Kokanee

[curt69]

The limit in the Upper Snake Region is now 15 per day .
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[ddmoogs]

Now if I could only find some.
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[MMDon]

Nice!
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[windriver]

Does anyone know what the biological reason was behind that decision? I'm just curious.

Windriver
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[brownleech]

I have visited with the Fish and Game biologist that is doing the study of kokanee on Ririe and on Island Park. The reason for the increase is that Ririe and Mackay is not being over harvested and it is hoped that an increase of harvest will help Mackay with the stunted fish.

Kokanee through the ice so far on Ririe has been of all sizes. Today several fishermen got into schools of kokanee that were between 12 to 14 inches.

PM me if you want more data.
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[MMDon]

Well, the F&G in it's infinite wisdom is a fools errand. Mackay's fish size is all about the food base for the biomass. With mostly sterile run off and springs running into Mackay there simply isn't enough food to grow the fish much larger.
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[windriver]

Thanks. I will talk to you for some info.

Just from simple observation I do think Mackay is over populated. If you lower the numbers the remaining fish should have more food and in theory get bigger.

I'm just not sure about Ririe. It seems like a lot of people harvest a lot of Kokanee from there.

Thanks
Windriver
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[MMDon]

Food is an interesting equation. While less fish equals less food eaten, in a lot of biomass structures, it still comes down to the amount of plankton available per surface acre foot. Less fish in some waters won't up that equation enough to make a difference. In Ririe it's all about dry farm run off. Lot's of run off simply ups the amounts of nutrients and minerals in the water needed to support the kokanee's diet of plankton. Since it has a narrow surface area, less fish or more run off will up the size of the fish as we have seen in the past. Not the same equation for Mackay however. A simple test for this is to see if your boat is hotter on the wire during the spring at the head water as compared to the dam end. If you run a voltage test from your battery to your down rigger wire you will notice a much greater difference in the spring, end to end, than in the fall. The same with heavy run off years as compared to lighter precip years. Higher mineral concentrations in the spring means larger year fish. Mackay always registers the same end to end.
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[MMDon]

I should have mentioned above that we equate food availability to the energy a fish spends eating it.

There is one more massive equation with Kokanee. Will it warm up enough to produce plankton en mass early enough in the spring run off period and will it stay cool enough of a long enough period so the Kokanee, which are temperature sensitive, can stay up high enough in the water column to garner enough food for accelerated growth. Even on a good run off year, if the weather becomes to warm to quickly and drives the fish down below the quality light penetration surface distance of 10', the fish will still be small.

All this being said, who doesn't like higher limits. I've never found a shortage of Kokes on either fishery!
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[curt69]

I need someone to teach me how to catch the 250,000 kokanne they plant in Island Park resivior every year . Seams like a wasted resorse if no one is harvesting them .
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[MMDon]

[quote curt69]I need someone to teach me how to catch the 250,000 kokanne they plant in Island Park resivior every year . Seams like a wasted resorse if no one is harvesting them .[/quote]

It is a wasted resource as the survival rate for that planting to maturity is so small as to be negligible for most calendar years.
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[wiperhunter2]

Good info there, thanks for sharing it with us. We have a lake here in Utah that has similar limits, years ago the limit for kokanee was 24, it has since been moved down to 12. In that lake, the size of the kokes vary from 7 to 9" in some years to 11 to 13" in other years. In most smaller kokes lake here, the fish vary in size but the limit is only 4, kind of strange how they decide how to set a limit.
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[MMDon]

The limits should be set by creel surveys to give fishermen the best chance of all having a "good" day with enough of a limit to make it worthwhile to fish for them. Unlike trout and other species, Kokanee depend more on mother nature as well as surviving the occasional complete devastation of a years fish due to bacterial poisoning. Once the optimum numbers are established you pretty much have to let nature take it's course. This relates to planted fish. Having a glut of naturally spawning fish is a whole nother kettle as it were!
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[psanders71]

My fisheries professor always explained it in a way that made sense to me... Every body of water is unique and has the ability to produce "X" lbs of fish per acre. 500lbs of fish is still 500lbs of fish, no matter if it is made up of big ones, little ones or a good mix of big, medium and little ones...

Higher bag limits will hopefully lead to higher harvest rates, which will hopefully leave fewer fish in the system that are left to consume the finite food source, which will hopefully lead to larger fish with better growth rates.
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