Saturday 6/14 at the Berry

[addicted2fishin]

So in my continued quest to get back into fishing a bit more, my wife and I hit the Berry on Saturday.

The word of the day was WIND!!

I haven't hit the berry from a boat in several years. With the reports of kokes hitting so well I decided to try for that and headed through the narrows to the Soldier Creek side. Once there we trolled around from the mouth of the narrows north. We tried to stay on the West side, but the wind tried to tell us otherwise and it was quite difficult trying to keep in a specific direction trolling. However, we hooked up with a double on smaller slot cutts right off, then another one just a couple of minutes later. Shortly after that was a really hard hit on the leaded line pole. When I saw the fish break water even with the lead line I knew it was a koke. I finally got it all the way to the boat and it let loose within about 2" of the net. After fighting the wind for a while longer I finally landed a really nice size koke around 20" or so.
We decided to explore the lake a bit more and try some of the areas I hit a lot a few years ago for cutts using a tried and true lure. We landed 4 more nice cutts before heading in around 4:00pm.
Sorry, the wind was too much to consider handling the pole, net, troller AND a camera, so no pictures this time.
Overall not a bad day. I wasn't expecting a lot as I haven't figured out how to get my downriggers mounted to my boat yet, so we were just long-lining it with the leaded line or regular line and lures.
On the Soldier Creek side, almost all the fish we marked on the finder were right at 40'. The two kokes came on pink squid or lures behind a silver and pink dodger. The Cutts were hitting a variety of lures. The largest cutt was probably around 20".
All fish released as we had nowhere to store them before we went home, though I would have loved to cook up the kokes if we were camping there.
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[albinotrout]

Great report thanks for sharing.[cool]
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[addicted2fishin]

Thanks! Personally, I find it quite annoying when people post very vague posts about their fishing success. Even more so when they are bragging about catching some huge number of fish. These boards are about helping each other out. If you can't help out, then what's the point of posting??

Now I just need to find McGuyver so I can figure out how to mount the downriggers and go back after the kokes!
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[TheScout]

Awesome job! We were up there Friday and Saturday and I never even took the boat off the trailer because of the wind...guess I should have. What kind of boat do you have? I might have an idea for your downriggers.
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[Blackellunge]

awesome report, good to hear someone gettin fish without downriggers - those are in my future ,my wife just doesn't know it yet . []
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[flygoddess]

[quote addicted2fishin]Thanks! Personally, I find it quite annoying when people post very vague posts about their fishing success. Even more so when they are bragging about catching some huge number of fish. These boards are about helping each other out. If you can't help out, then what's the point of posting??
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Refreshing for sure!
I have some friends that dock their boat up there and they said it was ridiculous windy. Thanks for braving it ..[]
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[lavaman]

I completely agree about that four-letter word: wind. I was there with my buddy on Friday and Saturday and that wind was brutal. Sounds like you had more luck than we had, as we only caught a few Cutts...all released.The biggest were about 18". We were long-lining it also, with various lures since we had no down-riggers. We mostly fished that channel (trying to get out of that wind, but failing).

With that choppy water, I'm surprised there were that many boats out. But, it was a weekend so I'm not too surprised.

I'd like to get back and try it again.
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[Island20]

Good to hear you found some fish. I don't like windy days either. When it gets that windy I have learned not to try and fight it but I have learned to make it work for me. I will run up wind and set out my lines and just let the wind blow me around. saves gas and much frustration. If the wind is pushing you to fast toss out a 5 gal bucket on a line for more drag.
Good luck getting your down riggers mounted I would Like to help.
If you live in the Ogden area shoot me a PM.
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[addicted2fishin]

Thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I'm clear out in Stansbury Park, so a long drive from Ogden.

Many boats are quite easy to mount a downrigger. Unfortunately mine doesn't have a lot of room along the sides or back to mount it. There is a small area just in front of where you step in on the side that might work, but that's quite a bit further forward than I would prefer. There are teak rail pieces that go along the back, and part way up the two sides from the back. I may have to remove those to find a good place. I also can't have it hanging over the inside because the canopy stores along the inside of the boat and it would block that from lifting up when I need it. The downriggers I have do have the gunnel (?) mounts so if there were a good place to put those type of angled holders in place that would be perfect. I just can't see where I might do that or how I would reinforce it enough to handle the stress from the downriggers, especially if I snag on bottom somewhere.
I've also thought of figuring out a way to just put some kind of framework into the back of the boat that would be removable that could hold them when I want to use them, and remove it when we want to play on the boat. Something that could somehow bolt to the floor and possibly sides and held in place with wingnuts or something like that.
Basically, I need to put on my McGuyver and figure it all out.
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[bigfish6]

My dad just mounted a bigger piece of 2 by 8 and then mounted the downrigger to that, its really sturdy even in the waves and weve been using that method for years with no problems.
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[addicted2fishin]

That's basically what I was thinking, though a little more elaborate. The problem is there really isn't anywhere I could permanently mount it without blocking my canopy unless it was completely within the inside of the boat, and then there isn't anything to mount it to, and the boom isn't long enough to reach the cable out past the side of the boat far enough.
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[PACMEN]

I do this also, accept tossing in one or two drift socs to control and tame the drift and wind a bit.
Socs seem to work better for us.
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