Female                                                      Spawning Male

Kokanee Salmon

By Terry Hellekson

    Kokanee salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) are landlocked sockeye salmon and they are, for the most part, ignored by fly fishers as any sort of sport fish. While a sockeye will have reached about 24 inches long when it returns to freshwater to spawn, the kokanee generally only reaches 8-20 inches long. Some fly fishers tend to regard the kokanee as just a stunted sockeye and as such, do not hold them in very high regard. Depending on the environment, there are instances in freshwater lakes and reservoirs where kokanee have reached over 6 pounds and in 2001 there was one caught in Houser Lake, Montana, that weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces.

    After the last ice age some 10,000 years ago, the kokanee are believed to have evolved naturally in British Columbia, Siberia and Japan where they, for one reason or another, became landlocked and were unable to migrate to the ocean like their anadromous counterpart the sockeye salmon. Kokanee is a native word that was given these fish by the Kutenai Indians in British Columbia meaning "red fish." Kokanee are also known as kickininee, little redfish, landlocked sockeye, Kennerly’s salmon, silver trout, red salmon and blue-black salmon. The kokanee spends their entire 4-year average life cycle in freshwater and dies after spawning the same as their cousins the sockeye. The kokanee were experimentally introduced into several lakes and reservoirs in North America beginning in the 1940s where they developed into a successful forage fish for larger game fish. Today they can be found in the following states:

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

    There are other experimental programs involving the kokanee that have reached such far off places as New Zealand where they were introduced in 1902. In some areas these fish are regarded as not only valuable forage fish, but are considered a very tasty cuisine. Their flesh is often blood red, oily and delicious cooked in a variety of ways, or brined and hot smoked. Canning is also a popular method of preservation.

    Kokanee feed primarily on zooplankton, although a few chironomids and other aquatic insects are occasionally eaten. They use sieve-like structures in their mouths, called gill rakers, to strain the small plankton and invertebrates from the water. During the summer, they are deep in the lakes and reservoirs until dusk when they venture near the surface to feed.

    From September through December many kokanee salmon leave their normal lake or reservoir environment where they spawn upstream. Some kokanee will remain in the lake or reservoir, dig redds like other salmon spawning in rivers and spawn on gravelly  bottoms or the shoreline. Their bodies become leathery and turn dark red to bright scarlet while their heads remain dusky green, just before spawning.

    Egg. In the fall kokanee start out their lives as pea-sized reddish-orange eggs that face many dangers. Tumbling rocks and silt can squish or suffocate the very delicate eggs. At the egg stage, high or really low water temperatures or water flow that is needed for oxygen can also affect the future lives of the eggs. Some other  common dangers are water pollution, land disturbances and various bird and fish predators. 

    Alevin. These are larval kokanee that have hatched but have not yet completely absorbed their yolk sacs  and usually have not yet emerged from the gravel. After hatching, the small fish-like body feeds off a yolk sac which is attached to the underside of its body. The alevin feeds off the yolk sac for about six weeks while it hides between rocks so as not to be carried away by the extremely strong current or be eaten by predators.  

    Fry. By spring the alevin have turned into three quarter-inch long fry and have consumed their nourishing  yolk sac. Now that their yolk sac is gone it is time to start finding food for themselves. They search for small crustaceans, plankton and aquatic insects, but this can be a difficult problem for them, especially since they can only feed at night or they will become prey for others. Fry eventually get swept down the stream by the current or otherwise migrate to the lake or reservoir. When they reach there they stay close to shore and school up with other fry―there is safety in numbers.

Smolt. This is the life stage of a salmon between fry and the and adult stage. At this stage, the typical coloring of this species is a brilliant steel-blue to greenish-blue on their backs with faint speckling and their sides are bright silver with a white to silver belly. This stage is generally reached by the end of the first summer. They rarely live near the shore; instead they live out in the middle of a lake or reservoir. There are some instances where they become residents in rivers where they can be found schooled up in some of the backwaters, if available, or they will be found at the edges of the main channel flow. In almost all cases, they seek out water that is about 50°.

    Some fly fishers can find enjoyment catching kokanee in the fall at the mouths of streams where they congregate just prior to making their spawning run, however, this web page has been prepared with a different purpose in mind. From my experience locally, the kokanee as a model for fly patterns has been ignored and I am reasonably sure this is the case in many other areas. This has encouraged me to try and bring to the attention of fly fishers the value of the kokanee juveniles for catching trout when artificials are properly tied to a hook in the form of flies―the egg, alevin, fry and smolt.

