01-14-2018, 03:59 PM
Dave, Randy and I made the trek to Strawberry yesterday. Found approximately 1/2 foot of snow at The Strawberry Bay Marina.
Found hiking a mixed bag of slick ice, ice covered with 2-3" of snow and areas of slush about 3 inches deep. Drilled some holes along the way and found ice to be about 3 1/2" to 4" thick everywhere I drilled. Overall, walking wasn't too difficult.
Randy stopped at a place he had luck in the fall and I foolishly led Dave on to a distance spot. After getting steady texts from Randy about catching fish one right after another, and us only catching one fish between us, we hiked back near Randy.
By then, the catching had slowed down considerably but a few fish were still available. Fishing picked up later on for Dave and me and we all ended up with respectable numbers, with Randy leaded the pack, after gaining a large lead early on. Between us we caught 53 cutts. About 3 or 4 were around the 22" mark and only one was under 15". All fought hard and many were thick fish. I've had worse days up there.
Fish were caught on cut bait, meal worms, wax worms and one on a chunk of crawler.
Saw several snowmobiles cross the ice towards the campground. I thought they were pushing their luck. I would definitely not take a four wheeler on the ice because if it doesn't break through it will definitely get stuck in the slush.
Discovered both of my boots leak and some booties I recently purchased are not water proof.[frown]
Great to get out again and I had an enjoyable day with Dave and Randy.
[signature]
Found hiking a mixed bag of slick ice, ice covered with 2-3" of snow and areas of slush about 3 inches deep. Drilled some holes along the way and found ice to be about 3 1/2" to 4" thick everywhere I drilled. Overall, walking wasn't too difficult.
Randy stopped at a place he had luck in the fall and I foolishly led Dave on to a distance spot. After getting steady texts from Randy about catching fish one right after another, and us only catching one fish between us, we hiked back near Randy.
By then, the catching had slowed down considerably but a few fish were still available. Fishing picked up later on for Dave and me and we all ended up with respectable numbers, with Randy leaded the pack, after gaining a large lead early on. Between us we caught 53 cutts. About 3 or 4 were around the 22" mark and only one was under 15". All fought hard and many were thick fish. I've had worse days up there.
Fish were caught on cut bait, meal worms, wax worms and one on a chunk of crawler.
Saw several snowmobiles cross the ice towards the campground. I thought they were pushing their luck. I would definitely not take a four wheeler on the ice because if it doesn't break through it will definitely get stuck in the slush.
Discovered both of my boots leak and some booties I recently purchased are not water proof.[frown]
Great to get out again and I had an enjoyable day with Dave and Randy.
[signature]