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[cool][#0000ff]There is an article by Brett Prettyman in this morning's Tribune about current ice off fishing at Da Berry. [url "http://www.sltrib.com/outdoors/ci_3781767"]LINK TO ARTICLE[/url][/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Fast fishing wherever you can find open water, with a lot of rainbows in the mix.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]He advises to hit it soon because it is expected to "muddy up" with all of the runoff coming in.[/#0000ff]
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Cool. I've never fished the ice-off. It sounds like it would be lots of fun.
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I'm calling BS.
"Fishing was awesome off the dam last night," Paul Phillips, owner of Strawberry Bay Marina and Lodge, said Tuesday. "We were using black jigs and we caught 20 to 30 fish in an hour. Half of them were rainbows."
Me thinks someone is exaggerating. No way did this guy catch 20-30 fish in 1 hour, thats a hook and release every 2-3 minutes. Now he says "we", if he is talking 2 or 3 guys, I could believe that, but his numbers without how many in is party are misleading. Maybe there were 20 people in his party and they all caught 1 fish, how good is that?
No way were half of them rainbows. When is the last time anyone had a 50/50 split creel on Strawberry with 20 fish? I fished Soldier Creek dam last night for 1.5 hours. My split was 8/1 and the lone rainbow was a wopping 14 inches. The other guy in my party caught no rainbows. I'm guessing throwing out the idea of being able to keep some of the fish you catch might drum up a little business. I could be wrong about this, but no one would doubt that this report is highly irregular.
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My son and I had a day fishing 10 ft of water in the narrows this winter when we iced 9 bows and 3 Cuts. Bows were all only 14" av but one of the cuts was 23".
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I could be wrong about this, but no one would doubt that this report is highly irregular. [/reply]
Very well put... I agree! I probably average a small rainbow about every 50 fish!!! Did you fish at night or just in the early evening last night. What was the weather like up there when it was raining cats and dogs here??? What did you catch them on if you don't
mind sharing (flys, jigs, bait, spinners??????). Thanks!
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[cool]Were you also using the black maribou jigs like they were too? If not, then how do you know they weren't catching that many in a group? While I haven't had the pleasure of fishing on the Soldier Creek Arm right at ice-off, I have seen episodes of Reece Stein on ch. 2 where they were knocking the crap out of the trout with those black maribou jigs right at ice-off. I saw the same thing on "Utah's Best Fishing Holes," w/Rod Zundell on ch. 5's Sportsbeat Sunday.
Mr. Phillips claims may be to drum up business for his marina, but on the other hand, I don't doubt his claims at all. That man fishes hundreds of hours a year on that lake, which might be more than you.
Anyhooters, I wish I could get up there right now to participate in that awesome fishing but I have too much on my plate at the moment.[  ]
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I'll chime in here as I just got home from the Berry. I still smell like fish my dogs love me again.
1st i didn't fish with jigs, lures, or bait. Casting bubble and dbl wet fly setup. Leader length 6' and 10', flies assorted. What worked Black, Olive wolly buggers on the bottom leader. Dbl renegades and I don't know what these are called see Att:
As I told another member I am going back to basics with my fishing. There is open water all around the lake. Some is hard to get to. I fished the Solider Creek side. Dan and myself did more than OK with a total of 40 for the day. Most of those were in an hour and a half period. Will post pics of Dans take when he brings the camera over. I released all I caught (yuk trout, like catching them hate eating them). As for the Bow thing at the Berry. They seem to be making a come back. Nothing of any size avg was around 16 inches. Cutts were all close to the top of the slot. We split the take on cutts and bows 19/21 Cutts win by one. The most bows I have seen in years at the Berry. I'm betting it's the ice off and they are all crowding the banks right now. So if you want some good fishing the next week maybe two will be smokin at the Berry. Man I love playin hooky from work!
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I fished from about 6:45-8:15 PM from a tube using black wooly buggars. For any who may not know, they are very similiar to marabou jigs. I have caught tons of fish at ice out with black marabou jigs from shore for many years and at many different lakes. I basically fish my flies like you would a marabou jig at ice out. On the bottom and slow. I usually do better with the tube cause it keeps the jig/fly traveling along the strike zone of interest.
I'm sure the weather played a role in the fishing last night as the thunderheads moved in and out, and I guess it is possible that rainbows were more sensitive to the weather pattern and were off while the cutts were on.
The weather was nasty, I waited for it to clear a little before starting and the rain and wind again chased me off of the lake a lot earlier than I planned.
