I’m in the process of planning a trip to Strawberry Saturday on snowmobiles. Does anyone know if they are keeping up with plowing the parking lot at The Ladders? I am having a difficult time getting a handle on the slush conditions. Some report terrible slush and others report minimal problems with the slush. I would appreciate any recent reports on how bad the slush is. I have some ideas of where to fish but if anyone has any tips that they want to share on areas that have been good fishing lately (feel free to send me a PM) I would appreciate it.
Not sure about the ladders area but we parked at the main Marina and it is plowed. The slush monster ate one of my snowmobiles. We were cruzing across the ice out from the marina everything seemed good ice was hard then all of a sudden there I was stuck in about 1ft or more of slush. The water was over my boots ,temps were around 5 degrees and the snowmobile wasnt going anywhere. We unhooked the sleds from the machines and spent the next 45 minutes trying to get back to hard pack. We were very wet. Spent most of the morning in the tent trying to get warm. Did mangae to get 18 fish sitting in the tent bare footed. So the whole day wasnt a total waste. So there is good solid ice just watch for the monter that is hiding and waiting for you.
Quick question though and I dont mean to Hi-jack your thread kent but whats up with the bathroom situation up at the berry? All the doors are locked. For years they have always had one of the bathrooms open. Are all the thousands of fishermen evey week on the ice just supposed to go out on the ice and use the ice hole? Man that cant be good for the enviroment. Raw sewage being dumped on the lake like that. Who can we call and complain too?
I noticed that slush is the worts out on the middle of the bays where there are ots of old ice fishing holes. It seems that the weight of the snow on the ice makes the ice bow in the middle this forcing water through the old holes. On Saturday, whenever we walked by the shore, there was very little if any slush and generally really solid good ice. On our trek back, we cut right across CCE and were met by more slush than I had ever experienced and noticed that at the worst spots were old ice fishing holes.
My advice, especially if you have a snowmobile, would be to drive close to shore. It might be longer, but I would bet a lot quicker than battling 18 inches of slush.
Then again, it is freikin cold outside today and should continue to be this week. It might all be frozen by next weekend. Good luck.
PS - look at my post from Saturday - It has a picture of the worst part of the slush monster we encountered.
Unlike Jacksonman’s findings, last Saturday my group found most slush close to the edges and out in the middle was free of slush. We headed on foot out from the main marina over to the camp grounds and didn’t hit slush till just before our destination. We watched four guys on four 4-wheelers and they all got stuck pretty bad.
And then there are guys that have been reporting that they have been able to take wheelers all the way across from the main marina to Haws Point with no problems at all.
So I get the feeling it is hard to know what will happen where on Saturday.
Bait_Caster and myself were going to hit the Berry on Saturday too. But with this last heavy snow, the big storm predicted for Saturday, and our bad experience a couple weeks ago, we didn’t think twice about canceling our Berry trip for Saturday. Since that last catastrophe, we are pretty gun shy. I believe that one of the reasons that slush forms is because of heavy snow that insulates from the cold air. But whatever the cause is for slush, I am very leery after heavy snows.