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Hit the berry at 5:00 am this morning . After struggling with getting my ATV to start I decided to do it the old fashion way and hoof it to the hard water at the marina . Didn't trek very far and decided it was slightly colder than normal . Punch one hole close by the boat ramp and got set up . Which is quite the chore at sub zero temps . Finally got a line wet after setting up my new toy fishfinder . Water depth was 24' , forgot to get the temp but how cares at 5:00am in the morning . Fog present with a sliver of moon light trying to shine thru . Ok I get back to the fishing . Started getting bites right away . Finally got to see the fish come to my jig on the finder and see the hit . Almost as good as landing the fish .LOL Seen lots of fish in the area but only hooked 4 before I remember I forgot something in the truck . So I trek back to the truck and MGB was parked behind me getting ready . Told him they were biting and where I was stationed on the ice and trek back down . Got my line back in the water and got another one but it self released itself at the top of the hole while I was trying to get his jaw to open to grab . By the time MGB made it down , the cutts were thinning out some on the finder .So I decided to try my luck at getting the ATV started again so we could move out farther . After about a hour of fooling around with it I finally got the thing to run with a jump start from the marina , after running the battery down with the fuel line closed . *%@& . Bite had slowed way down by the time I got back to the hole so we moved to a new location and picked up a few more but it slowed down as the day progressed . I only landed 7 cutts , all in the slot . So it was nothing to brag about but I caught most of my fish on a jig I created the night before . I'm glad it caught fish . Wish I could of found the bows , but maybe next time . Heard a report that someone hauled in a 27" cutt today to the marina .That would of been nice to hook . Marina said it got to 10 below this morning . I was sporting a ice beard to prove it was chilly out this morning . Ice is thick at least 16" and about 4 to 8" of snow in areas on the ice .
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[size 4][font "Times New Roman"]I also was at the Berry today. We snowmobile over to the narrows and fishing the west shoreline. Out of three of us we pulled in between 7-9 fish each both Bows and Cutts all in the slot limit however one was 21 inches and 4 LBS caught by the guy I was with. However I’ll be posting some pictures of the 20 inches one I caught on the IFG challenge board. We didn’t get there till 9:00 and left at 3:00. My boy and the other guys kid 9 and 8 caught a few fish each.[/font] [/size]
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The best fishing was 5:00am-9:00am. I started fishing at 7:30 so it did'nt leave me much time to get into the fish like HA69. I missed my first three fish and did'nt land a fish untill about 10:00 and caught my second and last fish of the day at about 12:00.
HA69 ice beard looked freaky and cold but he was having a great time when I seen him in the morning.
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Thanks for the great report guys. Glad you could at least land a few. Hellsangler69, I've done that once before with my ATV....always look stoopid when that happens.[cool] Good luck next time you head out.
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I think I would of done better if I got away from the marina , but didn't venture out far with the ATV for fear it would stop running again . Fished Mackinaw Bay for the most part of the day . Looking forward to your post of your 20" fish .Was it a bow or cutt ?
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It makes me feel better to know I'm not the only one who does things like try to start an atv with the fuel off.
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LOL, trust me, Me being from California and an advid ATV rider and Dumont Dunes visitor. I have done it plenty lol. Just the excitment of wanting to get out there and one small detail can have ya cussing a strom in no time lol
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I forgot to share my ice fly I tied up to use at the Berry . I tied it on a Gamakatsu jig 90 heavy wire #60409-25 size 2 hook . It is a simple fly to tie and the trout seem to like it . I will have to try some more variations of it in other colors .
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I also hit the berry on saturday only I had plenty of projects to do in the morning so we didn't get out til about 3:30. It was a beautiful day for sure. Took 2 kids and they had a blast playing around and getting cold. My son was using the ice scooper to pick up snow and throw it and one time let go of the scooper and it came down on his forehead and covered his face in snow. Very shortly after that our fishing trip ended (do you all know that tears freeze.....[pirate]. I was crying too(very deep inside) because after a very slow 2 hours the bite had just finally started. We ended up catching 12 fish between 5 poles (2 were the kids and those poles sat around mostly). 1 bow and the rest slotters. We fished in 19-20 feet with everything ranging from paddlebugs, foxeys, and tube jigs all tipped with mealeys.
Bigcat
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I hit the Berry last Thursday and did well between 8:00-11:00. The weird thing was, I caught mostly rainbows. Of the 14 fish I caught, 9 were big healthy bows. I have never caught that many big ones before. the funny thing was my finder didn't see much schooling activity. Mostly just single fish that I would quickly real up or drop my line to. Thank goodness for fish finders. What a fun day.
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Thinkfish,
Where in Strawberry were you and what were you using? I would like to take some Scouts up there to have them experience what ice fishing is all about.
kastmaster
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I was pretty close to the marina. If you walk down the boat ramp and turn right and walk maybe 120 yards and fish in about 25-30 feet of water. The thing that helped me the most was being able to reel up to the fish as I saw him swimming by on the finder. I was using a large glow-in-the-dark jig with eyes, tipped with a meal worm and dipped in smelly jelly. I hope that helps. I hope those kids have a great time. By the way, you should think about taking them to Rockport for perch and bows. We did well there on Saturday in about 32 feet of water (out deep).
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Fishing was awesome until 9 a.m. then somebody hit the switch. It died completely. We started moving around, but nothing worked and everyone else started leaving. It was nice, because by 1-2 pm everyone was completely gone from the Bay except for the four of us and 2 other small groups. Fishing picked up strong again around 3 and was dead by 4:30. Overall, a fun trip on a beautiful day on the Berry. I think we pulled in 12 cuts and missed at least that many between the four of us. One went 20 1/2 with the rest being 17-19, all in the slot, etc. We fished 11-20 ft of water, with all the fish on the bottom and graphed just a few around 16-18 occasionally during the "good" times. We were using green, white foxees, plus a custom red/white hair jig. It outfished the foxees 2 to 1 and we all ended up using it. Time to tie some more! 