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Next Saturday (September 21), I'm taking a group of kids and adults to Strawberry to catch and cook crawdads. We plan on going to the Soldier Creek side because that's where we've always had the best luck finding crawdads in the past. I'll also be taking my boat to take small groups out fishing for trout while others are hauling in crawdads.
The problem I'm facing is that I haven't been fishing at Strawberry for quite a while. I wish I could go up on my own before Saturday and figure out what is working right now, but I can't. Can any of you who have been there recently give me any advice on what would work best on the Soldier Creek side of Strawberry? Jigging? Power Bait on the bottom? Trolling with pop gear? Leech or wooly bugger flies? In years past, I've had success with all these methods, but I don't know what's working best right now.
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I was having good success a week ago flatlining a small luckycraft pointer in rainbow pattern around various points. We had 3 lines out with 3 different amounts of weight to cover a few different depths from the surface down to about 10 feet.
If you have down-riggers or some other way to get deeper, there are fish in the 30-40 foot range but for some reason we were having more success of the surface last week.
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They were rising. My best days were Mon. and Tues. I tried an Intermediate line and caught a couple. But, the Type VII and the Type III was hotter than Hades.[laugh]
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I was there yesterday (Aspen Grove Marina) in a deluge. Fishing was good trolling between Aspen and the area North and East of Soldier creek Marina with Rapalas.
A few days ago they were catching lots of crawdads around the marina.
I am going up tomorrow (Tuesday) to take out 8 world war 2 vets and will report on that tomorrow night, but I expect fishing to remain good, trolling lures or fishing powerbait from shore or boats.
There are schools of Kokanee gathering around the launch ramp at Aspen. You can see them swimming around in the shallows and porpoising in the water. This is where the DWR plants them so they return attempting to spawn or that is what I was told by the marina operator
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Great info on the Koke. Dare say that will be a very busy place now, but good to know.
And God bless you and your trip tomorrow.
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Thank you. As we get more and more involved in flyfishing, perhaps you would like to be involved with that aspect of what we do?
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We've had great luck every trip to the Soldier Creek side tolling for trout (and Kokanee) this year. I generally head up early Saturday and fish until about 1PM.
Our worst day was 24 fish; best around 90 (with just two of us -- we stopped counting individual fish that day and started counting doubles and triples instead).
Our average has been around 45.
I wish I could tell you exactly what to use; but each week has been different. Last Saturday in the rain it was a major departure from the rest of the summer.
My advise would be to experiment with a mix of bugger flies, gold spinners, orange needlefish, jointed Rapalas, Tube jig with Chub meat, Wedding ring and worm, and a dodger and squid -- all at different depths from surface flies to downriggers at 50'.
Once you find what they are biting and how deep, move everything to whatever they like that day.
I've literally experimented with all that stuff and had each one of those things be the "hot" lure on a given Saturday. And the previous Saturday hasn't been much of a clue to the next Saturday.
But so you have the data point, flies were the best for us last Saturday.
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[quote pezvela]Thank you. As we get more and more involved in flyfishing, perhaps you would like to be involved with that aspect of what we do?
[url "http://handinhandoutdoors.org"]http://handinhandoutdoors.org[/url][/quote]
Absolutely. I would be honored.
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Fished it yesterday, and it still continues to fish very well, I haven't fished with anything but intermediate the last three or four times ,anything faster sinking has not done as well for me . I was getting the risers to take throwing over them a few feet ,and stripping the fly back fast, just under the surface. It was fun fishing to certain fish ,and having them take nearly on top.
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Thanks! This is very helpful information. It gives me lots of options to try on Saturday.
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I have always had good luck fishing for crawdads on the soldier creek side.
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I am taking my son up on Monday. I would love to hear your report.
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![[Image: IMG_1000_zps69e32359.jpg]](http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f17/FlyGoddess/Strawberry%202013/IMG_1000_zps69e32359.jpg)
] Maybe Sunday I will make it back.