Hit the Berry for a couple days over the weekend. I hadn’t fished it for a while. I trolled and casted. It was a little crowded on Saturday at Renegade point but the fishing was okay. It was basically the common catch. One cutthroat right around 23-24 inches and nothing bigger. The rest were 4 under 15, and 3 in the 15-22 range. They best lure for me was a 3 and 4 inch L&J Green/Orange Coyote spoon. I was expecting to catch more but didn’t. I think I should have gone shallower that day. I saw lots of dead cutts floating though. Did a little trolling before calling it a day and caught one 'bow. I kept it.
The second day I decided on the Soldier Creek side. It was similar to the day before but some of the cutthroat I can’t figure out. While trolling I could see them chase and hit my weight and dodger but not the lure. They didn’t want tubes, swimbaits, lures or spoons. They would do in groups of up to four fish. And some of them are huge. forget about 24 inches. There are some real nice ones in there but I couldn’t get a single one. Couldn’t find a anything in my tackle they would hit ( should have tried to put some whole minnows on a mooring set up or something)[crazy] . The interesting thing is that they were holding up in one area just across the boat docks at the marina. It was about 36-45 feet deep and they were 17-22. I went back through them many times at different speeds/directions and whatnot but all they do is come up when you reel in and don’t hit. I could be imagining but some of them looked like they were heavy fish.
While going around trying to get one of the big cutts I managed to catch another 3 bows in the process which was good because that was my “take home” catch. The water temp. was 56-58 degrees. I noticed that the bite was better for me when the wind picked up a little. I was really hoping for a big cuttroat but I will have to work on them some more at the Berry some other time. [fishin]
Interesting report. How could you see them hit your weight and dodger? How big do you think these cutts were and why do you suppose they were in packs of 4 or so fish?
I have had that happen to me at the berry. My suggestion is if you can see the fish following your lure its to close to the boat. Also every so often jerk the rod and give the lure some different action. When trolling dont run in a straight line do wide turns jerking the rod. Hope this helps you out a bit when trolling.I am hoping to grt up there this weekend.
When I would reel in because there were not hits I could see the fish follow and some would open up their jaws and hit the weight/dodger. Most of them were coming in 4s, sometimes a couple, and other times maybe 5, but I mostly saw 3-4.
For size, I can’t be exact but for sure probably like HookJaw_Brimhall’s big fish for the smaller ones. I will swear probably a couple that I saw looked about twice as fat in girth. Of course the water makes them look bigger under there but they were good fish.
This is what I am thinking. And I know what so much thinking did to the duck but its what I think. I once read that the ocean cutts in the Pacific Northwest will school up and create some tactics for catching their prey. I even saw a documentary of this at the Bonneville Hatchery in Oregon. They will go in small groups and together chase the prey. They weren’t groups in 3s, 4s, or 5s, mostly many more. But you never know.
I know they are there though, and next time I will have something for them. I know the big 'bows at the Gorge like pink and green long swimbaits that look like a thin, long minnow. I didn’t use them this time because they are for bass and I couldn’t think of a way to attach a hook to them. The trout usually just nip and bit at the end and you cant set the hook so it just ruins the bait.
Done it all. Jerking, sudden speedup or slowdown, turn, whatever I could think of. Jigs, spoons, spinners, everything I had. I only saw the good ones when trolling. They probably just eat up so many chubs that they know the difference between live and fake everything. There has to be a way though.
I have caught my biggest cutts with a rapala that has a chrome body with a black face. That is my killer lure at the berry always gets hit with the big fish and i fish it deep around anywhere from 30-60 feet . Other than that i dont know what to tell ya.MGB he kills them out there maybe he will be kind enough to post.
We have seemed to have had similar success on cutts trolling up there this year, planer boards work well there but can be a pain sometimes because of all the seaweed. I did manage a fat 26" 6-7# cutt up there earlier this year trolling a cripplure. i think you just have to weed through alot of slot cutts to get the one your looking for.
