"And, as our surveys show, the regulations are working," said Ward. "We saw it here in the gill nets. We caught only five year-old chubs where we used to catch 40 and 50. There was even a reduction in adult chubs. What we've found is a 22-inch cutthroat will take a fish up to 8 inches."

Unfortunately, the cutthroat trout are unable to distinguish between so-called trash fish or chubs, and game fish, which in this case are smaller rainbow and cutthroats.

"That was the most alarming thing we found. We saw a low number of smaller game fish. We're not seeing the fish we stocked this year," he explained. "We're concerned they're getting eaten by the large cutthroat, especially the young rainbow. They're even hitting the smaller cutts. We're hoping some of the smaller fish will show up in our fall survey."

The fact is, the smaller rainbow and cutthroat trout have been on the decline for the past couple of years, which can be linked to the increase in more and larger cutthroat.

"The larger cutthroat have no trouble eating an 8-inch fish — chub, rainbow or cutthroat. When they reach 8 inches we see higher survival. They're larger, but they're also smarter and know how to avoid being eaten," said Robinson.

All this has brought about a change in planting philosophies.

The plan is that by next year all of the fish — rainbow and cutthroat — planted in Strawberry will be 8 inches long or larger. The goal is to plant 600,000 fish next year, which Ward said would add up to double the pounds planted this year.

But because the fish are larger, it means fewer will be stocked.

"The upside is that survival will be higher, so in the end there will be more fish to catch," he said.

Growing the larger fish will be possible because of increased capabilities at the Whiterocks hatchery, where work is nearly complete on a renovation project, and increased capabilities at the Midway hatchery, which was closed in 2000 after whirling disease was discovered.

Previously, cutthroat planted in Strawberry in the spring were between 6 and 7 inches, and those planted in the fall were 4 to 5 inches.

New predictions are that there are more than 200,000 cutthroat larger than 20 inches in Strawberry. There were years in the mid-1990s where modeling projected there were fewer than 500 of the larger fish in the lake

Reports from Strawberry indicated that anglers are catching some large cutthroat. Best fishing has been early, then slowing in the afternoon. One fisherman reported catching 11 nice cutthroat before 10 a.m. and only catching one between 10 a.m. and noon.

Good lures to try are Lucky Craft minnow, baby rainbow minnow and chartreuse shad.

Mayfly hatches have started around the shallow bays, such as Indian Creek and Strawberry Bay, which has resulted in some good dry-fly fishing. Damsel fly hatches are expected to start soon.

All things considered, Strawberry Reservoir has the fish needed to keep it No. 1 on the angler's charts. Current regulation and a change in planting policies promise to make fishing even better in the future.

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