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Fished Strawberry with my grandson and another angler from about 6:45 AM to 4:30 PM. We first tried to locate some willing fish to catch vertically jigging. After doing some looking and trying a couple ares in The Ladders area, and only catching a couple fish, we decided to try to locate them by trolling. We found a nice school of fish in the large channel between The Knolls and the land north of there. We caught fish on every pass and even hooked up on all three rods at the same time on one pass. We anchored up and tried to catch them vertically jigging, but we were only able to land one fish and miss one other in about 45 minutes of trying. By that time the wind had come up and I decided it was time to drift troll. This was a new experience (both drift trolling) and using a small flasher or dodger instead of popgear for my fellow angler. Needless to say, catching was just short of amazing drift trolling. What was especially hot was to let out about 5 feet of line, with a flasher and a whole crawler, attach it to the downrigger and drop the ball to 45 feet. Wait about 1 minute, most of the time, and my grandson would reel in another fish. Drifting a white tube jig, tipped with a piece of chub or red shiner was also effective. I also caught several on a whole minnow. The largest cutt only went about 21 inches, but we caught several in the upper end of the slot and many were very fat. We also caught a few rainbows.
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Sounds like a great day Kent. I guess 7/7/7 treated you well.
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Good report. We were up there as well. I caught several jigging ice cuttr's tipped with worm east of the knolls, but nothing earth shattering.
When the wind picked up we drove around looking for concentrations of fish, but couldn't really find any cooperators. Ran into polokid at the Aspen Grove ramp, and I saw you at the Strawberry Marina, but didn't have a chance to stop and chit chat.
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Did anyone check out Strawberry Bay? We saw several schools of fish in 22-40 foot depths when we were there on Monday night?
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We drift trolled Strawberry Bay.
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Tuff start for ya Kent but a strong finish.
Way to go!
I am hoping to try my luck next weekend.
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Nice report, sounds like you guys had a fun day at the berry. I saw last weekend that your main motor was running good, sounds like you have your kicker running good also. How fast were you trolling with your motor and without it?
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Hi Kent,
Glad you had some fun at the Berry. Drift trolling is hard to beat when it is windy. Were most of the fish caught close to the surface drift trolling, or did they seem deeper?? As you know I have used the same technique in that same area and caught a lot of fish but no bows. Did the bows take anything different than the cutts??
Rob
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Yes, both outboards ran flawlessly. Trolled with the kicker about 1.8 to 2.3 mph (slower than I often troll at Strawberry). Drift trolling we were moving along between .5 and 1.2 mph.
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The best action was on the downrigger at 45 feet; however, fish were caught at all depths above 45 feet. Bows hit the same thing as the cutts.
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Thats good news, I bet your glad to finally having them both running good. One more question, did you have better luck drift trolling or power trolling? I've never tried drift trolling and now you have me wondering, which is the best method.
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Nice job Kent! With all those new skills you are learning I won't even be able to keep up with you the next time we go fishing together. You write a good report!
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How big of a flasher or dodger do you use for drift trolling? any special colors?
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Both methods were good; however, drift trolling was most effective. If I can catch fish drift trolling I will always do it over trolling with my outboard. Drift trolling is far more relaxing (it is always a challenge to keep awake) than trolling with an outboard. While using an outboard one must always be adjusting the direction (S patterns are the best approach) the boat is going, and even with a Remote Troll it still requires some effort and one must always be alert for other boats and obstacles (running into other boats or running ashore is never good). With drift trolling, unless there are other boats anchored in the area, I don't even bother to look around to see where the boat is headed for several minutes at a time. I figure any boats that are actively trolling will hopefully see my boat and steer around me. It is surprising how many fish can be caught in the middle of the largest bays at Strawberry, so it is not necessary to stay close to shore or in the smaller bays. Fish fight far less when being reeled in while trolling under power. With drift trolling one isn't breathing the fumes from the outboard and also having the sound of the outboard as a disruption to an otherwise peaceful day outdoors. If the wind is blowing hard enough (Within reason of course, the harder the wind is blowing the better.) to rock the boat I believe one actually has more movement on the lures, bait or whatever is being drug through the water than one has when trolling under power. Without having the noise of an outboard in the water one can catch fish with only a couple of feet of line behind the ball. Saturday, while drift trolling under power or while I was drift trolling I was surprised to see how many fish came up from the bottom to check out the downrigger ball (I used a heavier flat black one under power and a lighter red one while drift trolling).
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Any size dodger or flasher will work, but I prefer to go as small as possible and still catch fish. I usually use one under about 10 inches long. I seem to have my best luck with silver ones (either hammered silver or better yet the ones with the flashy prism type tape on them), but that may be because I invariably start with that color and stay with it if I am catching fish.
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Thanks Kent. I'll have to pick some up.
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