   There are two different environments for the kokanee available to me locally. We have Lake Koocanusa behind Libby Dam with a very good population of kokanee that have several side streams that feed into the lake. Here they have an abundance of food  and have the opportunity to reach a good size. Then we have the Kootenai River below the dam that is home to another group of kokanee that have escaped the lake by way of the turbines at the dam. These fish run smaller because  they lack  zooplankton in their diets which they are genetically equipped to feed on, therefore the river kokanee serve best as forage fish. Here is where I have concentrated much of my efforts.

    I have been aware of these little guys for a number of years, but it was not until I retired in 1994 where I had more time to research them properly. And after moving to Montana in 1997 and learning just how wide spread the kokanee were, I took it upon myself to go deeper and determine if flies tied in their likeness would be of any value for trout. Based on my findings, I felt it would be worthy to pass along what I have discovered to be successful. Inasmuch as each fishery is just a bit different from another, I felt that by giving some background on the kokanee, coupled with my tried and true fly patterns for my area, others could make adjustments for their own areas and find the success that I am now enjoying.

    The eggs were a simple matter, Glo-bugs of the same color and size (pea-sized) do wonders. Naturally, the eggs hatch into alevin during mid-winter, however, trout are still tuned in to those they stumbled across earlier and take the artificial willingly. Just fish them at a dead drift and try and picture in your mind how a natural egg would drift should it be washed away from the gravel bed where it was originally deposited.

    I have had considerable success with my alevin pattern, and here again this life stage is really only available during mid-winter, but trout eat my imitations later on for the same reason they do the eggs. I fish them the same as a Glo-bug, but find it helpful to twitch the tip of my rod now and then during the course of the drift as I feel the tail action suggests the struggle of the natural.

    Here on the Kootenai River it is not uncommon to see sizable schools of kokanee fry along the shoreline from May through July. In addition to the competition with  Blue Herons, it is not unusual to see large trout make their attack on these schools in no more that a few inches of water. So when I tie on my fry pattern, the Kokanee Fry,  I feel confident that I am making the best possible effort I can to "match the hatch." I tie this pattern in a good range of sizes, size 12 on a 2X long to a size 2 on a 4X long hook. Obviously when tied in the larger sizes the fly exceeds the actual size of a fry, but here is where the name of the pattern really does not always fit the fly. In this case, the pattern is also more than suitable as a smolt imitation when graduated up to the larger sizes.

    In the late summer and fall I start fishing my Kokanee Minnow up until the ice starts freezing on my guides. This pattern represents a stunted adult in its final year. More than once I have had fish slam it hard and take off and when well out into the river, jump high, and either throw the fly or snap it off by their shear weight while airborne. What a beautiful sight to see.

Egg (Glo-bug)

Hook: Mustad C67S, size 16.

Thread: Orange.

Body: Salmon egg colored Glo-bug® yarn clipped to shape.

    In the fall the females prepare their nests and lay an average of 450 or more eggs. Trout will follow the spawning kokanee up the streams and take advantage of the opportunity to forage on the eggs that get washed out of the spawning beds. The trout can generally be found at the tail end of these beds and a well placed egg pattern can be very effective.

Alevin

Hook: Daiichi 1560, size 16.

Thread: Light gray.

Tail: Tuft of fuzz taken from base of barred mallard feather (Duckabou).

Body: Flat pearlescent Mylar tinsel over a light gray floss underbody.

Throat (Egg Sac): Salmon egg colored Glo-bug® yarn tied in at the throat and clipped to shape.

Head: Light gray.

    Depending on the weather, I find that this pattern works well in the spawning stream about 6 weeks after the eggs have been laid. This is about the same time that the spawning adults have mostly died off.

Kokanee Fry

Hook: Daiichi 1720, sizes 8-12.

Thread: Black.

Ribbing: Flat silver tinsel.

Body: Dubbed with white rabbit fur.

Throat: White hackle barbs.

Wing: White bucktail tied over the body with an overwing of a small bunch dark gray bucktail.

Head: Black.

    I use this pattern primarily in the river where fry are more abundant as described above.

Kokanee Minnow

                                  Hook: Mustad R74, sizes 2-4.

                                  Thread: Dark orange.

                                  Butt: Orange thread that secures the body

                                  at the rear.

                                  Body: Dyed orange pearlescent Mylar

                                  piping slipped over an underbody of

                                  orange floss or yarn.

                                  Throat: Small bunch of orange bucktail

                                  tied in at the throat and extending

                                  slightly past hook bend (optional).

                                  Wings: Orange bucktail tied over the body,

                                  then an orange saddle hackle tied in at each side.

                                  Shoulders: Dyed orange barred mallard flank

                                  feather tied in at each side and extending

                                  one-quarter.

                                  Head: Dark orange.

    This pattern works equally well in the river and the lake. It can be effective in lakes when cast to the outer edges of a school of adult fish that are about to enter a stream to spawn.