Fished Strawberry yesterday with Bigfishrule. My first time out on a pontoon boat. It took awhile to find them, but after moving a few times we found some active fish. The catching never was red hot, but fish came through often enough to keep us interested. All fish caught were cutts in the slot, and with the exception of one fish, all were caught vertically jigging. We fished until 2:00 PM, which was about 20 minutes longer than we should have fished – because a strong rain-storm came through then. Fun day with John and his young nephew.
KEN…FIRST TIME PONTOON?! How did you like it? 
This wasn’t a one-person pontoon, this was a full size boat. I liked the ability to freely move around – lots of open space. There was tons of storage. It was great being able to easily fish on one end of the boat while others fished on the other end of the boat (my boat is a closed bow). I didn’t like not being able to reach the water to rinse off my hands and let the fish go without using a net. I missed being able to hide from the waves crashing over the boat when the wind and waves blew against the boat as we rushed to get back in. Bottom line – I liked some things and preferred my boat for other things.
**It’s good to see someone is catching fish at strawberry now. Shouldn’t be much longer before it turns on. **
Were you trolling and jigging ? How deep of water were you guys in and how deep were the fish ?
**Those pontoon boats are a hoot. It’s almost like you could have a barn dance on one end and folks fishing on the other. **
We trolled for a brief time trying to find some fish. Never even got a hit while trolling. We caught most of the fish in 22’ of water in Strawberry Bay near the west shoreline and the fish were caught on the bottom. We saw lots of fish skimming the surface. They seemed to be sucking the bugs off of the surface. I tried casting two different flies without a hit. One boat with four young men in it were drift casting (not along the shoreline, but in open water) tube jigs and they caught a few doing that. We tried casting tube jigs some and got a few hits but no hookups.
The fishing at Strawberry has been “cold” lately. Glad to hear that you were able to pick some up by jigging. Trolling at Strawberry will probably pick up in a few weeks.
Trolling at Strawberry will probably pick up in a few weeks.
They can probably be caught now trolling. We weren’t trolling in an ideal area and we kept getting sea weed on our lines. These days, I only troll in desperation when I can’t catch them vertically.
Kent
The DNR are really excited about the success of the rainbows at Strawberry. Did you catch any?
No rainbows – all slot cutts.
Kent, one question for you and/or anybody else that’s fished it lately…
Are the crawdads out (or should I say “in”) yet close to shore? I’m wondering if it’s a good time to get them or if one needs to wait a few more weeks for it to warm up…
I never noticed any crawdads, but didn’t look for them. I did take a quick look for minnows around the docks and didn’t see any. There used to be lots of minnows around the docks, but apparently the cutts are keeping them thinned out.
Hey man we still need to make that strawberry trip. We need to do a makeup from that pineview experience.:). My parents just left so I still need to return that bag to you. Sounds like a decent trip though for this time of the year!
Yes we do.