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Ivan and I hit the berry this weekend to see if the fish were wanting to play. They were! We fished the Points (haws area) using standard tubes in white sparkle and green sparkle tipped with chub meat. We slow trolled a bit and picked up fish after fish. Tons of fun, lost count of the exact #. The fish were between 10' and 25' deep. We also did well vertical jigging. We caught a mix of about 50/50 bows to cutts. Most cutts in the slot, but a few out of it. Nice fat bows as well. We did not keep any fish from this outing. Here a few pics. We camped near the points on the other side of the road...it is getting a bit chilly, but not too bad yet.
Happy Fishing
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Nice report and pics Shawn, thanks for sharing. Sure a lot of different reports coming from the Berry this weekend, sounds like it is just a matter of finding the actively feeding fish.
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Yeah, that's what it sounded like. Some we spoke to said it was dead and others said it was hot a few days ago, but now it has cooled off. We found most of them close to shore...good for shore anglers and small boats/tubers.
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[quote FishKillr]
We camped near the points on the other side of the road...
[/quote]
Shawn, sounds like a great trip. Do you mean on the other side of the paved road? Did you see any signs near the water that said, "No Camping"?
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Yes, the side away from the lake. There are also some areas that are away form the lake that are posted no camping. Also, the lake side, day use areas are posted no camping. We stopped in at the visitors center, it had never been open when I had visited before. The Kokes are spawning in the stream as well...awesome! They showed us some small roads...squaw creek and horse creek that are on the mountain side of the road away from the water where camping is allowed for free. We found a small spot with a campfire ring of rocks already in place and called it home.
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Allright Shawn and Ivan, we'll not stand for any more reports like this. Reports like this make me look worse than I already am. I was out there friday and had no where near the luck you guys did. (Maybe I should stop depending on "luck" and start some serious fishing.)[:p]
Hey, I seen in one of your pics a vacuum packed pkg of chub. I recognize that bag!
But seriously ... good on you guys. You two always seem to do well where ever you go fishing.
What time of the day would you say the best bite was?
Are you using the ole Humming Bird?
--- Coot ---
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I am one of those guys in a kick boat with flies. I fished near East Portal from 4pm to dark and slayed them. It was my best day on the Berry since I don't know when. I caught 21 fish on flies and missed at least 20. It was constant action on white and dark buggers. Very fun. I did not mark a lot of fish which meant that they were up high and shallow. Mostly around the weed bed edges in 15 to 25 feet of water. Sad thing is the cuts seem to have disappeared. Mostly rainbows. I only caught about 5 cutts the whole night. What is going on? Where are the big cutts that we all thought would be in the Berry by now? The rainbows were all in the 12 to 14 range with only a couple of footballs that were 15 to 17. Those fish were fat and fought hard. If the power bait fishermen don't kill them all there will be some amazing rainbows next year and the year after.
I stayed up there overnight since it was so good. I called my buddy to come up and meet me in the morning so we could slay them again. He met me at 6:30am and we started to fly fish. I caught a rainbow in the fish 40 feet of launching and thought we were in for a banner day. Wrong!! The fish had their mouths wired shut. Fished all morning and only caught 9 fish. Three were cutts. That is frustrating. My buddy wondered if I was really caught them the night before. That is way it goes at the Berry. One minute hot, the next cold.
I hope that the cooler weather gets them going full time.
Happy fishing.
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Hey Coot,
At least you all found a few that wanted to play. Those vacuum bags work great! They really preserved our chubs well.
What time of the day would you say the best bite was?
The PM by far.
Are you using the ole Humming Bird?
Absolutely, she works great for picking up fish vertical jigging and ice fishing.
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"that they were up high and shallow. Mostly around the weed bed edges in 15 to 25 feet of water."
That is the are we caught them in. The bows were higher up and most of the cutts were dead on the bottom, almost hard to read on the finder at times they were so close. We treated a few like ice fishing and pulled them off the bottom.
Sad thing is the cuts seem to have disappeared. Mostly rainbows. I only caught about 5 cutts the whole night. What is going on? Where are the big cutts that we all thought would be in the Berry by now?
We caught 50/50, I think it depends on the area and time of day more than anything. They seem to switch depths many times throughout the day and also where they hold at those depths.
The rainbows were all in the 12 to 14 range with only a couple of footballs that were 15 to 17. Those fish were fat and fought hard. If the power bait fishermen don't kill them all there will be some amazing rainbows next year and the year after.
It will be a ton of fun! We caught bows in the same size range, but one real nice one.
The fish had their mouths wired shut. Fished all morning and only caught 9 fish. Three were cutts. That is frustrating. My buddy wondered if I was really caught them the night before. That is way it goes at the Berry. One minute hot, the next cold.
Saturday was by far our best day. The fish were not doing the same Sunday. They were biting hot right before those storms and the wind and the waves seemed to say bring on the fish! Calm this morning and we did ok, but called it quits and came home at noon after fishing for 2 hours...late start. We caught a good handful, but nothing like Saturday PM.
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] I haven't been out in weeks... no vehicle... [frown]