12-27-2006, 01:24 AM
Well, after having such a good day on Saturday the 23rd (See: A Berry Fish Story: Part I) and since we (My cousin and I) had the day off today, we decided another trip to the exact same spot at Strawberry was in order. On Saturday, we were the first ones in the parking lot. Today, we were about the 10th ones in the parking lot...and it was still well before daylight! We hoped our same spot would still be vacant, and using the GPS we found the exact same spot in and amongst all the others already out on the ice. We each caught one fish right off the bat and then a funny thing happened...I kept catching fish and my cousin couldn't catch a fish to save his life! We usually are fairly equal in the catching department, within a couple fish each by the end of each day, but today when we left at noon the score was: N.E.T.O., 22 Cutts with one over the slot. N.E.T.O.'s Cousin, 5 Cutts with one over the slot. That would have been a really good story for me except that once again, the big fish of the day went to N.E.T.O.'s Cousin, at 25+ inches! (See pics after I upload them...) That guy is one lucky dude. I think he was using his patented sleeping technique. Once again, I had to assist him to get the lunker out of the hole. I kept reminding him what the score was and he kept reminding me who had big fish of the day. The fish were biting on and off all morning but did slow down around 11:00 or so and we only caught 2 fish the whole last hour. Ice is in much better condition today, gained an inch or so since Saturday. No snow or slush to speak of except a little drifting snow here and there. It was windy in the morning, but died right down after about 1/2 hour or so. One of the fish I caught looked like a pugnose Cutt, (see pic) and I lost quite a few just under the hole today. If the fish were on the finder, they usually would hit my jig (not N.E.T.O.'s cousins jigs however, even though he was fishing RIGHT next to me!) and the fish seemed to come around about every 10 to 15 minutes or so in groups of 2 or 3. Had a couple of good ones on that I never saw, caught a great shot of the beautiful sunrise coming up over the mountains. We were running low on the hot tube jig color so we tried a few others but they wouldn't bite on anything but one color. They looked pretty raggy by the end of the day.
See attached pics.
Randy
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See attached pics.
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.