Strawberry 9-4 report

[Theekillerbee]

I had the opportunity to fish the Berry with Kentofnsl, and DennisW yesterday. The weather was cool and cloudy, with an occasional sprinkle of rain/slush. We got on the pond early and started jigging by mud creek. We didn't have much luck so we started trolling. We trolled over to the ladders looking for any pockets of fish. We marked a few, and put a couple in the boat on different lures, but nothing to get excited about. There were a lot of boats around the ladders, but no one seemed to be doing all that well. We stopped and tried bait fishing for a while, and only boated one fish. We then headed back by renegade and did some more jigging. We seemed to find more active fish back there. We saw Extex (I think) back there, and he was putting a few in the boat with crawlers. We decided to call it a day and headed back to the marina. The big motor seemed to be telling us to slow down, so we fired up the kicker and trolled back to strawberry bay. We picked up 6 more on the troll back. They were caught on Rapalas, Spoons, and a crawler behind a dodger. We ended up putting 17 fish in the boat, mostly cutts in slot, with 2 legal cutts (read small), and one bow. We kept the bow, and all the cutts went back in to catch another day.

It really turned out to be a good day fishing. Kent and Dennis are great guys to fish with. Thanks for the boat ride Kent!
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[petty4life]

nice report brandon. how fast where you trolling where you usuing downriggers and how deep?
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[BearLakeMack]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][black][size 3]Sounds like a fun trip with good campany! Thanks for the report! Did you make a bait stop to throw the casting net for minnows?[/size][/black][/font]
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[Theekillerbee]

We were trolling pretty fast, usually 1.8-2.8 MPH, which is a little faster than I like, but we caught some fish, so I can't complain.

Kent used the rigger in the AM, I stuck with the Dipsy, while Dennis long lined. We targeted different depths, but most fish were marked 15-22 feet down. The return trip to the marina Dennis and I long lined, and Kent threw out some lead core.

BLM, Kent did throw out the cast net first thing, but there weren't many minnows to be caught. It didn't matter though, they didn't want any of the minnows we already had, so no loss.
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[Kent]

When trolling with the downrigger (only used one) we were trolling anywhere from about 1.5 to 2.5 mph. We had by far our best luck when we were headed back in with the kicker (unfortunately, a necessity, because the main outboard had decided it was time to quit -- at the time I thought the fuel tank had run dry, but determined at the gas station that wasn't the case) wide open and trolling between 3.0 and 3.1 mph. At that time, Dennis and Brandon were long-lining, and I was using leaded line (until I cut Haws Point too sharply and lost my dodger to the bottom). I threw the casting net a few times from the dock before we left in the morning, but the minnows weren't in, or if they were in they were too deep to reach before scattering. I tried some minnows that I had frozen last year (in some water and no salt) and with the exception of the head they were essentially mush). Brandon, in his modesty, failed to mention that he had, by far, the hottest rod. At first I was thinking it might have just been luck, but when he continued to get bites and reel in the fish, as we watched and helped with the net, I reluctantly had to admit that maybe something besides luck was taking place. A slower than planned day on the water, but we managed to boat a few, and it was a pleasure to fish with two fellow fishermen whom I hadn't fished with previously.
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[Extex]

Hey guys - I tried trolling and jigging a little bit of everything as well with no luck. Some friends in a different boat started catching some nice rainbows on Powerbait so we switched to drifting crawlers and minnow tails about 10 ft deep under a bobber and finally started catching some nice cutts - I guess the weather shut the fishing down a little. I did find what I thought were kokonee schools but I could not get a bite.

Kent - I had my boat trouble sunday at Jordanelle. First the steering arm on my kicker broke then on the way in the lower unit got a knock in it so we had to come in on the electric - double trouble Anyway the perch fishing was good! we did catch a live well full of 8-10 inchers with a few bigger ones. Used small tubes tipped with a worm. We did try to catch some smallies but we did not spend a lot of time looking for them - we wanted to eat some perch that were bigger than the Fishlake minnow perch
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[Kent]

Sorry to hear of your double trouble with your boat. I'm going to have the fuel pump rebuilt, and with a little luck (which I rarely have when it comes to boat repairs) my problem will be solved.
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