Strawberry Shore Rig

Strawberry is the best trout water in the state and most of it is fishable from the bank. Miles of shoreline, fish that cruise the shallows morning and evening, and no boat required. What it asks of you is patience and a rig that puts bait where a trout will find it — which, on a bottom made of silt and weed, means getting the bait up off it.

That's the whole design here. A slip egg sinker rides down to a barrel swivel; the swivel stops the weight and keeps your leader from twisting. Below it runs six-pound fluorocarbon to a single baitholder hook, and both baits in this rig float. The sinker holds bottom, the bait rides above it, and the longer you run the leader the higher it sits. The sliding sinker is the other half of it: a fish can pick the bait up and move off without feeling any weight at all, which is what gets you a clean take instead of a dropped bait. Fluorocarbon on the business end because Strawberry runs clear and a trout there has seen a lot of line.

Two baits, and they cover opposite conditions. The Gulp crawler is the natural one — segmented, pinched, moving on both ends in any current — for clear water and fish that have been picked at all summer. The pink shrimp mallow is the loud one, for stained water after a blow, flat grey light, or the last half hour of evening.

Stop and buy a container of nightcrawlers on the way up. It's the one thing that isn't in this box and it's the difference-maker. The marshmallow's job is buoyancy and color; a worm's job is being food. Thread the mallow up the shank first, then hook a piece of nightcrawler behind it so the worm trails and works in the current. The mallow lifts the whole thing off the bottom and gives a fish something to find; the worm is what convinces it. That combination is the oldest trout presentation in this state and it still beats almost everything else on a slow morning. Keep the Gulp crawler for the trip you didn't stop for worms, or for when the water is clear enough that a fish gets a long look — it doesn't die in a hot truck, and it's still good in October.

Now the part that matters most at Strawberry, and it's the reason this rig uses a single hook. Every cutthroat between 15 and 22 inches has to be released, and the rulebook counts any trout with cutthroat characteristics as a cutthroat — so you will be letting fish go, whether you planned to or not. A scented bait on a treble gets swallowed, and a fish hooked in the throat or the gills doesn't survive being unhooked no matter how careful you are. A single baitholder sets in the corner of the jaw, backs out with one twist, and the fish swims off. That's not a preference. On this water it's the difference between following the rule and just appearing to.

Before you go: the limit is 4 trout or kokanee combined, no more than 2 of them cutthroat under 15 inches and no more than 1 over 22, and trout and salmon can't be filleted or have heads or tails removed in the field. Tributaries have their own rules. Check the current Utah Fishing Guidebook before you keep anything — these change.

Rig includes:

• Sufix 100% Fluorocarbon Invisiline Leader — 6 lb, 33 yd
• Egg Sinkers — 3/8 oz, 8 pc.
• Barrel Swivel — Black, Size 7
• Eagle Claw Baitholder Hook — Size 2
• Berkley Gulp! Floating Pinched Crawler 2" — Nightcrawler
• Atlas Mallows — Pink Shrimp