Shifty and I made our annual softwater trip to Strawberry Reservoir this week. Funny thing it was almost the exact same date last year, nope we didn't plan it that way we just know the Cutthroat trout are getting hungry right now. We arrived at Renegade launch just before sunrise and the lake was covered in a layer of fog. We took notice of the temperature at 30 degrees, chilly for this time of the year but it was expected due to the fact we had snow in the mountains over the past couple days.
We launched and I started trolling immediately with popgear and a spoon. Put out three colors and set the drag. Shifty was running a dodger and squid. It wasn't but a couple minutes and the first hit on the spoon happened. I grabbed the pole and started reeling, it didn't feel like I had a fish on until the fish saw the boat and started to fight. Landed that one got a quick pic and released it. Set the pole out to the same depth and set the drag and again in a couple minutes had my second fish to the boat. Another pic and reset and the third Cutthroat trout took the spoon. By this time Shifty was getting anxious and traded out to a lucky craft jerkbait. He was just setting his line with and I got my fourth Cutthroat online and he set his drag to help me land my fish and his pole got a hit, only out about 10 yards from the boat and ontop, we both took note of that. I lost mine to an LDR but Shifty got his fish to the boat for his first Cutthroat of the day.
I tried a lure that I painted to match the scheme of the tube jigs we use in the late fall bite. Trolling it behind the boat. This wasn't productive at all, but Shifty was getting hit either. Shifty wanted to go into the flats and try casting since trolling had cooled off. I agreed and we made our way into the bay and put the boat in anchor mode. We both put on crankbaits and started casting. It didn't take long for Shifty to hook up with his gilly pattern on a cutthroat. He was happy to see his Berkley bait catch a trout.
We continued to throw all sorts of crankbaits, catching numerous cutthroat on each bait we tied on. I had a blast catching the cutthroat on my Bandits and Bombers and Shifty on his lipless Berkleys as well. Shifty came up with an idea that I knew better to partake in but I did anyway since I was getting fish about every other cast.
The Rainbow challenge. I hooked up and lost what looked like two Rainbow trout on my crankbaits. Shifty decided we need to make things more interesting. He said the first to land a Rainbow trout would win $5 from the other. Again I knew better since I suck at betting on anything, but I went for it thinking I would have a chance. I did hook up with we thought was a Rainbow trout but then lost it at the boat and then I got another hit but it was a good-sized Cutthroat. Shifty put on a spoon that he found buried in the deep dark crevices of his tackle box. We fished for about a half-hour before he got a hit. A nice fighting, jumping RAINBOW! All I could think was S---! he caught the fish and I had to give him $5. It was a decent Rainbow trout.
We fished for a while longer moving to new areas and trying different lures after catching one or two Cutthroat on each one. It was an epic day on the Berry. Catching well over 75 fish combined our backs were tired, our hands were cramping and our forearms were blasted. We managed probably 20 decent sized Cutthroat and ONE rainbow. We headed for the dock happy with our results for the day. At the dock we talked to another fisher that hadn't had quite the day we did. We told him don't do what we did and I showed him what I used to catch them with, other than a couple spoons all the rest were crankbaits. We finished the day off with a late lunch at Chick's in Heber and relished in our accomplishments of the day.
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