spawning run must be disguised with smoke. 
…lee s.
Sounds like a upcoming FLY OF THE WEEK! :twisted:
Doug 
Konanee Salmon are land locked Red salmon right? If so I would think they are very edible but depending on the food source in the lake they might be even tastier.
Even salmon(reds silvers kings) 90 miles up stream from the ocean in some places are edible without smoke as long as they are still pretty crome
They are very edible if you can catch them at the beginning of the spawn after they have been in the river for a week or so I don’t think you could get an alleycat to eat one.
Kokanee are actually landlocked sockeye. They love pink glo colors. I have caught hundreds of them on a pink and pearl dick nite lure during my spin fishing days. I found the same color of yarn and thread and I tied the gaudiest bright pink fly you ever saw. It was a bright pink doc spratley. Pink body of Dubbing from the yarn White tail and ruff peacock hackle . silver wire wrab down the body. During the trout spawn at a creek mouth I targeted Kokanee that were eating the trout eggs. This Pink Death/Doc Spratley was a killer for Kokanee.
Okanagan Lake is 90 miles long and averaging 300 feet deep, deep spot is 780ft deep. In the early 1980’s the Dept of Fisheries introduced some Kokanee into the lake that were altered so they wouldn’t spawn.Kokanee spawn every four years then die. Instead of dying at age 4 as is normal these fish lived to 8 and even in rare cases 9 years. In 1988 world record sizes were being caught
I briefly had the world record 7lbs 3oz beaten the same week by an 8+ pounder which was beaten several times over that year. The next year the record was again shattered by awesome 11 pounder! The Dept of fisheries is said to have netted a 14 pound kokanee in the fall of 1990. The run of altered fish was now done. It was discovered that while yes the kokanee fishery was a huge succes because of this, that the trout were suffering because these huge kokanee were feeding on them. So the experiment was never repeated. Rainbow Trout more than 25 pounds are rare but sometimes caught in Okanagan.
Ps. Whats in a name? I was in Idaho recently and some friends were going after “Silvers”. In Alaska Silvers are Coho Salmon. Coho go to 25 lbs but are usually 10-15 lbs and are awesome fish to catch. I got really excited and was about to purchase a non resident fishing licence (around $80.00) till I found out that the Silvers in Spirit Lake Idaho are actually Kokanee about 10-12 inches . ha ha.
As mentioned, pink is a good color, but in one of the few lakes I’ve gone after pre-run fish staging at creek/river mouths, orange and fire orange were the best colors. A good fly is just a basic scud a la Dr. Fish’s pattern (http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/110705fotw.html) with or without the brass bead.