BCFishn
Kokanee – On the fly?
BC Fishn
When most anglers think of freshwater fly fishing in BC, they don’t think of kokanee. Come on let’s admit it, the traditional angling method for these chrome beauties is by trolling the lakes with heavy hardware. Kokanee provide one of the most exhilarating fishing experiences due to their scrappy behaviour, resulting in an aerobatic fight with explosive runs! So why not pursue them on the fly? Many say it can’t be done, but anglers are quickly catching on that this is simply a myth.
Kokanee are land locked sockeye salmon that typically reside in large freshwater lakes throughout the Pacific Northwest. Their primary diet consists of zooplankton called Daphina that is found at a variety of depths. Zooplankton are mirco organism that appear in a red and green translucent of a colour. They are usually found twitching and drifting over deep water. kokanee feed on zooplankton by straining them with many fine combs on their gills called gill rakers.
Over the past ten years fisheries managers have been developing kokanee stocking programs for small lakes in BC. The key to the stocking program’s success is that the lakes have to be nutrient rich enough to support a high mass of zooplankton. These water bodies must also provide cool enough water that won’t affect the kokanee due to them being very temperature sensitive. Lakes within the central BC interior, such as the Cariboo region, have seen incredible success with this program.
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