Ice Off at the Berry

So all during the week I have been reading reports about Strawberry Ice Off. This wouldn't really mean much, except for the fact that "Ice Off" is known as the best and most prized time to fish any lake, especially the Berry. Any true fishermen would go through withdralls if he knew that "Ice Off" was occuring and he couldn't make it to the lake. So lucky enough for me my work schedule allows me to work only half days on fridays. So with that in place I hit the ole berry patch today. My orginal plan was to wake up at 5:30am and hit the lake at first light. But since I don't ever set an alarm and use my own internal time clock. I went to bed at 11:30pm and woke up again at 12:45am thinking it was time to go. I guess that must have thrown me off cause I feel back to sleep and slept like a rock until I woke up at 6:45am and saw that it was light already. Dang! I thought, I grabbed some clothes and I was off to get the drift boat. But today my attitude was a little different than usaul. I was ok with taking my time and doing things a little slower than usaul. I guess I get that way when I go fishing solo. So I finally got to the Berry around 8:30am. It was an interesting ride up the canyon, considering the last time I drove up I blew the Jeep engine. This time I was very paranoide and drove nice and easy. I even turned down the radio a few times to be able to better hear the purr of the engine. Like that helped. So like most things in life if you have a problem or an obsitcle keep trying and you will overcome it sooner or later. That's what the Jeep did. It drove like a champ!

So back to the fishing. I lanched at Chicken Creek and right off the bat I saw a fish rise about 10 feet from shore so. I paddle over within 20 ft and I sharted casting to where I thought it would be. Three cast later. Wham!!! As I was stripping my black wolley bugger in a hungry cutty slamed my fly about 10 ft from the boat. It fought great and finally tired and came to my net. It was about 17-19 inches long. All I could think at that moment was "I love Ice Off, YES"

So with this instant success and the skunk off my back. I was ready to have a killer day. But as any fishermen who has been fishing for a while will know, that just cause the day started off fast doesn't mean the rest of the day is going to be fast. Thats just what happened to me. I fished hard for the next hour without even a nibble. I finally stopped trolling when the fish finder said there was a school of fish in 10 feet of water. As I stripped in the line BAM! another fish one. This time the cutt was a brillantly colored male about 21 inches long.

The last hour of the day was spent drifting around trying to find some active fish to no avail. Even though it wasn't the best "Ice Off" experience I have ever had. It was still one of them. I learned some new things today and got a chance to use my fish finder which I have never used on the drift boat. I'm glad I finally was able to go out and finally get the withdralls out of my system. I feel so much calmer now. Isn't it funny how that works or is it just me?