yesterday was finally a good day at the berry, not great but finally good. It was the first time that I ice fished the Soldier Creek side. All in all it was a good day. got there at about 8:45 AM and started fishing in 15 feet of water. fished until about 2:00 and I would say I iced about 25 fish. about half of them were rainbows surprisingly... The others were your average 19 inch cutt. with a few exceptions. We were using tube jigs tipped with waxies and mealies. and also powerbait, I have always heard of poeple doing good with powerbait through the ice. I was not that impressed, I would say 5 of the fish I caught were on that. (all rainbows last years planters). I was wondering, do any of you anglers familiar with the berry use sucker meat or minnows to tip your jigs more often than worms, waxies, or mealies? I am thinking about using sucker meat next time, maybe its more effective. It seems like the berry is finally heating up a little. my last three trips out there before yesterday were very discouraging.
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Yesterday was my first trip of the year to the hard deck at the Berry. Was very surprised and glad to only see 6 rigs parked at Chicken Creek East - Low turn-out was probably because of the stormy weather forecast. We all fit on the snowmobile (touring machine) and towed the fish shack and storage sled like we know what were doing.
I'm at the point in my fishing career that I'm taking my 6 year old grandson & my wife. So after about 2 hours of helping everyone catch several nice fish and miss many many more, I finally got them somewhat self reliant - I sat down and went to fishing about 11:30. - I have seen too many times the fish just shut-off between 10:30 & 11:00 but today was different - they were biting till we left at 1:30 - I had two doubles and several other nice fish that were in the 21" to 22" range. All fish were released and the weather was warm and a few snow furries came through but nothing that was bitter cold that's for sure.
One thing that I wish people would is to Pick Up your garbage. You know who you are - Gatoraide Bottles, Butterfinger candy bar wrappers, and you were out of Chicken creek on Saturday on snowmachines.
I guess the good thing is I got to show my grandson is that we make the place better than we found it. We pickup the trash and hopefully a leason was started with my grandson.
All the bait I used was waxies on three different jigs - the trout always hit my favorite jig first - out fishing everything 4 to one - then when it slows I goto my second favorite and usually nail three or four pretty quickly. The believe it or not I then goto the larger glow-in-dark jig at noon and they ripped that rig up. I also caught four or five on the depth finder showing them at 15 feet. I just raised up and watch the fish follow and then set the hook. Lotsa fun.
Had a fun trip and look forward to a few more before the end of the hard deck.
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My wife and I went through a huge snow storm up the Porvo canyon. this morning and fished by the marina. 3 poles, tube jigs on all, waxies on one, mealworm on one and power bait on one. Changed one pole to a spinner that worked before,. Spent 4 hours and had 2 hits, no fish. Watched a few others with power augers moving all around, must not have been very happy with their outcome also. My take on that. Anyway, had a good 4 hours of "us" time on the ice with my wife, that made it worth it.
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