Berry Ice Off???

[spinmaster21]

Has anyone heard if the ice is coming off of the Berry yet? I'm feeling it's time to head up and do some ice off fishing but before I go running up there, wanna make sure I can do some casting!

Thanks
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[joshmobile]

I've talked to a few people that have said ice is coming off on the Soldier Creek side. I'm heading up there tomorrow morning. I will take some pics.
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[chinook]

Just talked to the Marina at Strawberry. There is no open water by them but at Soldier Creek there is very small areas, Chicken Creek East and West are very small open areas and the dam and Aspen Grove have very small areas of open water. They described it as good for one or two people at most. By Saturday there should be more.
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[spinmaster21]

Wow, thanks. I'll go try to head up there over the next couple of days. If you could take some pics and post them that'd be awesome!

Thanks
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[Hookinup]

Fished it last night (in the snow). There is very very little open water. If there are very many people there already fishing, you may have a tough time finding a spot to fish.

I fished an area of open water that was about 50 yards long. By the tracks in the snow / mud, it had been fished a couple times before me, too. Good news was that I managed to catch a few cuts and bows, and it was at least soft water fishing.

My guess is that it is still a ways off. It won't be off on Saturday, but there maybe a few more fishable places. Chicken Creek East and West have places to fish as well as some of the shoreline @ the Ladders, but it seriously is very limited. The ice is against the shore in most places, and most open pockets are only out 20 feet or so.

When I left at 8 pm, it was 33 degrees. Amazing how much snow is still up there! It won't be long now.
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[redlight88]

Looks like it is opening up. Prettyman at the Tribune was up there yesterday. [url "http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfishing/51802677-83/strawberry-didn-fish-fishing.html.csp"]There's a video. [/url]
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[joshmobile]

I went by chicken creek, the ladders and soldier creek. Chicken creek had a few people fishing in waders. They all had to walk out quite a bit to get past all the weeds and grass. The Ladders has a bit of open water but it looked pretty crowded. I'm betting this weekend has more fisherman that space available. There were a few areas around Soldier creek back in the inlets where you could fish. We fished from around 8AM until 10AM. Only caught one crawdad and zero fish. I got 5 or 6 bites on tube jigs but I couldn't land any of the fish. No hits on minnows and power bait. I didn't have any luck with Rapalas, or Lucky Crafts. I could see fish swimming around which was cool. A couple of them would follow my lure back from time to time. I have a ton more pics but I have to get back to work so I'm only posting a few. Also the temp was 27 degrees on arrival and 48 degrees on departure.
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[baetisman]

I didn't realize the lake was as full as it is. Not much room for run-off. We are supposed to get some strong winds by saturday or sunday. Warm weather with strong winds busts that place up in a hurry. If it works out, it could be completely open early next week.
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[albinotrout]

Yeah full lake. Surprised they haven't been letting water out of the dam like all the other reservoirs. I know Starvation could use some more.
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[flygoddess]

As big as Strawberry is, I doubt you would notice run off.
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[baetisman]

It's big but there are a lot of feeder streams that can raise the water level fairly well. I remember a few years ago fishing the lake a dozen times in the Spring and watching the lake go up about five feet during that time. The fishing that year never seemed to die down after ice-off because as the lake level rose, the fish cruised the newly covered areas gorging on worms (and they would smack woolly buggers and leeches while they were at it). I was hoping for a repeat this year, but it looks like there won't be much new flooded land.
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[flygoddess]

My point, the lake can take it without having to drain.

I remember a few years ago fishing the lake a dozen times in the Spring and watching the lake go up about five feet during that time.

MAN! that is some major water, I can see a several days, but few hours? Strawberry?
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[baetisman]

? Where in my post did you get a few hours? I fished a dozen times during the Spring and the water went up five feet during the course of that time.

If the lake is full and it goes up five feet, that will put some high flows into the Strawberry River or Sixth Water or somewhere.
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[flygoddess]

Ahhh. Gotcha. Way i read it, sorry.
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[baetisman]

No problem. Didn't mean to make a big deal of it. Bad week at work and not enough fishing this year.
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[finedesign]

Fished from 10:30-2:30 am last night.....Didn't even get a hit...Most of soldier is open water....Noticed huge populations of some kind of bugs on the rocks.... I mean HUGE POPULATION! Seems that with all those easy target bugs in the water, fish would be pretty full of em' and would make sense why we didn't do well. I never have been skunked at the Berry and have had extraordinary days in the fall and winter....never been so clueless???
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[Hookinup]

Went up for a drive with my daughter this afternoon to see what had changed since I was there on Monday. Just about everything...... a majority of the snow is gone that was there on Monday, and the whole lake is pretty much ice free now. Only areas that looked lke it had ice in them were some of the northern bays that had the broken up stuff whihc was blown in from the wind.

The Strawberry is raging! Lots of water running into the lake right now.

Both the paved roads on the Soldier Creek side were open all the way to the ends of them. The west strawberry road is snow blocked about a half mile south of the Bryant's Fork cabins road.

I would bet the whole lake is accessible by boat.
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[troutsnout]

Fished all morning above and below the ladders. Very windy. Ice began to chunk up and blow east. Large areas of open water and very slow fishing. Should be able to launch that boat by memorial or sooner.
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