Fishing Forum

Joh and I figured that the dropping temperatures would put catfish on the back burner and decided to try trout at Strawberry. It was a cool morning with some snow still left from the front the day before. Cool, but gorgeous with the clear blue skies and the geese passing over!




The air was in the mid 30’s when we arrived at the Chicken Creek Ramp about 6:30 and warmed to the upper 50’s by our 5 P.M. departure. The water stayed between 35 and 55 degrees. The winds were light for Strawberry.
 
We had decided to keep rainbows over 15” for my canning attempts. Our resolve was tested most of the morning as 8 out the first 9 bow we got were fat and healthy, but all 14 t o14.5”.
 
We trolled most of the time at 1 to 2 MPH working SnG’s, tube jigs, and occasionally pop gear or a crankbait. We did stop a couple of times to jig, but didn’t find that more productive than trolling. We tipped almost everything with crawler or chub pieces. Unlike most trips last year, the crawlers seemed to catch more fish than chub meat.
 
At about 8:30 we hit a good wave of fish and Jon got a cutt over 18”. It was his best for the year so far, so he took a picture for the Summer Challenge. At the same time, I got a 16” bow so we finally had one for canning.





 
We got about 5 or 6 cutts for each rainbow on average. I decided to borrow a trick from Kent and bought a counter to keep track of the fish. We had caught 25 or so by the time I remembered to use it [font="Segoe UI Emoji", sans-serif]☹[/font]. The counter said 60 at the end of the day, so we figured about 90 total.
 
The first two hours produced most of the bows and we made a plan to return to that area later in the day if we hadn’t found more of them. After all 14.5 is almost 15, right?
 
We had 3 in the well by 2 P.M. so we went back, and the area only produces cutts. We did try one more area before we left and found 2 more including the best of the day. It was almost 19 and Jon ended up with the best bow and the best cutt of the day at 20”.





 
Most of the fish we caught trolling came in less than 20 FOW and the one s we got jigging were 30 to 40’ down.
It was a really fun day with few really slow periods and resulted in the most total fish caught and the most rainbows in a single day for Jon and I.
 





I’m only two reports away from getting caught up. Next up a smorgasbord at Starvation.

(11-21-2024, 06:25 PM)Piscophilic Wrote: [ -> ]Joh and I figured that the dropping temperatures would put catfish on the back burner and decided to try trout at Strawberry. It was a cool morning with some snow still left from the front the day before. Cool, but gorgeous with the clear blue skies and the geese passing over!




The air was in the mid 30’s when we arrived at the Chicken Creek Ramp about 6:30 and warmed to the upper 50’s by our 5 P.M. departure. The water stayed between 35 and 55 degrees. The winds were light for Strawberry.
 
We had decided to keep rainbows over 15” for my canning attempts. Our resolve was tested most of the morning as 8 out the first 9 bow we got were fat and healthy, but all 14 t o14.5”.
 
We trolled most of the time at 1 to 2 MPH working SnG’s, tube jigs, and occasionally pop gear or a crankbait. We did stop a couple of times to jig, but didn’t find that more productive than trolling. We tipped almost everything with crawler or chub pieces. Unlike most trips last year, the crawlers seemed to catch more fish than chub meat.
 
At about 8:30 we hit a good wave of fish and Jon got a cutt over 18”. It was his best for the year so far, so he took a picture for the Summer Challenge. At the same time, I got a 16” bow so we finally had one for canning.





 
We got about 5 or 6 cutts for each rainbow on average. I decided to borrow a trick from Kent and bought a counter to keep track of the fish. We had caught 25 or so by the time I remembered to use it [font="Segoe UI Emoji", sans-serif]☹[/font]. The counter said 60 at the end of the day, so we figured about 90 total.
 
The first two hours produced most of the bows and we made a plan to return to that area later in the day if we hadn’t found more of them. After all 14.5 is almost 15, right?
 
We had 3 in the well by 2 P.M. so we went back, and the area only produces cutts. We did try one more area before we left and found 2 more including the best of the day. It was almost 19 and Jon ended up with the best bow and the best cutt of the day at 20”.





 
Most of the fish we caught trolling came in less than 20 FOW and the one s we got jigging were 30 to 40’ down.
It was a really fun day with few really slow periods and resulted in the most total fish caught and the most rainbows in a single day for Jon and I.
 





I’m only two reports away from getting caught up. Next up a smorgasbord at Starvation.

Great report, I'm glad you got guys got into few Bows, fall fishing at Strawberry rarely disappoints. I am looking forward to a Starvation report we rarely hear much from that side of the state.

(11-21-2024, 06:25 PM)Piscophilic Wrote: [ -> ]Joh and I figured that the dropping temperatures would put catfish on the back burner and decided to try trout at Strawberry. It was a cool morning with some snow still left from the front the day before. Cool, but gorgeous with the clear blue skies and the geese passing over!




The air was in the mid 30’s when we arrived at the Chicken Creek Ramp about 6:30 and warmed to the upper 50’s by our 5 P.M. departure. The water stayed between 35 and 55 degrees. The winds were light for Strawberry.
 
We had decided to keep rainbows over 15” for my canning attempts. Our resolve was tested most of the morning as 8 out the first 9 bow we got were fat and healthy, but all 14 t o14.5”.
 
We trolled most of the time at 1 to 2 MPH working SnG’s, tube jigs, and occasionally pop gear or a crankbait. We did stop a couple of times to jig, but didn’t find that more productive than trolling. We tipped almost everything with crawler or chub pieces. Unlike most trips last year, the crawlers seemed to catch more fish than chub meat.
 
At about 8:30 we hit a good wave of fish and Jon got a cutt over 18”. It was his best for the year so far, so he took a picture for the Summer Challenge. At the same time, I got a 16” bow so we finally had one for canning.





 
We got about 5 or 6 cutts for each rainbow on average. I decided to borrow a trick from Kent and bought a counter to keep track of the fish. We had caught 25 or so by the time I remembered to use it [font="Segoe UI Emoji", sans-serif]☹[/font]. The counter said 60 at the end of the day, so we figured about 90 total.
 
The first two hours produced most of the bows and we made a plan to return to that area later in the day if we hadn’t found more of them. After all 14.5 is almost 15, right?
 
We had 3 in the well by 2 P.M. so we went back, and the area only produces cutts. We did try one more area before we left and found 2 more including the best of the day. It was almost 19 and Jon ended up with the best bow and the best cutt of the day at 20”.





 
Most of the fish we caught trolling came in less than 20 FOW and the one s we got jigging were 30 to 40’ down.
It was a really fun day with few really slow periods and resulted in the most total fish caught and the most rainbows in a single day for Jon and I.
 





I’m only two reports away from getting caught up. Next up a smorgasbord at Starvation.

Jim, you need to get Jon to pitch in a bit! This report is a month old.

It's good to learn you are not completely dialed in to those nasty, ugly Catfish.

Keep em comen.

rj