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HOT KOKANEE ACTION AT NEW MELONES

By: Ron Wilson

May 20, 2009.... All the planting that Kokanee Power has done at New Melones lake is paying off again this year with another huge population of kokanee for the anglers to catch.

Mike Monschein of Oakdale, 78 year young Elmer Raphael of Knights Ferry and Ronald Joseph Wilson of Modesto, (that’s me), fished New Melones last Saturday for kokanee salmon.

We headed up to the lake at 5 a.m. from Oakdale to beat most of the traffic that we knew would soon be heading that way as it was the opening morning of the Calaveras Frog Jump celebration and we had to go right through Angels Camp to get to the Glory Hole boat ramp where we would launch.

We arrived and filled out the paperwork and put in the $8 to launch. Boy that pisses me off, its not the amount of money so much as its just that another promise that is being broken by the Core of Engineers to the people of California. When they wanted to build the dam it was with the understanding that they would never charge us to launch our boats there. This goes back to about the only two things that you can believe in anymore. One is that you are going to pay taxes whether you like it or not in some form or fashion and the second is that you are going to die sooner or later.

We launched and headed to the flotilla of boats trolling around out in front of Rose Island. Mike trolled through the fleet and headed toward the other end and a couple schools of fish that we had worked over the week before.

We watched the depth finder and the fish on the screen quickly went from 45 feet to 60 feet. Don’t know if it was water temp or boat traffic but they sure dropped down on our screen.

These little 12 to 14 inches long kokes were hitting hard, but seemed like they had softer mouths than they did last year. Both Elmer and Mike were having the same problem, they'd get the fish to the boat then they would come unbuttoned.

Elmer and Mike would lose one or two and then boat one. With all the lost fish Mike managed to keep score with a clicker he had bough.! We had 4 fish in the box when Mike got a hold of Guide Gary Vella on the radio and told him to follow us around as we are on them. Gary soon was behind and we were all catching fish and losing them. It seems Gary was having the same trouble as we were having at landing fish, lots of fish on but getting them to the boat was another story.

Mike and Elmer were having a ball keeping busy reeling in fish one after the other and by 10 a.m. Mike made the 15th click on his clicker meaning we had 15 fish in the box. It was starting to get hot and time to head for home.

As we got to the stop sign by Glory Hole Sports  about 50 motor cycles roared by. When we got to Angels Camp they were lined up on the streets and then when we got to the stop sign on Hwy 4 there was another 50 or so bikes in a group coming into town from the other direction. As we wound our way down toward Copperopolis we passed another 50 or so bikes heading to Angels Camp and the frog jump celebrations going on there. I just love it when a plan comes together, we left early to catch our limits, beat the heat and the traffic.

We used mainly spinners behind dodgers to catch out fish. Pink fire tiger, red fire tiger and orange fire tiger patterns tipped with corn soaked in Pro Cure carp spit worked for us behind silver or green dodgers. We also caught fish on Glitter Bugs made by John Darroch of Arnold. John has made up a small pink hoochies that he is pounding them with. He has some of his Glitter Bug products at Glory Hole Sports.

Here is what Guide Bruce Hamby of Sierra Sportfishing has to say about fishing for Kokes at New Melones. (Very good action for Kokanee in the 13 to 14 1/2 inch range.  The Kokes can be found schooled up in areas above and below the 49 bridge, Glory Hole Point, the spillway, and off Rose Island.  The small salmon are holding in the 30 to 50 foot depths but can be found as far down as 70 feet.  Good lures to try are R & K pink hoochies, Uncle Larry's pink spinners and Shasta Tackles Pink Pee Wee tipped with corn soaked in Pro-Cure fresh water shrimp behind Vance's Dodgers.  It's also good to use Vance's ball flashers for more attraction). You can reach Bruce at; www.SierraSportfishing.com 209-599-2023.