DIY Homemade Kokanee Dodgers: Make Your Own Dodger

DIY Homemade Kokanee Salmon Dodgers

Dodgers for kokanee fishing can be expensive. One rig on one pull can set you back $20-30 or more, but it doesn’t have to. I first got into kokanee salmon fishing out of a 12′ aluminum boat as a college student. I taught myself to fish for kokanee, and was intimidated by the initial cost of the gear, and it would make me just sick if I ever lost a dodger. That was, until I learned how to make my own homemade, DIY kokanee dodgers.

Cost Savings of a Homemade Kokanee Dodger

Check out the dodger below. This is a dodger that’s available from Mack’s Lures, being sold on Amazon at the time I’m writing this for $14. You can make one of these yourself for about $3. All it is is a piece of metal, a colored lure sticker, and the hardware. A DIY kokanee dodger is that easy. I get that companies need to make a profit, but they don’t need to make that money off of you.

Mack’s Lure Double D Dodger

Do Homemade Kokanee Dodgers Work as Well as Store Bought Dodgers?

The fish doesn’t care if you spent $3 or $30 on your kokanee rig, and you can make dodgers that are the same materials, the same quality, and you can even make them more how YOU want them for significantly less than you could just buying them from the store. Homemade kokanee dodgers work just as well as store bought. What matters is matching the best colors for kokanee and style that the fish are biting on that day, and by making them yourself, you can probably afford to have more styles in your tackle box. If they don’t bite one, they’ll probably bite chase another. I switch every 15-20 minutes if I’m marking kokanee, but I’m not getting bites.

What You Need to Make My Own DIY Kokanee Dodgers?

You don’t need a lot to put together your own homemade kokanee dodger.

• Kokanee Dodger Blanks
• Swivel Hardware
• Stickers
• Split Rings

Dodger Blanks

The skateboard style of dodger is your best bang for your buck. 25 dodgers might seem like a lot, but the price is about the same for 4 commercially made dodgers. I was a little hesitant on 25 until I did that math in my head.

KOKOPROS Blank Skateboard Kokanee Fishing Dodgers

Lure Stickers

These holographic stickers are specifically made for DIY lures and dodgers. I personally would go with the multi color pack, and the pink pack. If you look around a bit on Amazon though, there are a lot of options out there.

Swivel Hardware

Most dodgers have both of these types of swivels. If you have a particular preference, you can also customize it to meet your specific needs. I personally prefer the swivel style with the clips on both ends of my dodger, but most people don’t. It’s up to you.

Split Rings

This pack of split rings is made for fishing. It also comes with a cheap set of fishing plyers. I could take or leave those, but it didn’t raise the price at all, and I had confidence that they would work for my homemade kokanee dodgers. I wasn’t disappointed.

Kokanee Dodger Styles

The easiest thing to do is to try to copy other dodgers. Most people do an oval shape in the middle of the dodger, or another popular configuration is a bunch of circle dots on the dodger. You can experiment with paints (I would only recommend florescent enamel based paints), different shapes, etc. If you want inspiration, check out commercially available kokanee dodgers and see the different variety of dodgers on the market, then start your DIY, and go put some kokanee in the boat.

About Kokanee Salmon

Kokanee salmon are landlocked sockeye salmon, which means they don’t return to the ocean and live their entire lives in lakes or reservoirs before spawning in rivers, streams, or gravel close to lakeshores. These salmon are delicious and are really strong fighters, making them a prime target for anglers, and the popularity of this fish is growing. Kokanee are a schooling fish that feed on zooplankton in the water. They tend to find where these plankton are at and then they congregate and feed all in that one area. These plankton, and the kokanee that feed on them, like to hang in water that is around 50-55 degrees, so these salmon are usually only able to survive in deep alpine lakes and reservoirs, and can be found from depths of 10 feet, all the way down to over 100 feet deep.