Jigging for Kokanee Salmon: A Guide on How to Jig for Landlocked Salmon

If you’re looking for one of the most fun ways to catch a few kokanee, look no further than the humble jig. Kokanee salmon congregate in groups, or schools, and are keen to strike at shiny or colorful lures, jigs, or spoons, making them the perfect target for jigging. When jigging for kokanee, I use a jigging motion instead of simply casting. Jigging is pretty simple, and can be done from a boat, a kayak, through the ice, or from a dock, though you won’t usually find kokanee so close to shore as to be able to fish them from a dock.

I first got into kokanee fishing by trolling, but learned jigging while ice fishing for kokanee. I decided to get into it more in the summer as well, and started experimenting and studying it more and more. Kokanee jigging is a blast, but it requires some technique, some specific gear, and a knowledge of where your local kokanee hang out. Once you find the fish and get on them, the fishing can be fast and fun.

How to Jig for Kokanee Salmon

Fishing for kokanee really isn’t complicated. You find the school of salmon, and you drop the jigging lure set up down on them and you jig. Essentially, you raise and lower your jig, spoon, or lure in front of a school of kokanee salmon, trying to entice a bite. You’re trying to get the kokanee to strike out of aggression. You’re not going to really imitate their food source, plankton, but you can bring out that aggression to net a fish.

Kokanee Jigging Fishing Techniques

The exact presentation of your jig or lure can vary by species, by the lure, or just how the fish are feeling that day. Common jigging techniques include:

• Slow up, slow down, pause, repeat
• short, small jerk up (about 1 foot), pause, repeat
• Slow and steady up and down motion (about 3-5 feet of travel)
• If you’ve got some waves on the lake, you can also just let the waves create the jigging action for you

The video tutorial below showcases these methods:

About Kokanee Salmon

Kokanee salmon are sockeye salmon that are landlocked in fresh water. They primarily feed on Zoo plankton and are generally found in larger lakes that can maintain a cool temperature, or have enough depth to maintain a cool temperature. Kokanee are native to many lakes in the western United States and Canada including Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho in the United States and British Columbia and Yukon in Canada. Populations of kokanee salmon are also found in Japan and Russia. 

Additionally, kokanee have been introduced to many other lakes in the United States including in those states mentioned above as well as in Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico in the west, as well as in New England, New York and North Carolina in the east. Kokanee have also been introduced to lakes in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada.

Kokanee Jigging Setup

If you’ve tried trolling for kokanee, you can actually use your basic kokanee trolling setup for jigging as well, with the kokanee dodger and a lure or hoochie 8-18 inches behind that, tipped with shoe peg corn or a gulp maggot. When I’m jigging, I like that leader to be closer to 8-12 inches, keeping it closer to the dodger and where the fish are seeing the most flash.

As I’ve done my writing and research, I’ve gone through several forums and groups to see what people are reporting having success with. The most popular rig for ice fishing is a Pink dodger, wedding ring lure about 12″ below the dodger, with the hook on the lure tipped with a single pink gulp maggot. I’m not saying this is the only way to have success, but its what most guys are saying they pull kokanee on the ice with more often than any other setup.

Mack’s Lure Wedding Ring

Mack’s Lure Double D Dodger 4.4 Inch

Berkley Gulp! Alive! Waxies Fishing Soft Bait

My personal favorite Jigging Rig

I like to use the same setup above, but I usually swap out the wedding ring lure for a squid micro-hoochie. I’ve had more success with the squid hoochies jigging than with anything else. Note, these are only most effective if you’re using a dodger with it as well. If you’re not, I’d try a spoon or some other stand alone rig. But I’ve found that jigging works best with that dodger.

Kokanee Salmon UV Micro-Hoochies (2): “HOT Pink Nipple”

Other Popular Jigging Rigs

Various dodgers are popular, though pink is the most popular, or pink combinations, like pink and green, pink and silver, etc. If you’re fishing lake’s with smaller sized kokanee, some guys like using a KastMaster as a dodger. Instead of the wedding ring, you can also try squid or shrimp hoochies, an ice fly, or a lot of guys like the glow hook, especially during the early morning, or through the ice. Jigging spoons are another popular one, again, usually in pink. Another common response is the Swedish Pimple. A lot of guys also like to add additional scent to the kokanee, because kokanee are very sensitive to smells. Garlic and tuna are the most popular ice fishing scents.

