The PWC launch area on Jordanelle is usually pretty good for perch and smallies this time of year. We hadn’t tried it yet this year so TubeBabe and I met up with LloydE this morning for a perch search. The weather was iffy, but we figured we could get in enough effort to see whether the fish were there yet.
**Air temp 60 and water temp 71 at launch. Lotsa clouds and a fairly serious southeast breeze as we kicked out to find the fishies. Didn’t see ANYTHING on sonar in the usual places…12-15 feet of water. Tried throwing a small firetiger spinner and did catch a couple of stray smallettes (little smallmouths). Nothing dragging bait or bottom bouncing with assorted jigs, even when I moved out into deeper water. **
TubeBabe announced that she had caught a big chub…and then finally a small smallmouth. Lloyd managed a couple of chubs and a micro smallie. I caught a couple of chubs too. One looked like a big brownie had been nibbling on him. Scales scraped off the sides and an open sore on his belly. Maybe some bucket bozo planted tiger muskies in Lake X.
**If the breeze had let up, as it normally does, I would have kicked over to the quarry to check for action over there. But, it seemed to be getting stronger and moving to come in more from the south. I opted to kick to the east of the launch ramp and fish off the gravel shoreline. Lloyd followed, but TubeBabe headed west to the shoreline with all the flooded trees. **
I kept catching the occasional dinker smallie and then got on one hump that had some bigger fish. Got 13, 14, and 16 inchers fairly close together before moving off the spot. Probably caught about 10 smallies while prospecting for perch. Didn’t catch a single perch all morning. No married ones either.
Worked out into deeper water, and when I reached about 35 feet the trout started whacking my little pale perch jigs. Ended up catching 4 rainbows up to 17 inches, and lost a couple of others. Lloyd got one or two and lost a couple of hefty ones. TubeBabe went out into deeper water when I clued her in and she also got a couple of bows before the south “zephyr” picked up.
Out4AFloat had joined us in his tube a while after we launched. He worked all around us and then kicked east toward the sunken island. He did not have a walkie talkie and we could not watch him, so we don’t know how he did. But, about 9:30 he kicked into shore, a long way from the launch ramp, walked back to get his car and left before we did. He will have to fill in the details.
We got raindrops a couple of times earlier, but about 10 AM some rain started blowing in hard from the south and the water got bumpy. Lloyd, TubeBabe and I all decided that we didn’t need much more bouncing and hard kicking so we hit the ramp and left early.
DAYBREAK RIPPLE.jpg (155 KB)
MORNING WARNING.jpg (152 KB)
SMALLETTE ON SPINNER.jpg (161 KB)
TENNER.jpg (172 KB)
ANUDDER DINKER.jpg (222 KB)
NOT QUITE 20 INCHES.jpg (182 KB)
SWEET SIXTEEN.jpg (164 KB)
OUT4AFLOAT.jpg (260 KB)
LLOYD AJIGGIN.jpg (198 KB)
ROADRUNNER RAINBOW.jpg (222 KB)
JIG-A-BOW.jpg (193 KB)
17 INCH SLIMER.jpg (235 KB)
SOUTH BREEZE BOUNCE.jpg (224 KB)
10 AM INCOMING.jpg (143 KB)
TUBEBABE’S TROUTSKIS.jpg (227 KB)