Fished off of Haws point last saturday. We were knockin em dead with 3 inch white tube jigs tipped with a crawler in about 20-30ft of water. great fun, until the storm came in that is…boated about 15 in an hour and a half. Mostly slott cutts with a few over 22. Largest being 24". Caught some fat rainbows from shore as well. most were between 16-18 inches.
I was really hoping for a big cuttroat but I will have to work on them some more at the Berry some other time. [fishin]
Wait until you have a hard deck and I can show you some spots where the big boys hang out. I only fish the berry in the Winter (Mostly because I don’t have a boat). I don’t know about the summer, but in the winter the big ones stay shallow. Sometimes they are so shallow that you can watch them bite [;)]
Thank you for the input. It certainly gets a guy thinking. I have fished Strawberry off and on for fifty years as well as Pyramid lake Nevada and numerous other cutthroat lakes and have never observed this behavoir, but that is understandable as the majority of that fishing predates the common use of downriggers which provide myriad objects in the water column to attract the fish.
The fish bite at the weight (Is it the lead weights that are shaped like a fish?) and the dodger but will not strike at the lure even though you changed up often with various types. This is the part I find perplexing. The schooling instinct and the wolfpack hunting mode, albeit new to me, are understandable but how does one recon the strikes on the weight and dodger?
If they rejected the lures you tried as counterfeit and could recognize chubs and other natural minnows as the real deal and zeroed in on them as bait of preference then it doesn’t make sense that they would hit the ball and dodger. Al least to my way of thinking.
Is size a factor? A 10 lb weigh and a large dodger is much larger than the average chub. Are they seeking bigger portions in preparation for winter?
Does defense play into this? Could the strike on the weight and dodger be aggression ? Not feeding at all. Lots of questions here and a challange to those who pursue trophy trout. Thanks for your input. Any addition thoughts about this would be appreciated.
Those are some of the questions I still have too. But this is what I know for a natural history book I read called *Trout. *It said that the bigger and stronger fishes will seek out and hold the best feeding territories. And every lake has different structure so these areas are hard to predict. Maybe they saw the dodger action, came up to the lure and were not interested. Then they may just be testing to see what these other things (dodger and wait) are. And I guess one fish being bigger or more aggressive than the other wants to “race” and beat the others to them for some reason. Or, like you say, they may be just checking out the new things. This is why the acted this way I think.
My weights are not special shapes or for downriggers. They are just normal round lead weights. I was using 3-4 oz. both days. I just troll with the old way, with a 3-way swivel. I put on even smaller weights to lem my line be away from the boat aways so they would not be spookeed but still the same results.
I tell you though this is what I think. I went through the area they were holding many times. And fishes always showed up on the finder in that area in mostly 17-22 feet. After realizing I was not getting hits I started reeling in to change lures and leaders and others. And that is when I started seeing the fish follow. When I did this 2 or 3 times in that area they always followed only when I went through that area. This is why I think it is like the book says. It may be very good hunting spot for them. I saw something similar to this at the Bonnevile Fish hatchery on the Columbia River. You could see the Jack salmon seperate accroding to size and the bigger/stronger ones have the best spots in the holding tanks to grab the food.
I am hooked now though. Next time I will rig up a minnow setup with real chubs/bait behind a lure or something. Or, I am going to try these Lucky strike plugs I have and some big spinners that have a thick band of hair. They might work becuase when I lived in Oregon for about 6 months some Winchester Bay fishermen told me about them. They have seen ocean cuttroat come up and try to hit baby birds. [fishin]
My techniques don’t apply to the ones mentioned in this thread. I only jig at strawberry I rarely troll it. As mentioned location is the key and locations will change through out the year. In the hotter months I jig deep like 50’-60’ and staying close to the bottom. Most big fish (but not all big fish) are caught tight to the bottom. When temperatures cool they will move in and usually can be found close the the same areas that worked during the hot months and again fishing it tight to the bottom. In the fall most big fish can be caught close to shore along weed lines early in the morning then they will move out to a little deeper water around 10:00am. Its important to always hold your pole or you will be unaware of a lot of bites most times the bigger fish don:t hit too hard they will hold it for a second so you better be ready.
