Strawberry 08/18

[DallanC]

Decided to take the family up fishing, havent been able to for a couple weeks. We arrived at our spot at 7am and started trolling. It took a while for the first hookup, a big kokanee on my wifes pole. She got it up to the boat just inches from the net when it threw the hook. Very disappointing! The Koke was just starting to turn pink, the spawn wont be far away!

We kept moving around, trying to find the fish. All my old spots seemed oddly vacant with no action! We tried a dozen different places with only a rare bump to the poles from time to time.

Eventually around 10am we found them and it got hot, with multiples hooked up at the same time. It was fun trying to race my boy to see who could boat their fish first when we were both hooked up. The rainbows we got into were BRUISERS. We were throwing back big fat 14-16" bows to keep the 18-20" footballs. It was great fun. We caught a ton of cutthroat which is odd, the type of fishing rigs we use normally dont attract cuts, but they were there today, and hooked up often enough to be annoying. Nothing over slot.

We ended the day limited out on really big line stripping, arial acrobatic rainbows. Sadly no kokanee made it into the boat today.

The hot rig was a green sparkle dodger with a watermellon assassin trolled 10ft. Next hottest pole was a fire and ice dodger with a pink and white super squid at 30ft, third hottest pole was my boys rig with popgear and a wedding ring trolled about 2 miles behind the boat (kids sheesh, they gotta let out ALL the line lol! ).

Oddly I tried other poles from 20ft, on down to 55ft, swapping out dodgers and lures, it was totally random when and if they would get action. We had cuts hook up all the way down to 55ft. All of this was well out from shore in 150-200ft of water.

All in all a great fun day.


-DallanC

[k2muskie]

Sounds like a very rewarding family trip to the Berry with some fine table fare brought home. I'm taking it your using downriggers. Question do you search for bait pods then work that area? How do you cook the Trout? I'm not much into eating Trout but smoked Trout is very tasty. Enjoy the fine dining you'll have for sure.

[Renegade]

I want to hit Soldier or Strawberry this weekend, but I only fly fish. So, am I looking at the 50' mark as being a goal? I can hit that but not much deeper.
Also, did you try WHITE at all?

[DallanC]

The hot pole was only 10ft down so you should be ok, the problem is where we found the fish we were a very long way out in very deep water over in the narrows.

As for white, my pole had a pink / white super squid with random results. I didnt try white all by itself. Hope this helps some.


-DallanC

[Renegade]

You did. I found being in 50' this time of year I too do better. We will give it a try for sure. Thanks for the info. Might try to incorperate those colors into flies.
Great detail there.

[DallanC]

Theres a good chance I'm headed back up this saturday as well. I'll post again how we do.


-DallanC

[Renegade]

Went up yesteday to Strawberry side. Got on water at 9 and fish was on shortly after. At this time I was using a special Woolly bugger and a Gartside softhackle on an Intermediate line. This worked great for about an hour, but then the catching slowed down plus on sonar, they were being found a little deeper. So, I switched to a Type II line, and catch was on again. Repeated this set up with an addition of a Bunny Crawfish fly.
When the catch died here, it was about noon. I had been fishing 20' to 40'. I went to one little bay that dropped to about 80'. But I was reading a lot of fish in the 60' range. Soooooo, I put on a line called Depth Charge. It is 70' of an intermediate and 30' of grain weighted line. I use 350 grain. I went back to the special bugger and the Red and Black Gartside and fish on!!!! One very LONG trout with a big head.
I have always wondered why people that spin fish carry so many rods on their pontoon or tube ad all they need to do is add a different lure or weight, but fly fishing it is in the line. You can change line out on the water, but it is taxing with a 9' rod and a bit scary. I did loose an expensive reel ($250.) not to mention fly line that runs $80. to the depth before. So, I do pack 3 to 4 rods all strung up with different line.
And I do use them all at times and this was definitely one of those times. Very interesting and fun.

[Dunkem]

[Martymcfly73]

That sucks about your reel. I don't have much luck fly fishing the berry. I can do good at ice off and late fall, but mid spring and summer my a$$ gets handed to me. I only have a float tube so im limited to area I can cover. I find myself using jigs and powerbait when I have my kids to keep them interested.

[Renegade]

I am going tomorrow again, wish me luck!