Fishing Forum

I got up on the hard deck about 10:00 AM. Fished east of the marina. The roads up and back were fine. There was a little slush on the edges only, but the ice itself firmed up nicely. 20-24 inches of ice present, but you could tell it had softened some since my last trip there 2 weeks ago. It snowed the whole day, but most of it was a light, pleasant , snowfall that wasn't a nuisance. 1 inch accumulation going out, 2-3 inches going back. There were only 3 groups out fishing in the general area. They were far away and I had the area east of the marina to myself. My first hole was at 58 ft. depth. (my bad, too deep) I did see some suspended fish on the finder that bit, but I didn't hook up. I moved in to 40 ft. I caught a couple, again suspended 30 ft and up, but it wasn't ideal either. Drilled again at 28.8 ft. Ahhhh... just right. Had a great day after that. I fished till about 4:30 and had a great day. The fish count was in the 20's with a couple of surprises. My 4th or 5th fish was a kokanee! My first one ever out of Strawberry. The cutts were mostly in the slot up to 21 inches, but 3-4 sub slot cutts too. Finally, as I was readying to leave, I hooked up a big one. To my surprise, it was a 22 1/4 inch rainbow! NICE!! (it was the only bow today) The fish were all over the water column today, and the suspended fish were as eager to bite as the bottom dwellers. It was steady, but not fast and slow as it often is. A great day on the ice. This will probably be my last trip out on the ice [][] for the year. It has been a great ice season.

One other thing, One of the cutts I caught had a spinal deformity, consistent with pictures I have seen of fish with whirling disease. It was in the slot, and appeared to be getting along OK. Obviously, I released it due to the slot, but if it wasn't, I might have submitted the fish to the DWR for analysis. I do realize that fish can develop such deformities from other causes, but does anyone know if whirling disease is has been identified in the Berry?
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Nice report ,thanks . Now I really want to go . How big was the Koke ? I hope someday I can figure out the kokes up there . I have caught fish in 60' ft of water on bottom there under the ice .
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I fished Strawberry today also. We started out near Haws Point. The bite was fast and furious until 8:45. For almost 2 hours, everytime we dropped the bait down, we got a bite. We each caught about 30 fish there. At 1:30, we got nervous about getting back to the marina on the 4 wheelers, the top was starting to get soft.
We fished the bay on the right side of the boat ramp. We drilled two holes and found we were in 50' of water. Because the ice was so deep, we decide to stay there. Each of us caught about another 30 fish. It was by far the best day we have had on Strawberry. 60 fish apiece.
We caught 3 that were right at 20", most were in the slot and a few unders.
One of the fish had a very strange shape, it didn't have any spots on the body, until the last few inches of the tail. When I put it back in the hole, it didn't want to swim away. It just laid in the hole for the longest time and we were afraid it was dead. Finally it swam down and out of the hole.
We had snow most of the day, when we left the ice at about 4:30, that was the coldest part of the day.
No rainbows all day.
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It was 13 1/2 inches. Caught it in about 20 ft. of water. It came in a small school (based on my finder) but when I dropped back down, the rest were gone. Good luck.
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Thanks for the report. That is pretty cool that you were able to get a koke on the ice. I've never caught one up there as of yet. It does sound like it was a pretty productive day.
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Good to hear that your last ice fishing trip ended with a bang. Good job on that koke. Maybe it's not time to put away the ice fishing gear yet.
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