During the C.A.S.T. (Catch a Special Thrill) event held on Strawberry this past Saturday, I had the opportunity to take a look at the chub population in the Soldier Creek portion -- and the picture wasn't a pretty one.

"We've been catching fish right and left," said George Sommer, current president of the TBF Bass Federation, "but all we've caught are adult chubs."

It was a fact that the area Sommer and his C.A.S.T. participants were fishing showed a water column littered with adult chubs, that swarmed each bait as it fell towards the bottom.

"We thought the cuts (cutthroats) would be biting," continued Sommer, "but we can't seem to get through all the chubs."

The same story was repeated several times Saturday. Each time I approached a boat, my fish finder came alive with schools of chubs, which were confirmed as I moved slowly through the shallows so that the chubs became visible to the naked eye.

The other disquieting aspect to seeing all the chubs was the stark absence of large cutthroat trout. I tried throwing jerkbaits for over an hour without seeing a fish, before moving over to the Strawberry side of the lake and immediately finding fish. Normally, even though a fish might not bite a jerkbait, they will follow the bait, swirl around it or at very least view the bait from a safe distance.

So what's the problemfi

That's a good question for fisheries managers who have insisted that Strawberry is holding its own with chub populations since introducing the Bear Lake cutthroat and decimating the rainbow population in the reservoir. But most people with an eye for such things have noticed that the area immediately around the launch ramp at Soldier Creek marina has been choked recently with four-inch chubs, along with the normal run of red-sided shiners.

If you want to catch trout and avoid the chubs altogether, you may be forced to switch from bait to lures. Though chubs have been known to hit a jerkbait every now and again, they generally do not. Next, you should most likely spend your time at Soldier Creek away from the bank in deeper water so that you'll target schools of cutthroats instead of being stuck next to the bank with more chubs than one cares to deal with.

In my opinion, fisheries managers have a real challenge on their hand on the Soldier Creek side of Strawberry. Each year I see more and more chubs and find fewer and fewer trout. I sincerely hope this is an anomaly and not a trend, but I somehow doubt that it is.

Don Allphin can be reached at remaxdoa@gmail.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C2.