Fishing Forum

My two bosses were in town from Pennsylvania over the week of the 24th and had requested a "team outing/meeting" somewhere that they could catch a fish. It would be for the 2 of them, me and my two local team members, so 5 of us total. I came up with an itinerary that included Strawberry Reservoir on my boat (the family boat) with lunch at Daniels Lodge afterwards. They purchased their one day out of state fishing licenses on line and I told them I would furnish everything else they needed, including the fishing poles, lures, bait and anything else they might need.
We left in a rainstorm from the Red Lobster at 5:00 a.m. (Wednesday 25th) and were launching my 24 foot boat at Strawberry around 6:15 or so. Conditions at the ramp were very calm, no rain, partly cloudy and very warm. The weather cooperated the whole morning and we saw zero wind and very little rain during the morning outing, and when it did sprinkle, the fishing REALLY turned on! We could see some rainstorms to the south of us, but they never made it our way, so we fished in calm conditions all morning. We had multiple doubles, a triple and even a quadruple hookup, which happened to be during a sprinkle of rain. I only fished for the first hour or so, then put the pole away and just assisted my guests for the rest of the morning by taking pictures, keeping their jigs baited, unhooking fish, releasing fish, etc. Even my 2 local co-workers caught fish, but my bosses caught more than anyone else. A total of 49 fish were caught, and out of those, only 4 were caught by me before I put my pole away to help everyone else catch fish. They caught on to the casting/jigging technique very quickly and within about 1/2 hour after anchoring a healthy fish count competition was under way! One of the fish caught was a big Rainbow (which came home for dinner) and each fisherman, including myself, was able to catch a fish over 22". We kept 2 of the large Cutts, one that went 23.5 inches and one that went 22.5 inches. The original plan was to leave the water by 9:30 to make it back to the office by noon, but 9:30 came and nobody wanted to leave and everyone was still catching fish, so we stayed till 11:00. We just extended the "meeting" a little bit.
Here are a few pics. I was really really REALLY glad that the fish were cooperating Wednesday morning, and my guests all had a great time. We took plenty of pictures for them to take back to PA with them.

Randy
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Thanks for the report and nice job showing the Bosses how efficient you can be! I wish I could have those kinds of meetings[unsure]. I really need to get a boat or maybe just a friend with a boat.[][]
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Randy,

Sure is nice when a fishing trip goes as one plans it to go. It doesn't happen often (at least not for me) so I treasure those times that it does.
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Yep, it sure would be nice to have a boat (other than my pontoon).

It would be a blast to take the family out for a fishing trip.
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Nice fish, good to see some good mid summer fishing at the berry. You usually have to wait a little later in the fall to start seeing numbers like that. Nothing like fishing with a little cloud cover as well. Nice
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Nice report and nice fish Randy. Thanks for sharing
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What was working the best on them? Were you casting lures or just bait fishing. Nice pics. I was up there the same day and did pretty well trawling.
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Ahhh nothing like a successful early morning business meeting to impress the bosses. Nice job.

Congrats on the success of the day and going on a perfect day... no wind, cloud cover and lots of cooperating fish. Those days don't come together like that very often.
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Thanks for all the replies. My sentiments exactly! The next day (still in town but in the office this time...) they asked me if it was like that every time I went there. Part of me wanted to say that every time I went there the clouds parted, the sun shone down, the seas were calm and the fish were jumping in the boat, but I couldn't lie and I confessed that it truly was a very very exceptional day! They will go back to PA with a lot of pictures and a lot of stories to tell. It really was an exceptional day when EVERYTHING went right (for once!)

As far as what we were using, we were using standard tube jigs, tipped with chub meat, and we would cast them out as far as we could, leave the bail open and let them settle to the bottom in about 48 feet of water (anchored), then we would slowly reel in. It was tedious at times and a lot of patience had to be used to reel in that slowly. A lot of times we would get bumped and reel all the way in and find the chub meat gone, but more often than not a hookup would occur. When the rain started, the fishing really turned on. Again, they thought it was like that ALL the time at Strawberry! I was silently giving thanks for having a great day on the water. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I've been skunked on that lake more than once!

Randy
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Must have been one brutal meeting! Nice report.
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Jigging with tubes has always been good for me at Strawberry. I like to troll at Strawberry, but jigging is often more productive.
Glad to see that so many fish are getting larger than the slot maximum. Thanks for the great report and the pictures.
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