Popped my Berry

[Blackellunge]

1st ever trip to Strawberry yesterday ( 8/17) . outside temps dropped down to around 40 at the time of launching (630)- hardly any wind - surface water temp 66

one of my buddies slept in a bit so we took a short spin around close to the Strawberry Marina while waiting on him to arrive. humminbird was blowing up with fish all over the water column, we were like wow this is easy...... of course by the time we got my friend loaded up and dropped our baits by the waypoints the fish had scattered! trolled the area for half hour or so then picked up the trolling spread and headed for our planned destination

Headed up to the North end and proceeded to work water in the 65 foot range - 2 downriggers /2 leadcore lines - on the first pass we nailed 3 quick rainbows ( up to 17 inches) - and then one of the downrigger rods got whacked, i grabbed the rod and knew i had a better fish on right away . my buddy was still tryin to extract hooks from our net from the last rainbow we just reeled in. so i took my time bringin this fish in . got a glimpse of a gorgeous Kokanee and then she pulled some drag - played it back to the boat and into the net. celebration time!!! - first Koke ever and she was a nice 20 incher...
those fish fight really well....glad i took my time reeling that one in , mouths sure are soft .
things slowed considerably after that first pass. we ended up boating 2 more fish the rest of the time out there ( stayed on water til after 2pm)

all in all very happy with our first trip to the berry, landed 5 Bows and the one Kokanee. the Koke got invited home for dinner along with an average sized bow. Saw a 23" Cutt at the gutting station . real nice fish .

and to top it off there were no signs stating i cant bring my dog in my boat!

we'll be back soon - awesome place
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[jjannie]

Sounds like you had great day at the Berry on Sunday too - nice kokes!

What were you using?
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[albinotrout]

Sounds like you had an awesome day. Nice lookin fish there![cool]
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[jscottphisher]

I went to Strawberry on the 16th and launched at the main marina at 7:30 am. We fished in Strawberry Bay using lead core with dodgers and nightcrawlers. We we down 6 to 61/2 colors. We found fish trolling north and south from Haws Point. I had my neighbor and his 10 & 12 year old boys with me and they hadn't ever trolled before. We caught 17 Cutts and one chub that became seagull bait. I was really surprised at the size of the Cutts. We landed 3 under 17" and the rest were 17" to 21". A couple of them we really fat in the 3 to 4 lb range. I haven't seen that many large fish in a trip to the Berry in a long time.
It was a great day. Sunny but not too hot, light breeze in the late morning and the usual Strawberry wind in the early afternoon. We were fishing three poles and the boys were taking turns landing and netting the fish. They thought they had died and gone to heaven. They were taking picture and video when they landed one and then texted them home to Mom. My three guests had a great time and I have a ball watching them and keeping the lines straight.
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