This week, my buddy Holdsworth and I had originally planned to go on a long drive to chase the fish, but decided to hit one of our old, closer spots at the last minute. This was fine with me, since I had just driven to Lagoon and back the day before, plus I have a trip to Vernal scheduled later in the week. The closer the better.
Holdsworth and I used to go to Strawberry Reservoir quite often before he left the country and he hadn’t been there since his return. This would be somewhat of a homecoming to a place he really loved and hadn’t seen for a couple of years.
When we arrived, we were surprised to see a bunch of cars parked at the free spot by the dam. More than I had ever seen there. Luckily, they were in a group and had conscientiously parked behind each other to save room for others. That was nice of them. It left us a place to park and we were grateful.
The sky was overcast and a breeze had already picked up, but we were undaunted. The weather reports called for showers and we came prepared for such. Good thing, since there were several storms that rolled through and dumped a bunch of rain on us.
The fishing was slow for the first hour or so until I picked up a 20 inch cutt:
The next two fish went to Holdsworth, both in the slot.
Finally, I decided my casting rig was doing nothing but wearing out my arm, so I rigged it with a worm under a bubble in hopes of hooking a rainbow. It worked! Nothing huge, but it was pretty round for 16 inches.
The rains came off and on between windows of blue sky and sunshine. We each got one more fish in the slot and decided to hit the river, like old times. It was good to get out to our old spot and catch fish like we used to. No slot busters this trip, but it was still nice to fish the Berry.
Down on the river, we went to our go-to spot and arrived just in time for another bout with the rain. This time, the wind was blowing it sideways, plus it was really coming down (over?). On opposite sides of the river, we just looked across, laughed it off and stuck it out, hoping it would calm down long enough to catch something.
Eventually, the rain let up and the post storm bite turned on a bit. After moving downstream a short distance, into a calm, deep stretch, I had a scrappy little guy on until it reached my feet, where it flipped off and out of sight. At least I’d found where the fish were hiding.
Next cast and I had a nice strong brown thrashing at the end of my line. It took to the air a few times between hard runs and reminded me why I love fishing the river so much. Once it was in my hand, a large smile spread across my face. Nice brown of almost 18 inches.
Holdsworth caught a little guy, but I couldn’t get a decent pic from the other side. After that, he moved downstream while I stayed to try and figure out the fish I could see swimming around the deep run.
Several nice fish and some smaller ones were all holding in the same area and would occasionally give chase to my spinner, but none would take. Switching colors didn’t get me anywhere, so I switched to a rapala, only to find the same results up and down the run.
Seeing all of these fish ignore my tactics was getting frustrating, so I threw on a marabou jig as a last ditch effort and noticed quite the commotion around it when it came into sight. A couple of bites were missed, including one from a larger fish, and then I finally brought in a small brookie:
It was nice to see that in there after only seeing browns in the river for the past couple of years.
I couldn’t get any more fish to bite, so I met back up with Holdsworth and we left. He didn’t report catching any others either.
All around, it was a good trip, we thought. We didn’t catch them like crazy, but there was enough action to keep us interested while we were there. We would like to have caught a keeper cutthroat from the lake, but that will have to wait for another time.
On the way home, the sun was shining through the clouds just right and I had to pull over for a couple of shots.
Man, I love it when it does that! Apparently, others felt the same way. Several other cars had also pulled to the side of the road for the spectacle. Good way to cap off the day.
Happy Fishing, Humans.