Stinking Springs

This morning came early at 4:30 am, but when you are headed to Soldier Creek Reservoir looking for Kokanee you need to be on the water early.  We made it to the ramp by 6:30 am and on the water.  We started trolling right off the dock.  There were two fly fishers on the dock running leach pattern and catching nice cutthroat trout.  You could see them big gliding torpedoes, all over the dock area.  We put out JOD's, rainbow pop gear and I ran a prismatic green with green squid trailing.  The JOD's got hit immediately but it was a short hit, the story of the day.  We continued on and kept getting hits on the JOD's so I changed Bob's rig to a prism flasher and he started getting a few hits as well.  Bob was the first to land a fish and what a nice fish to start with.  Bob landed a nice 2.5 lb Kokanee, his first ever.  It was beautiful.  Jimmy got the next one to the boat a nice 24" cutthroat with great coloring.  We released it after a couple pics, no we did not release the kokanee it made its way to the smoker.

We fished in that area for another half hour but got pushed out by other fishers seeing us land a couple they swept in.  We went to the dam side of the reservoir and started trolling again and within seconds Jimmy was getting hits.  Bob started getting a few as well.  They were still short striking and not getting real good sets.  They did manage to boat 6 more rainbow trout and we kept 3 of them fearing they would die if we released them anyways.  Probably wouldn't have hurt there were a number of osprey and golden eagles on the lake.  We managed to see beaver and deer as well.  We made it off the lake by noon, we had a family party to go to so we couldn't stay as long as we wanted.  Okay though the wind had kicked up was pushing us around.  I didn't get a hit a all day I was running light gear and dodgers all day all different combinations of colors and bait.  It was fun getting the big kokanee and cutthroat to the boat.

See the video here Stinking Springs