Strawberry 5/22

[stan55]

got on the water a little before 7am - cloudy and calm. Fished the east shore cross from marina. I'd caught some Kokes last Sat so knew where to start. Had 4 landed by 7:45 am and lost two at the boat. Missed a few other hits. I was fishing solo and had both rod going several times. Sweet. I kept two smaller ones for dinner and kept trying for the 3 lb+ fish. Rain started around 8 am and for some reason the bite changed to rainbows. Never caught another Koke and I moved around a lot. Ended up catching 7 bows and 3 nice cutts all around 17 to 19". Rainbows were very chunky more than equal to Starvy bows. Gave up at 11 am - I was soaked from the rain and temps were low 40s at best. The hills around the Berry were coated with new snow by 10 am.

Trolling speed 1.7 mph, fish were 20 to 35 ft down. RMT hyper plaid dodgers and pink squids tipped with Berkeley maggots caught all the fish. I tried orange squids, a pink Apex and version of Killer Bees.

I tie all my lures and have been tying that Killer Bee pattern for three years. The prop spinner in front of a leech bugger pattern has caught plenty of walleyes and bows so I thought switching over to a squid pattern would work for Kokes. It usually works when the bite slows but not yesterday.

Saw a nice Koke at the cleaning station. Was told it weighed 3.8 lbs. Similar story to mine very fast fishing early in the am then nothing.
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[albinotrout]

Dang you are a trooper to stay Out in that weather. Thanks for the report.
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[liketrolling]

The koke bite for me has been stopping around 9 am
The bigger Kokes or on the Berry side but catching more on the SC side.
this set up was working last year first part of June but has not been working this year
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[stan55]

I am keeping the distance between dodger and squid around 8" for max action. Squids with spinners have caught a few more fish -especially the bows.
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[liketrolling]

That squid leader is about 10", I like 8" also
and all my RMT dodgers I put a bend in them.
Last year at FG I had the same set up on two poles one was catching more kokes than the other one, so changed the bend in the other dodger and the catch went up on that one.
I have a hard time finding a good spinner to buy to put on the Squid.
I like Smile Blades I can take them off or put them on.
one good thing with having some one in the boat with you, you can have 4 lines out and keep changing till you find what is working.
this year a Mack Double D Dodger 4.4" has been working.
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[stan55]

I noticed the bend in RMT dodger. Haven't tried it. Are you just bending a little in the middle? It woul increase the kick.
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[liketrolling]

I put it on the rod holder and push if you are going to fast with a big bend it will roll.
with this set up we got over 40 kokes one day at FG. last year
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I have a
iTroll Throttle Controller on my Kicker Motor, it has a Speed varying program that I can set (like change the speed from 1.2 to 2.2 mph
change every min then comes back down, are set it at 1.7 for 4min
then cuts to 1mph for 2 sec. or 1.7 for what ever min I want then go to 2.2 for 5 sec.
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