Have You Ever Fished For Kokanee Salmon?

This past October I had the great pleasure of fishing with my friend Mike Thomas on the South Platte River.  Though we intended to catch brown trout moving up the river to spawn, we also caught Salmon.  Kokanee Salmon are a smaller, land locked, fresh water fish that behaves similar to the salmon like Sockeye or Pink that you would find in Alaska.

These fish are an exciting bonus for anglers each Fall and can be easily caught wherever they run.  Whenever I have caught Kokanee, my intent was usually for the other, sometimes bigger, trout taking advantage of the food source spawning salmon provide.  By nature, my rig is tipped with egg patterns and the Kokanee seem to eat these just fine.

There are many rivers and streams in Colorado that feature a Kokanee run each fall and I expect to encounter these bright red fish as early as September, lasting into the month of November.  I have caught salmon big and small during the spawn.  I have handled them as small as 10-12 inches and as large as 18-22 inches.

The pictures here are of my most recent Kokanee hook sets and feature some of the largest land locked salmon I have caught.  Check out this great close-up video of a colorful spawning pair of Kokanee Salmon...

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