I finally made it to Wapato Lake to try for kokanee. I had heard that the kokanee were big and wanted to see for myself. Tom Verschueren and I headed up there Tuesday morning and launched at the park at the east end of the lake. I had talked to Alan Greenhalgh, owner of Kokabow Fishing Tackle, the day before and he said to fish shallow. We got a nice 16-inch kokanee flatlined with the Inferno Tail Feather blade in the Copper Series trailed by a Talon spinner before we got all the lines out. We got two more kokanee on this same setup. We did find the fish shallow. We marked several schools at twenty feet along the south shore of the lake. The wind started to blow so I figured that it would be good idea to put our lures a little deeper, so I added a one-ounce weight ahead of the blades. Sure enough, fish number two and three came on the weighed setups. The wind continued to build and by ten o’clock we decided to pack it in. We will be planning another trip to Wapato soon, though, knowing we can get Lake Roosevelt size kokanee much closer to home.
This 18-inch kokanee fought like crazy. It was one of three big fish we got trolling Kokabow gear before we got blown off of Wapato Lake.