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I'm up at Strawberry night fishing. Parked at the Marina and took the snow machine across the lake towards the Narrows. Ice is solid and measured 9 inches where I am. The issue is several fairly deep slush patches that are randomly all over the lake. I increased speed and flew across them but I could see how an ATV could have trouble with them. I wouldn't want to be stuck in one of them and find out the ice thickness is not as good as everywhere else. There is also a ice ridge (can't remember what you call them) that has formed from Hawes and goes towards the Marina. Its doesn't appear to be open water and it's easily crossed and several of us have been over it just off of Hawes. Just a few points of caution added to the ever famous Big Hole red flag. The fishing has been great with 25 good sized Cuts, and 5 Rainbows. All put back in the lake for another day.
Happy hard deck!
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Thanks for the heads up. How late did you fish?
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What causes those slush spots, when it’s been this cold?
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Slush spots are created by water getting onto the ice and mixing with the snow. Water gets onto the ice from cracks in the ice. As the ice sheet grows and expands it cracks and refreezes many times. I have been on Strawberry when there was no snow on the ice and I was amazed at how many small cracks there were in the ice. I think this year it was a bigger problem than usual because it appears that it snowed on the ice when the ice was really thin. The added weight of the snow on the ice can also create cracks in the thinner ice, which in turn creates slush. If the ice gets thick before snow falls on it there is less issues with slush. With the cold temperatures the slush does refreeze but new areas keep showing up with new cracks forming.
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I fished until about 9:00 which was about a half hour after the bite stopped. I stopped counting after 40 or so. When I came back across the lake the slush was starting to freeze but there still seemed to be a lot of it.
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We arrived at 7:30 and rode to the same general area you were. All the slush spots you mention were frozen solid this morning. We fished until noon, about 3, maybe 4 hrs. total. It was -9 when we arrived at the marina and still -9 when we drove off at 1:30. Temp in Heber was 40 and 30 back in Salt Lake When we arrived home at 3 p.m. We finally setup the tent around 10 a.m. A slight breeze came up and the air temp dropped considerably. We caught nothing but cutts, iced 14 and lost a few on the way up from the bottom. Our biggest was 24 inches. He was invited home for dinner this evening and he graciously accepted.
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