Kokanee, which are a landlocked sockeye salmon, can be found in a couple of dozen or so lakes in Oregon and are some of the best eating at any fish fry. This year, we did the scouting for you. Here are seven lakes and reservoirs you must fish in 2025.
LAKE BILLY CHINOOK
At Lake Billy Chinook, it’s not hard to imagine the old river channels – the Deschutes, the Crooked, and the Metolius and their confluence, now obscured by 4,000 surface acres and up to 415 feet of water.
Round Butte Dam was finished in 1965, and the power of the water was harnessed by three 1000-kilowatt generators. Today, the Pelton Round Butte complex generates enough energy to power a city the size of Salem.
Kokanee angling is popular here, and anglers show up as early as February, teasing them with jigs early in the season. Trolling pays off later in the year.
ODELL LAKE
Odell Lake (and nearby Crescent) are some of the coldest, deepest lakes in the state, which makes them good habitat for a big char we call lake trout or mackinaw. Odell and Crescent also have good populations of kokanee (a landlocked sockeye salmon), the lake trout’s favorite food.
Kokanee can be easy to catch when conditions are right. Full-grown, they average 12 to 18 inches. Kokanee are most easily enticed in the early morning. As soon as the sun hits the water, the plankton go deeper, and the kokanee follow.
Jigging is a favorite technique early, but trollers seem to do better in the summer. An easy rig, whether using a downrigger or not, consists of an eight-inch flasher on the main line terminated at an Apex or Wedding Ring spinner. Most anglers add white corn and season it with a scent like Pro-Cure’s Kokanee Special Super Gel. To rent a cabin or a room, click on odelllakeresort.com
WALLOWA LAKE
Sockeye are native to Wallowa Lake. Historic runs of sockeye were strong in Wallowa Lake until 1916, when the lake’s dam was enhanced. The fish still in the lake were landlocked.
Wallowa, with 1,500 surface acres and an average depth of 160 feet, can be daunting. Favorite kokanee areas are the western shore off Eagle Point and along the eastern bank up and down from the large pine tree. Try jigging after ice-off and then switch to trolling in the summer. Great trolling lures include Pro-Troll Kokanee Killer, Worden’s Spin-N-Glo Kokanee, and Mack’s Double Whammy.
For a great place to stay, check out wallowalakelodge.com
WICKIUP
Wickiup as a storage reservoir is one of the largest in the state, and its waters harbor rainbows and brown trout. And the kokanee grow big, too.
Fed by the Upper Deschutes via Crane Prairie, the Davis Lake sump, Davis Creek, Browns Creek and several springs, some of the best fishing is in the old channels. At its deepest, the lake is 70 feet deep, but the average depth is 20 feet.
Kokanee are spread throughout the lake early in the season, but tend to school up and head toward deeper water (the channels) as temperatures warm. Both jigging and trolling are productive throughout the season.
EAST LAKE
East Lake kokes average 12 to 17 inches. While kokanee are known to feed on plankton in most waters, the most reliable food sources at East Lake are the chironomids and midge larvae (chironomids). This is the reason a lot of people who are good kokanee anglers sometimes struggle at East.
Jigging works best early in the season and trolling takes more trout later in the season. Fly-anglers can take kokanee all season long on wind-drifted Callibaetis nymphs or on chironomids fished below an indicator.
PAULINA LAKE
Paulina Lake shares the caldera of Newberry National Volcanic Monument with its twin East Lake. This 1,300-acre lake is 250 feet in some places. Kokanee fishing is the main attraction and trolling flashers is the most popular method. Trolling a Wedding Ring with a kernel of corn or a chunk of worm on the end is very effective. Other great kokanee lures include the Cha Cha 1.5 Kokanee and the Kokanee Killer.
Jigging is the other way to catch them at Paulina, especially till about mid-June. Mack’s Cripplure and Sonic Baitfish are productive, as are Nordic lures. First locate schools with a fish-finder and, depending on the depth, troll with a downrigger, flashers, a kokanee spinner and a kernel of corn on the hook. Or drop down a jig and try to put it in the school.
DETROIT RESERVOIR
The Detroit Dam was built in 1953, creating a large water storage and electric power generation reservoir that has become an important recreation resource. This nine-mile lake, with 32 miles of shoreline is surrounded by forest of Douglas fir and hemlock and is fed by the Breitenbush River, North Fork Santiam and Blowout and Kinney and several smaller creeks.
ODFW stocks Detroit with rainbows throughout the season. This 3,580-acre reservoir is also home to kokanee. Angling success picks up in May when the water warms.
Try the Kokanee Kid Mysis Bug or Promise Ring made in Salem, Oregon. Other good bets include the Silver Skalez Koko Leaf or Kokanee Creek Tackle 1.5 Micro Bite Squid. Popular trolling areas include Piety Island, west of Mongold State Park, the north shore near the dam and at the mouths of inlets.
AND FURTHERMORE
Some of our favorite fisheries were destroyed in 2023 and another one may be destroyed this fall.
One of the best kokanee days of my life was on Green Peter Reservoir. GPR had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of kokanee and if you figured them out on any given day, you could not go wrong. What did the Feds do? The US Army Corps of Engineers decided to drain Green Peter and Foster and wiped out some of the state’s favorite kokanee fisheries while simultaneously silting over and smothering salmon and steelhead and trout spawning beds in the South Santiam for miles downstream. Brilliant.
Think they are done? The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Corps of Engineers have their fish-killing sights set on Detroit Reservoir and the North Fork Santiam now. So go fish Detroit this year and I hope you catch a bunch of limits and have a good time, but don’t forget the very agencies that purport to be working for the people are often working against us and the fisheries we love.
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For a copy of the Fishing Central Oregon book, send $29.99 to Gary Lewis Outdoors, PO Box 1364, Bend, OR 97709 To contact Gary Lewis, visit www.GaryLewisOutdoors.com
