03-06-2005, 01:29 AM
Fished south of The Strawberry Marina today with Fishcrazy. We didn't do too badly. I ended up with 19 with two break offs, and Mike ended up with 24, also with two breakoffs. My hot lure was a 1 1/2 inch chartreuse jig on one of TubeDude's double hookers. I was pleasantly surprised that they would hit such a large lure this late in the ice season. For awhile I tipped one hook with a piece of crawler and then tipped the other hook with a giant mealworm. Later, after the frozen minnows thawed, I tipped one end with a chunk of minnow and the other with a mealworm, and then later I put minnow on both hooks. I had my best success when I put on about 5 feet of 2 pound fluorocarbon leader. It worked great, except when I hooked, what I believe was a much larger fish and snapped the leader with the hookset. Later in the afternoon I tried something I have never tried at Stawberry and it worked very well. I would drop my jig to the very bottom, and let it sit on the bottom for a few seconds and then raise it back up off of the bottom from about 6 to 12 inches, and then repeat the process. Something about having it hit the bottom seemed to attract the fish. A warden came by in the early afternoon and said we were doing far better than anyone else he had checked. We fished in 28' of water. We hooked lots of fish that weren't very educated, because they didn't know that they were to keep holding on until we landed them. We caught a few that might have been legal to keep (under 15") and caught several in the 20 to 21 inch range. The only rainbow that we saw was one that I lost at the hole. There was absolutely no slush, and the snow was packed so we were able to walk on top of it. Fun day on the ice with Fishcrazy.
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