Fast Summer Action at Strawberry Reservoir

In honer of my birthday this week I decided that a trip to Strawberry Reservoir was in order. Dad and Keith agreed to come with me and both had hopes of large Cutthroat Trout. We had great success at Bear Lake earlier this year running spoons for large Cutthroat and I thought that we could try something similar at Strawberry.

We put the boat in at Strawberry Bay Marina and puttered across the bay toward Haws Point. A few hundred yards from shore we started marking large numbers of fish on the sonar and began a series of doubles that would last through much of the morning. Normally I like to stack the down riggers but when the action is this fast it was everything I had just to keep a line at 35' on each side. 

We tried to stay on the south side of the bay where we were marking most of the fish turning the boat around as we approached the point. We stayed about 200 yards from the shoreline zig zagging back and forth. It amazed me that a run-of-the-mill slot Cutt could get its mouth around the large spoons we were using. We were definitely provoking an aggression strike.

After putting 30+ fish in the boat we re-rigged with Kokanee gear and headed toward the canyon across the lake. The bite was certainly not as fast as it had been but that was expected. In fact every time I though we had hooked a Koke the result was always the same, "Cutthroat". We had been successful at targeting Kokanee at the Gorge but I had yet to limit out on kokes at The Berry. At this reservoir I have only ever been able to land Kokanee while targeting Cutthroat or Rainbows.

After unsuccessfully chasing kokanee for about an hour and a half, we decided to chase some larger Cutts around the south side of Haws Point. We used larger spoons and flatfish just to see if a hog would strike.

Turns out that upping the presentation did increase the fish size but only slightly. Keith fought for almost 15 minutes with what we thought was a monster Cutt but it ended up being a fowl hooked slot fish hooked in the side allowing it to run freely but acting like a planer board when he tried to retrieve it.

The day was gorgeous the water was calm and the fish were biting. I had my Dad and Brother to catch up with and two new birthday reels to try out. Everything was as good as you could anticipate a birthday fishing trip.

Final Tally:

Quality Time Spent

More Cutts than I could count

A lake full of Kokes to chase next time