Tips for kokeanee?

[fishdontbish]

anyone have any tried and true methods for catching kokes through the ice?

[SeaDog1]

anyone have any tried and true methods for catching kokes through the ice?

I've been trying for 3 seasons at West Hill and haven't yet caught one thru the ice.
This year I'm going to use my new Garmin echo-300c (has a flasher program in it) and a thermometer to find where they hang out.
They are very temperature sensitive and like water between 50 and 55 degrees.
Will have to find where the underwater springs are at the south end.

SeaDog1

[kasilofchrisn]

Here in Ak we catch a lot of them.
I like to use RAW shrimp for bait on anything custom jigs and spins makes. Sometimes we use Pautzkes balls-o-fire single eggs or skein eggs from Salmon we catch in the summertime on the rivers. the skein eggs seem to catch more rainbows and RAW shrimp catches mor Kokanees for me.
Rat finkees. shrimpos, ratsos, slender, spoons are some of my favorites. Pink and Orange seem to work the best for me. My fiancee likes a pink headed ratso with a white tail on it.
I will also use swedish pimples at times. Berkleys atomic teasers tube jigs in a white color seem to be one of my favorites lately.

[palduenda]

One of the guys I work with said squirting ketchup into the hole would help keep fish around.  Any truth to this?

[model8]

Ive caught a few but took alot of time finding the thermocline seemed to be key and i used a lure made of fish oil on my baits

[Glowjigger]

The lake near my house is loaded with kokanee. I am usually fishing for panfish but when I notice that I have a school of kokanee come by I use the same setup. A small jig with plastic tail tipped with a meal worm. The only thing I change is my jigging. They like a really aggressive high jig and they almost always start hitting it on the way back down. It seems that after a missed hookset they really start going after it even more aggressively as the jig falls back down. I started using sonar this year and it has been a big help. The lake I fish is 80 ft at the deepest and the kokanee schools seem to be anywhere in the water column from day to day. It takes the guess work out of trying to find the right depth.