05-08-2006, 12:21 AM
I also floated the Berry for a short time on Saturday, but I went to the marina and launched there right off the ramp. (It is open for boats BTW.) Most of Strawberry bay is open with only a few floating ice sheets to dodge. Portal bay still is iced up except for the edges. I launched about 9:45 AM. A reel malfunction [mad]relegated me to vertical jigging and kick trolling a wooly bugger until about 11:30, when the wind hit hard and blew me off the water. I had a couple hits on the buggers and one long line release on the jigs. (that was the only jig hit) Fellow tubers I talked to were getting cutts early on with black buggers, but it slowed way down by about 9:30. There was a guy on shore that scored a few good trout using conventional baits, but most people were not doing too well that I met. I then stopped on the way home at a small stream I had always wanted to try and played with some browns for a while. I was marking large numbers of fish right in the vicinity of the ramp between 5-20 feet. There was very little activity in deeper water.
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