Ostlund Idea Catching On
It wasn’t a good day to troll for kokanee at Loon Lake. Strong winds kicked up whitecaps, dark clouds scurried over the lake occasionally dumping their loads and the air temperature was so low that we had to wear coats.
Despite the stormy day, Don Ostlund, George Buckley and I, using Ostlund’s “poor man’s downrigger,” caught 26 kokanee that measured 10 to 17 inches long.
We lost more kokanee than we caught, partly because of the strong winds that prevented Ostlund from shifting his small outboard into neutral when we hooked kokanee, partly because Buckley and I made frequent netting blunders and partly because the soft-mouthed kokanee tore loose from our red, maggot-baited hooks.
I had talked Ostlund into demonstrating the efficiency of his poor man’s downrigger. Since it was recently featured in The Spokesman-Review, numerous anglers have used it successfully at several Northwest lakes and reservoirs, including Lake Coeur d’Alene and Koocanusa Reservoir.
Briefly, the downrigger consists of 4- to 8-ounce lead balls, beads, rubber snubber, Herring dodger and standard kokanee lures baited with maggots or corn.
We boarded Ostlund’s 19-foot boat soon after 7:30 and started trolling in the north end of the lake about 20 minutes later. Saner anglers stayed home. We had the lake to ourselves.
Ostlund’s downrigger has several advantages over standard leaded line, including the ability of the user to judge depth more accurately than the angler who uses leaded line and the shortness of the distance between the rod and the lure.
A few anglers who have used Ostlund’s method believe they lose more kokanee than they do with a leaded line. They contend that kokanee, which have soft mouths, tear loose as they whip back and forth against the unyielding lead balls. Ostlund, who has used leaded line for many years to troll for kokanee, disagrees.
“Fishermen who use leaded line have to let out several colors of leaded line to get their lures down 20 to 30 feet,” he said. “They use 20 or more feet of monofilament between the leaded line and the lure. When they hook a fish, they’ve got a lot of line and leader out. Consequently, they lose a lot of fish. I lose fewer kokanee with my downrigger than with leaded line. There’s usually only about 50 feet between the rod and fish.”
Because Ostlund’s boat has high sides, it’s difficult for an angler to handle a nine-foot rod, a swinging lead ball and 00 dodger while at the same time trying to reach the fish with an eight-foot-long net. We netted fish for one another.
Buckley and I, after knocking each other’s fish off hooks, finally developed a rhythm of bringing the fast-swimming and struggling kokanee to a spot where they could be netted in a swift, sweeping motion.
Ostlund’s boat is hard to control with a small motor during windy weather. He had to keep the trolling motor in gear to prevent the boat from turning around; consequently, the continued forward movement and the slow reeling in of the fish put so much pressure on the fish that hooks often pulled out of the kokanee.
The high tech sonar on the boat emitted beeps and fish silhouettes appeared on the screen. Most of the fish, we saw, were 30 to 40 feet deep. Thus, wanting to maintain the angle of the line at 45 degrees, we let out enough monofilament line to maintain the depth where we saw fish on the sonar.
The sonar constantly beeped while we trolled in the north end. However, there was a drawback. The milfoil is so dense now that the rapidly spreading aquatic weed constantly hooked on various parts of our terminal gear, forcing us to reel in and remove it. The weed not only is on the bottom; it was floating at various levels, causing us to lose fishing time while removing from our rigs.
The wind and rain finally forced us to return to Ostlund’s house trailer, where we had a long lunch while we waited for the wind to die down and the rain to let up.
We decided to troll in the south end. Fortunately, the kokanee seemed to be as plentiful there as in the north end and there was no milfoil. The sonar beeped its welcome but monotonous tune and the screen showed big kokanee schools.
When the rain resumed again, we quit. We had 26 kokanee, five of which were 15 to 17 inches long, in the cooler. Inasmuch as the daily limit at Loon is 10 kokanee, we had four less than our combined limit.
We knew that we could have had three limits in two to three hours if we hadn’t lost so many due to the high winds, milfoil and the bungling with the net. But we had a wonderful day.
To me, Ostlund’s poor man’s downrigger is the most effective terminal rig to use when kokanee are deep. Numerous other of the region’s anglers agree.