Mistakes People Make Jigging for Kokanee

Jigging for kokanee isn’t terribly complicated, but you do need to make sure you’re doing a few things correctly. There are three common mistakes people make when jigging for kokanee that really mess them up:

1. Jigging too fast or aggressively
2. Not keeping tension on the line when letting the line down
3. Not being in the right spot

Mistake 1: Jigging Too Fast or Aggressively for Kokanee

Jigging too fast or aggressively will scare the fish away. Your goal is to have enough movement that it makes your lure or dodger, or whatever you’re fishing with have the right action. Think of the speed you’d want that lure or jig to go if you were trolling. You want to jig at about that same pace.

Mistake 2: Not Keeping Tension On the Line When Letting the Line Down

Going to fast can often lead to the second problem, which is not keeping tension on the line when lowering the line back down after lifting it back up. This has less to do with creating the right action, and is more about not losing fish. Kokanee will often bite when you’re dropping the line back into the water, so you want to keep your line tight enough to feel the bite, especially if you’re using a heavy spoon or lure, which can just fall out of their mouth.

Mistake 3: Not Being In the Right Spot

Unlike trolling for kokanee, jigging for kokanee is stationary. It’s hard to claim that the fish weren’t biting when you’re only fishing in one spot. Maybe the fish are biting, but they’re just not there to bite your jigging setup. It really helps to know if you’ve got fish under you. The good news is that kokanee salmon are a schooling fish, so when you catch one, odds are really good you’re over a big bunch of them and you’re about to get busy pulling them in. You’ve just got to find that group first.

Garmin has been producing some of the best fish finders in recent years, and I really like their ice fishing model. It works great when jigging from a boat as well, but I really like that it can stand up to the harsher ice fishing conditions as well. They’ve got great technology paired with their established GPS system. Having a carrying case to help protect it from the elements is also a really nice feature that I like in the Garmin. Then you see if there are fish in the water. If the schools of kokanee aren’t showing up, it might be that you’ll want to move your fishing spot to get better action, and you know it at a glance, instead of after hours of trial and error.

Garmin Striker Plus 4 Ice Fishing Bundle

Includes the Fishfinder, Transducer, float, battery, and really everything you need to start finding fish.

When to Jig For Kokanee

You are able to jig for kokanee year round, per your local restrictions (kokanee fishing in Utah you can’t fish during the spawn for instance) The best time of year to jig for kokanee is in the early fall or late summer, when they have they are starting to group up more before the spawn, during their aggregation phase. The other best time to jig for kokanee is in the early spring, which is a time of year they get more aggressive. It’s especially fun to ice fish for kokanee during this time, if you have any kokanee lakes near you that ice over. It also allows fishermen without a boat to have an equal playing field at catching the elusive kokanee.

Kokanee Jigging Tips and Tricks

Patterns for Knowing if They’ll Bite

Jigging takes a bit of understanding. When you look on the fish finder and see them setting on the bottom not doing anything, they are not feeding but when you see them on the bottom with fish coming up and crossing each others path, than they are feeding. Try jigging than and see what you get. You know that you can troll with a jig like the crippled herring lure but do it slowly and you don’t need a down rigger unless you like that sort of thing.

Additionally, jigging works best when the fish are at least 30 feet down. If you’ve tried to fish from a boat for kokanee hanging out at 10-15’, you’d know that they tend to scatter when boats come through, so you’re better off trolling, or if you don’t have a trolling motor, try targeting another fish, or coming back when its warmer, so the fish will be deeper. This isn’t true if you’re jigging through the ice, as the hard top hides your presence fairly well from the fish.

In conclusion, jigging for kokanee salmon is a fun and exciting way to catch these beautiful fish. The thrill of jigging for kokanee salmon is a great way to spend a day with friends. Jigging is a blast, especially when you’re on a hot bite. You can get a lot of action in a short period of time, and put a lot of salmon in the cooler.