Woke up this morning and debated on whether or not to make the snowy drive up to Strawberry. Haven’t been out for three weeks, and I wanted to get out regardless of the weather. There was 4" of snow at 0530 in my driveway. Figured the drive and access to the fishing at Strawberry was going to be a pain. Figured right.
Our party of three drove over to the Soldier Creek side of Strawberry. Low visibility and snowy conditions at 0730 when we got on the ice. There was about a foot of snow on the ice, with a layer of slush underneath. We were the only ones there, so the walk out was a lot of work, pulling sleds and breaking the trail. Thankfully, the slush subsided a bit after the first 1/4 mile or so from the north shoreline by the highway.
Turned out to be worth the effort. Catching was pretty steady for most of the day (until we ran out of waxies). The three of us caught 56. Most of what we caught were Rainbows; I would guess 4 to 1 ratio to Cutthroats. Nothing huge… no Cutts over the slot.
We caught them on pretty much everything white or chartruse we dropped on them; Rat Finkies, Paddlebugs, Powerymphs,and Gizzys all tipped with waxies caught most of the fish. When the waxies ran out, we did catch some with our jigs tipped with meal worms, and some without anything on our jigs, but it was much slower.
We were fishing in 17 ft of water. Most of the fish we caught we suspended 9-12 ft under the ice. We did catch some just off the bottom as well, but most were up off the bottom in that 9-12 foot zone.
Only other people we saw in the bay were two snowmobiles that zipped by around 9:30. We left about 4:30, when it started getting pretty windy.
The walk back to the car was as miserable as the walk out earlier in the morning, but all in all it was worth it. If you are heading up on Saturday, plan for plenty of snow on the ice if you are going to the Soldier Creek side.
At least the fishing sounds like a good time. I have been wanting to get back up there myself and been wondering how this storm has been up there the past couple days. Tomorrow bright and early we are going to give it a go to get up there and hopefully have some luck that you did too!