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Stampede Reservoir Kokanee the Week of 7/29/13

LindseyWe spent the first part of this week at Stampede chasing Kokanee. We had to return home to get some maintenance done on our truck before taking off again. The Kokanee bite continues to be good in the same areas as the last few weeks, in front and on the side of the island and straight out from the ramp. We also found some fish in Jay’s Cove. The size of the fish continues to be averaging 13” with a few in the 14” range. Once again, I have seen a couple 16” fish, which I personally haven’t caught. The guys getting the larger fish are jigging which we haven’t done yet. I’m not sure why but it seems some people are struggling getting numbers of fish.

I spent some time at the ramp on Tuesday showing some guys what I was using and trying to help them put more fish in their boat. This is a quick recap of what has been working for me. We are using Sep’s Side Kicks in Watermelon with a RMT Assassin spinner in Pink and Purple or an Uncle Larry’s Tropical Tiger spinner. One thing I have noticed it that “Glow” seems to be working better than non-glow. I’ve been putting a little white glow tape on the backside of my Side Kick. I am also using two different corns. The first is some new corn Pautzke has that they will call Shoepeg Can-O-Corn. This is not available in stores yet, but it will be soon. The other and probably my favorite, I make up myself. I got this idea from John at Uncle Larry’s Lures a couple years ago and added a few things of my own. It consists of Shoepeg corn cured overnight in Pautzke’s Fire Cure and then I add a little Garlic oil and sometimes a small amount of Vanilla. I have been piling the corn on the double hooks, sometimes up to three or four pieces.  All this is pulled behind 10 pound Shark Cannonball weights (chrome). This is all tied together with Berkley 6 pound XL. This is by no means the only thing that’s producing fish at Stampede but it has been working well for me.

I was asked yesterday why do I like fishing for these 13” fish. First, they’re excellent table fare and second, families come to the Tahoe/Truckee area on vacation and want to take their kids fishing. Kokanee fishing provides non-stop action that the kids love. They are not waiting for an hour between bites. The Stampede action has been producing around 10 fish per hour. Hopefully, these same kids will remember the fun they had and become avid anglers. This week we had an 85 year old in the boat that had as much fun as the 6 year olds.

This is the Lindsey family from Texas with a few of the 20 Kokanee they took on Monday. We lost as many as we landed.