Hit the berry Monday night after work. Fished mosquito bay, where else? Arrived about 4:30pm and the first hole, first time down caught a 21" cutty on a small chartreuse paddle bug tipped with mealie. Only caught 2 more in the next 20 minutes, so I switched to a small root-beer paddle bug tipped with worm and they came back. It was fast and furious for the next 2 hours, icing about 8 fish an hour inbetween all the missed bites. This was by far the fastest bite I've had at the berry this year, in fact, probably anywhere. Two bows were in the mix, one was deep hooked so I kept him, the other I let go. I didn't keep close count this time, but I'm guessing 40+. As I was catching them, I thought to myself, this is going to be the day that I finally catch one above the slot . . . but I guess it will have to be next year. I must not have the touch, I hear reports of lots of other people getting the occassional one above the limit, but no such luck for me.
Question for all: What percentage of the total cutts do you think are 22" or above? This season I must have iced close to 150 fish and the biggest was 21.5"
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Sounds like a fun night at the Berry. I have yet to hit the afternoon bite this winter. My mornings have been excellent though. I asked a simlar question as you a few weeks ago with some good replys about fish over 22 inches.
[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=192208;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=192208;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread[/url]
Hope that link works.
I have iced well over 200 fish this winter at strawberry and add another 300-400 more for the friends and family that have fished with me. Thats somewhere between 500-600 fish iced this winter that I witnessed being caught. Not one of them has been over 22 inches. Some were 21 1/2 but not any bigger. Of all those fish less than 10 were rainbows and less than 20 of them were under the slot. Just a big beautiful mess of slot cutts mainly between 18-20 inches.
I know there are a few big ones in there, my brother caught one this summer. The big ones are either few and far between or have been caught enough when they were slotters that they are a little hook shy and lip sore now. I would guestimate that the population of 22+ inch fish is less than 3% .
I think you could catch more of them if you were willing to give up the hot and heavy action and fish with much larger jigs and minnows in areas not heavily fished. But I'd rather catch 30 slot cutts with the chance to catch a big one than fish specifically for the big one and catch one 2 slot cutts and never find the big one.
Hope that helps.
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Must have been a fun trip! Congrats and thanks for the report.
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