Strawberry Reservoir / River

[LOAH]

Every year, I make it a point to visit Strawberry at least a couple of times and this week I heard it's sublime call. The last time I'd fished the Berry it was frozen, so I was excited to get out on the tube and hunt down some hogs.

Arriving nice and early, I had hopes of finding the cruising feeders close to shore. While I pumped up the tube and fuddled with the dreaded nail knot a few times, a minnow soaked. Nothing came of that and I re-rigged the spinning rod with an Assassin lure from RMT before beginning my voyage.

Having never caught a kokanee, I thought I'd use a lure known for catching them. Usually, the kokes run a bit deeper than where I can get a lure while kicking, so I need some weight. In addition to some weight, I recalled that people tend to use a dodger or a flasher blade of some sort. Why not use both?

I removed the hook on a rainbow kastmaster and put a swivel on the split rings on both ends. My line went on the front, like usual, and the leader for the Assassin went on the other end. It wasn't a pro setup, but I made the best with what I had. A few test casts showed good movement and wobble from the setup, blade spinning. A nice cutt even followed it in, so this gave me hope. After adding some chunks of nightcrawler, down it went and I started kicking.

The earlier follow from the cutt proved to be a tease, as the fishing was quite slow. A couple of hours passed by with only a couple of missed bumps on my fly rod before finally seeing the koke rod twitch. As happy as I was to see action, it was short lived and there was no hookup.

This happened several times throughout the day and I couldn't help but wonder why I wasn't connecting? The hooks were razor sharp, so that couldn't be it. Could it be that they were striking at the kastmaster that didn't have a hook? Maybe so. Perhaps I was getting hits from kokes, but I'll never know. I lost my setup to some rocks when I got too close to the dam and that was it for my salmon chase.

So the kokes didn't come for me today, but the fly rod brought me a few smaller rainbows from time to time. Nothing to brag about, but it's always nice to pull in some meat with the fly rod.



Three of them met the stringer and a few others were released, including one that I never even caught.

I saw a fluorescent orange water bubble floating around in some open water and noticed that it went down a couple of times and seemed to move around. Upon retrieval, I found a 10 inch rainbow about five feet below it. The little guy was freed and I got a free bubble.

Despite the slow fishing, it was still a great day for a float. The scenery at Strawberry is always a treat, especially the Soldier Creek side.





Dark clouds started to roll in while I was pretty far from shore, so I kicked closer to the cliffs to make my way back to solid ground for the day. En route, the water started getting pretty choppy, but I kept the line wet anyway.

It was my last pass, I knew, and my only hope of hooking into anything else at the lake. "I want the hog", I told myself, and laid out a cast right next to a vertical wall of rock. Seconds later, a massive hit jolted my rod and I raised it up to fight something big for about 10 seconds before it shook free. It felt quite large and didn't let me gain any ground, so I'm sure I missed the hog that I'd asked for. Oh well.

Oddly enough, the storm stayed slightly west of me and I never got rained on. An impressive lightning show dazzled me for a bit while letting my tube dry. Good thing I got off the water when I did.

As fast as the storm moved in, it was gone. The sun was shining again and my decision to leave evolved into a decision to try my luck at the river. A few minutes later and I was parked by the gate above the trailhead's parking lot. The fee keeps me out of that parking area and it only costs a small hike to park by that gate.

The heavily wooded canyon is a nice contrast to the sage covered hills that surround much of the reservoir:





Once I got to the river, I stealthily made my way to a shady little hole that pooled up against a mossy cliff. Fish were rising everywhere and I wished I had brought my 3wt with the floating line. Back at the car, I thought about bringing it, but a new nail knot would be required and my 5wt was already rigged.

Not wanting to spook the fish in this crystal clear hole, I tossed a small spinner and missed a hit right away. The rest of the retrieve was followed closely by a couple of tag-alongs, but no other bites would come of it.

After a few minutes with the spinner, I tried the long rod and proceeded to spook every fish in that stretch of river with the mighty slap of the heavy sinking line.

I couldn't have asked for a better place to scare the locals though:









There were at least 30 fish in that small stretch that I saw, mostly dinks, but there were a couple that seemed pretty decent.

Further up, I found another slower pocket of water, but it wasn't well shaded and I couldn't see anything staged. While walking by, I noticed an old, grass covered log about 3 feet from the bank that had a dark little nook under it.

Not really expecting anything to be under it, I haphazardly dropped my brown sculpin pattern at the opening and worked it up and down for a few seconds. Nothing happened and I was about to move on when a golden flash swooped it up.

The take startled me, but I reacted quickly enough to set the hook to a nice sized thrashing brown. Once I had it secured, I was overjoyed to see such a beautiful specimen in my hand. What a fish.





Pushing 18 inches and full of deep hues, this beauty made my day. Had that been my only catch for the trip, I'd still leave happy. There's just something about those Strawberry River fish.

Here's the little spot I got her from. You'll need to look through the reflection, if you can (through the polarized):



After that, I was satisfied with the day's exploits and kissed the river goodbye until next time.

Happy Fishing, Humans.

[FishMogul]

Dude you are all over the place you need to change your name to Lord of All Forums ... BTW we need to get Wooly to get us these Emoticons over on the other forum

[Kent K25]

Beautiful brown!

[offpiste]

very nice!