You know, I bet if you asked Jon Ewert privately and with no chance of word getting out what he said... I bet he secretly wishes someone would dump a ton of lakers in there.
If you read through Jon’s many posts, one of them is Jon quoting a study where lake trout are not ideal for sucker control. He was clear that he would like sterile and controllable tiger muskies. Don’t quote me on this because it has been a long time since I read all of Jon’s threads, but I remember Jon hinting or flat out stating that lake trout in Dillon would make things worse, not better.
Back to the OP’s question… Kokanee try very hard to reproduce. They are not sterile and can be successful given the right conditions. The Dream Stream is not one of them. There are some places in Colorado where they do reproduce successfully enough to be noticeable. But no naturally reproducing population can sustain a quality kokanee fishery, let alone a quality kokanee + lake trout fishery.
Thinking out loud, there are several things that come to mind that are against them in the Dream Stream…
· When their numbers were up, the CPW took their eggs and they attracted a lot of fishermen. Granted it was C&R, but I saw many dead kokanee before the peak.
· Kokanee eggs have to survive months before hatching. This means that all the variables that allow them to hatch have to stay stable for months. It is not like trout where they hatch 2-4 weeks later.
· It seems like the majority of kokanee do not venture far from where the stocking truck dropped them off. Where the stocking truck dropped them off may be a poor spawning site. I assume they were stocked by the gauge, which would be a terrible place to spawn.
· The gravel matrix needed is pretty specific. It has to be the right size, with the right water flow, and without any sediment between the gravel. My observations on the Dream Stream is that the wading fishermen dislodge a lot of sediment which clogs up the gravel. Also, the flows from Spinney do not reach historical volumes to clean the gravel as would happen during a normal run off.
· The flows out of Spinney during winter are pretty thin. That does not leave much area for good water velocity.
· Like river spawning trout, kokanee redds are in shallower water and are vulnerable to foot traffic. The Dream Stream gets a lot of foot traffic.
· A kokanee fry trying to make its way back to 11-Mile in spring has quite a few mouths to get past.
· A juvenile kokanee in 11-Mile has a ton of big mouths to avoid.
· An adult kokanee in 11-Mile has a ton of hooks to avoid.
· Any kokanee in 11-Mile has gill lice to avoid or contend with.
The places in Colorado that do have noticeable kokanee reproduction seem to be obscure places with light fishing pressure. By that I mean, their specific spawning grounds are not well known and people are not lined up elbow-to-elbow. Is seems that any stocking truck induced kokanee run is doomed for natural reproduction. Everyone figures out where they are hanging out looking for the stocking truck and they get slaughtered. It seems that a few oddball kokanee have to find their own spawning habitat away from the stocking truck area in order to be successful.
