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Heading up to Strawberry tonight on a spur o' the moment trip. My bro in law decided to go there instead of DC. We'll be fishing from a boat, from well before sunrise until about 10 AM. Being as I've never been there before, and this will be only my second time fishing from a boat, I'm going to need some help (and luck) to avoid a skunk.
Can anyone point me in a general direction of where the fish may hang out? And any general tips of what tackle I should use. I'm after trout, but I'd gladly fish for Kokanee if that is possible without downriggers (can you vertical jig for them?).
Thanks in advance.
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Tube jigs tipped with cut bait should get you some fish. Fish in water 25' to about 35' deep mostly on the bottom. Try fishing off of points and look to see where other boats are fishing. Powerbait will definitely catch fish and use the smallest treble hook you can purchase and use only enough PowerBait to cover the hooks.
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Now, how to catch that bait to cut up? Is it chub I am looking for? or Perch?
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Perch can only be used as bait on certain reservoirs and Strawberry isn't one of them. Better get familiar with page 10 of the 2015 Utah Fishing Guidebook. If you can't purchase any chub minnows then you will probably need to go with 1/2 of a crawler, shrimp or some of the imitation baits made by Berkeley or others to tip the jigs. Tipping with PowerBait will also work, but you only get one hook set before losing the PowerBair.
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Strike one. Fished from 5 to 10 with nary a single bite. In talking with other anglers on the water, it seemed like a very slow day. . .until we talked with two gentlemen who killed it (30-40 fish in 3 hours) in the little cove just east of the Soldier Creek Marina. They simply trolled wooly buggers on the surface.
It was especially frustrating to see the fish rising like crazy all around us for about 25 minutes at about 5:40. Couldn't entice a single one to play. Tried spinners, fly and bubble, gulp minnows.
Grrr.
We caught a bunch of crawdads to use as bait, but I only tried one tossing it in near some weeds.
Beautiful place, never had been there before. So peaceful. Glassy water all morning. Perhaps we head up there again early tomorrow morning. . .we'll see.
PS. I did grab a regs book and read all the pertinent information Re: Strawberry prior to hitting the water.
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Ouch, sorry to hear that. Surprised you couldn't get them to hit when they were jumping around you.
Crawdads are great bait up there. Remove the tail and peel most of the shell off of it and use it to tip a tube jig and you are golden.
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Sweet, thanks for that. We were able to catch them with our fishnets from the share at 4:30 in the morning. Super easy. When we go again, I think our sons will have a blast just catching the crawdads, and that alone (kind of) insures us against a skunk, right?
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Sure, why not? You can always report to your wife that you decided to chase crawdads instead of catching fish.
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