Strawberry season eval

[mtncat1]

I have been on Strawberry probably more this season than any previous. Started our long-term camp May 16 and my last paid day is Aug 7 (Sunday). Actually I already moved the trailer and boat over to the boondock camping area above Mud Creek today to get a little more time. 

Thinking back on the season, I have been asked many times "how's the fishing" and by far my most common answer this year was SLOW. Now I don't keep a documented ledger as I know some here do, so my impressions of the season are just recollections. Back right at ice-off just before the camp season started, we did pretty well for the first 3 weeks on the SC side. In June we started getting them on the Strawberry side, but it never seemed to be fast fishing. We got some, but limit days were far and few between. Then came July - the weather got hot and fishing really slowed down. Now we are into August and with the monsoon rains, it has started to cool down. Last week I saw a surface temp at 75*. This morning it was 67.5*. It may be my imagination or maybe I am learning some new tricks, but it seems however slowly, the fishing might be picking up a little. 

I can't be sure why this season has been overall slower than previous seasons, water/environmental temps?, but I pulled the kokanee stocking reports for Strawberry as follows.

2016   405,996
2017   462,970
2018   295,706
2019   345,712
2020   361,099
2021   375,813
2022   449,595

If the kokanee mature in 3-4 years, we can see that the stocking numbers support the off year. I am not sure why the Division stocked over 25% less in 2018 and not much better in 2019. Wonder if this was a hatchery problem? or they divided the stock to other new waters? or what the reason was? I'm sure there are many guesses. Any information from the DNR would be great - did they expect a down year, etc? I guess the positive take away here is 2026 should be a banner year. 

This is how many kokes are being stocked in Jordanelle during that same time:

2016    152,234
2017   163,360
2018   247,355
2019   206,883
2020   132,082
2021   121,475
2022   160,528

East canyon

2019   10,024
2020   16,965
2021    15,061
2022    19,024

Lost creek

2020   12,528
2021    12,320
2022    12,461

Rockport

2020   30,045
2021   24,087
2022   30,174

These numbers do not include Fish lake, with was added about the the same time but adding them all up and subtracting them from the kokes that could have gone to Strawberry and the Gorge could explain some of the down turn in numbers at those two lakes.

the dwr also sells kokanee out of state i think colorado is buying most of the them , the government can't resist selling them rather than stocking them in our local lakes