In Washington, sockeye are found in Lake Washington, Baker Lake, Ozette Lake, Quinault Lake, and Lake Wenatchee. The landlocked version of the sockeye salmon, the kokanee (pronounced coke-a-nee) spends its entire life in fresh water. I have also caught them with yellow corn, but white shoepeg is the unanimous favorite amongst anglers.Now that we have gone over the fish catching end of the setup, let us go over a couple creative techniques for sinking your dodger / spinner setup to the correct depth.Downriggers are a precise and easy way to get your lures to the proper depth. Kokanee are landlocked Sockeye Salmon.
If smoking whole fish, please watch the video for a couple tips you are going to need.Step 1: Lay your fish in a high-sided (2 inch) baking dish.Step 2: In a large mixing bowl make the brine, mixing salt and brown sugar in a 50/50 ratio. Body lacking distinctive black spots, but fine speckling may be present. The kokanee will usually highly prefer one color over another. In addition, when compared to other trout, they have finer scales, larger eyes, and deeply forked … Kokanee have blue backs and silver sides and unlike other salmon and trout, except chum salmon, sockeye and kokanee lack distinct dark spots on their backs and tail fins. I personally like the drier variety.Step 6: Enjoy! Sockeye are the most flavorful Pacific salmon. Downriggers, especially the electric ones, can be costly.Lead-core fishing line is a good cost-effective option for sinking your lures to the proper depth. Smoked fish is great fresh out of the smoker or chilled. Trolling, still fishing, and jigging are all effective ways to fish for kokanee. Because they never migrate out to the ocean to feed, kokanee are often much smaller than sockeye. The KWG membership includes watershed residents, each of the five local jurisdictions in the Lake Sammamish watershed, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Parks, the Snoqualmie Tribe, Trout Unlimited, Friends of Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, Save Lake Sammamish, Friends of Pine Lake, and additional stakeholders.These are products of the Kokanee Workgroup, a group whose goal is to prevent the extinction and improve the health of the native Lake Sammamish kokanee population such that it is viable and self-sustaining, and then supports fishery opportunities.For more information about the work of the Kokanee Work Group or joining the Kokanee Work Group, please contact They are usually found in lakes that have either limited or no access to the ocean. The pellicle helps to catch the smokey flavor once placed into the smoker.Step 5: Place fish in the smoker on racks that allow air to circulate on all sides of the fish. Kokanee tend to be smaller in size than sockeye, as lakes have more limited food sources than rivers. Some people like their fish smoked but still a little moist. © 2020 All rights reserved. For example, if I am using an orange spinner, I will also use an orange dodger.The fishing line coming from your reel, through you rod eyelets, is tied to a swivel. They feed almost exclusively on Zooplankton. Due to heavy development in this urbanized watershed just 10 miles east of Seattle (in a county that is home to over 25% of the population of Washington State), native kokanee in Lake Sammamish have experienced a tremendous habitat squeeze and subsequent population decline in recent decades. Place alder wood or fruit wood in the smoker and allow to smoke for 3 to 7 hours at a temperature between 175F – 225F. Most evidence points to events that land-locked the lake-type sockeye (which spawns in streams and lakes, rather than tributaries like the sea-type sockeye, but is still anadro… They are open water feeders that target plankton and prefer depths where the water temperature is near 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Fish should have a dry texture. © 2020 All rights reserved. For the latest WDFW closures, restrictions, and updates see the Kokanee are the non-anadromous (non-migrating) form of sockeye salmon and like all salmon, they die at after their first spawning. The fish are stocked as fry by the Department and after three years reach their mature size.During the summer and fall, anglers seek out the aquatic delicacy.