It is sure good to get back to some aggresive hits after the ice fishing light hits. Can't wait to get back up there, but it won't be this weekend with all the crowds, I'll bet there will be over 1000 people this weekend.
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Well in my experience the last two years I have caught a lot of rainbows on the Soldier Creek side. And I have had some days were the catch rate was better than 50/50 for bows on that side of the lake. And I have not been on that side of the lake the last two years and failed to catch a bow. Now on the Strawberry side its a 100/1 cutts to bows. With many days Without a bow. Why I dont
know. I fish the same on both sides of the lake. But I seldom keep a fish out of the Berry as I believe it shoud be managed as Trophy Fishery period. So I don't care whether its a cutt,bow, or kokanee. As far as 20 fish in an hour I'm sure there are a few on this forum who have had fast fishing like that at Strawberry. I know I have. And those are great times when it happens. It will usually only happens for an hour or two at time, but once in a while will last all day. Now out of the last two years I've fished the Berry 70 trips and seen that type of catch rate 3 or 4 times.
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hey you guys can i get a boat in at soldier creek or not yet ,any info thanks gorge attic
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truthfully, i used to work at strawberry bay marina with paul and he is one of the best fisherman i know. if he said he caught that many, he did! ask him how he did it and he'll tell ya.
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No b.s. about it. I fished the Soldier Creek side a couple of years ago with my nephew and his friend. In one small bay, I caught 15 fish in 16 casts. With no barb on the hook, and only a dozen yards or less of line to reel in it was less than 20 minutes to catch them. I moved less than 10 feet, cast to a different spot and caught 16 more in 17 casts. Total time was less than 40 minutes. My nephew stood there with his mouth open, and his chin almost on the ground. He couldn't buy a bite, so he stood there and watched the whole time. I had caught at least 10 or 12 before he could recognize the strike and begin to believe that he could duplicate the results. Then he just got caught up in watching.
In addition to those 31 fish, I caught easily 50 more that afternoon. When it's hot, it's hot. And the rainbows seem to be on the prowl as the ice comes off. I've never had a 50/50 mix, but I've caught more hog rainbows at ice off than any other time.
I've seen Paul Phillips fish. If he said that he caught that many, I'm sure he did.
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[font "Times New Roman"][#ff4040][size 3]Would be pretty hard for it to be BS considering the fact that the guy pretty much lives there. I believe it! Of all the people that should know what they were doing at that lake it should be a guy that owns a store in the marina.[/size][/#ff4040][/font]
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Well I guess the consensus is that the report is not BS. I will readily admit I fish the Strawberry side a lot more than the soldier creek side. Maybe all those larger rainbows DWR planted last year didn't get eaten and are showing up in creels. Wonder if they focused the planting on the soldier creek side? If this is what is happening I applaud the DWR for a job well done getting more rainbows back into the Berry.
I think I'll start spending more time on the soldier creek side to see for myself if more bows start to show up.
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Here is what I have to say about it: Maybe they did and maybe they didn't catch all those fish, but I went up there this morning and got skunked. That is the first Strawberry skunking for me in a long time. We launched at daylight (Saturday morning) from the actual Soldier Creek marina...it was deserted...that should have been my first clue. We drove the boat over to the dam, saw dozens of fisherman on the shore and we fished for the next 4 hours and my partner caught 1 tiny rainbow. I didn't have so much as a strike. We tried trolling fast (up to 3 mph) and slow (down to .3 mph) and everything in between. Along the banks, open water, Black, Green, Orange wooly buggers, pretty soon we started trying Kastmasters, and I even put on the old standby tubejig and dunked it when we saw fish on the finder (which wasn't often). I consider myself a pretty good fisherman...the fish were just not biting Saturday morning. As we pulled into the marina around 10:30 or so, much more crowded, we talked to quite a few people just launching. The general consensu was that the evening is the time to fish the Berry right now. Wish I wouldn't have got up at 4 freakin a.m.
So to not get skunked, we stopped at the Lindon Marina and fished for 3 more hours in and around the marina. Cousin caught 1 cat...zippo for me. Yes, a double skunking for the day for me. I notice that the bite happens to be on at Willard...
Doh!
Randy
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I used to N.ot have E.nough T.ime O.ff to go fishing. Then I retired. Now I have less time than I had before. Sheesh.
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Randy, partner ol' buddy -- I hope we are getting this skunkin' behind us really soon (read my Bountiful Pond report)![unsure]
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