Lincoln Beach foursome 9-23-05

Float Tube Fishing Float Tubing General
1

:sunglasses:**TubeBabe and I drove up to the launch area about 6:15 AM and Fairwayphilly and Fishhound arrived about 10 minutes later. The tubin’ duo launched first and were already outside the channel when Philly arrived at the rock pile at the mouth of the channel. **

Within a couple of minutes, he went bendo and rassled in a hefty walleye that pulled his scales to about the 10 pound mark. Never knew he could yodel so good.

Looked like the start of a bananner day. Nope. That was his only walleye, although he did score some whities later.

TubeBabe got a white bass a few minutes after Phill’s walleye. Then I got a white bass. Yeah, we was gonna put a whuppin’ on 'em. NOT.

**Fishhound was last to launch and worked around the area as we all were, trying to find some willing fishies. We found lots of marks on sonar, but they all had their little mouths closed. A few tugs that pulled down the plastic grubs from the jigheads, but no solid takers. **

I did have one hefty walleye grab my jig about ten feet away from my tube, just as I was getting ready to finish reeling in to make another cast. My rod was up high and I did not have a chance to set the hook good. A couple of hefty chugs, a big roll and splash on the surface and he was gone. But, I still had hope…for naught.

About 10:30 I began casting around the outlet of the 2nd spring. I got a hard whack, a solid hookset and several yards of line screamed off my light reel. I knowed right away twern’t no walleye. But, I didn’t care. It was abusin’ me real good.

Turned out to be the first of 4 nice cats from a small area. That first one took plastic, but I couldn’t get any more hits on it. So, I rigged up with one of my new experimental “Bobber Head” jigs, under a float, and pinned on a half minnow. A few minutes later, the bobber went under and I pulled back, only to feel a brief bit of weight and then nothing. When I brought in the baited jighead, the hook had worked around inside the bait and caused it to fail to hookup.

**I repositioned the bait, squirted on some shad oil and lobbed it back out in the same area. Within a couple of minutes, the bobber dove again. Only this time, there was some good weight when I set the hook. I landed two channels on my new setup. Then, no more hits. **

I finally worked out into deeper water and started dragging around a whole chub minnow without any weight…hoping for a walleye, a cat, a whitie…anything. I got a pickup and a runner and when I set the hook it turned out to be the biggest of the four I caught…and the last.

Back at the cleaning station, two of my cats were 22" and 2 were 23". They weighed 4.1, 4.3, 4.7 and 5.0 pounds. No walleyes today, but I’m still grinnin. Those puppies (kitties) were lots of fun on my med light rods, light reels and 6 pound line.

Poor TubeBabe. It seems that whenever she starts out early, by catching a white bass, it jinxes her for the day. Her first fish, at 7:10 AM was her only one for the day. (Okay, scorekeepers, TubeDude was top rod for this trip)

I think Fishhound failed to put fish slime on his craft today altogether. That’s okay though, he was mumbling all day about that big cat he caught down there yesterday. I am sure he was merely practicing conservation and leaving some fish for next time, since he still has some leftover fillets from the biggun.

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Great report pat! Its good to see some nice size kitties still biting.Also that was a nice walleye.Gonna give it a try saturday morning probably try one of the springs or “L” first. I am curious would toons be cheaper to buy in the winter? I am gonna invest in one later this year. Also sam wants one too so she can go with me and she knows how to swim!She has been begging for one for a long time .So now that she is older i guess we are gonna be tubing .

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:sunglasses:There are a lot of specials during the winter, if you keep your eyes open and a few dollars tucked away for a fast move.

**Shoot me a PM and I can offer some ideas for you. **

**One thing I might throw out for general comment and opinions is that you might be better for both of you to start with tubes, to get used to the basic concepts. Sam will be able to handle a tube, but I doubt if she could function with a toon yet. **

There is almost always someone on the board “upgrading” or selling off a tube they no longer use. Getting a good “gently used” craft can save money that you can use when you decide that a pontoon works better for you.

Knowing the kind of fishing you like, I can’t see where you really need much more than a little floatation to get you out to different spots, or to allow you to fish in areas that are not overcrowded. In most cases that does not require oar power, and the lighter weight and smaller size of tubes make them much easier to transport too.

Give me a shout if you ever wanna try a tube. I can meet up with you and put you afloat for a test drive. Just gotta warn ya that you will never be happy “bankin’” again.

4

Karma finally got even with this old boy today. Last fall, just about this time I had the biggest walleye of my life come right up between my legs, dangleing periously close to the end of my net before one big head shake out comes the jig and he was gone. Could have passed for this ones twin. My day was made 15 minutes into the trip when I stuck the biggest walleye of my life. Official score 29.5" and 9lbs 10oz. About ever 20 minutes I would look over the side and pull him to the surface and get a big old texas grin.
Did manage to fish a little more after the biggun. Not much to speak of, the occational tap tap, but nothing mentionable until about noon when I started graphing tons of fish moving along a drop off. Every other cast or so I would get a light tap, kept switching up colors until I hit the right one, then the whitties were on. Almost every cast for 5 minutes or so. Landed two 3 or 4 LDRs and several other hard hits. Then they just turned off, maybe could have done a little more damage had I found their color earlier, but oh well, I still had biggy leashed up and riding shot gun. A few white bass weren’t going to make or break this trip.

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:sunglasses:Very cool, Phil! I hope we get into some 'eyes tomorrow. Since my biggest (and only) is 20 inches, I just hope I get a 21 incher for right now. A few whities and a kittie would be cool too. We’ll see. Good luck on your next trip out!

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nice day… where did the big girl come from?

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:sunglasses:About 7’ of water just out from the rockpile at the mouth of the old launch area.

We all took shots at that outside spot, and we found a lot of white bass but few that wanted to play. No walleye whacks out there, but I did have one on at the mouth of the L.

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its starting!!! out ther is where chuckster caught his two.

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:sunglasses:Mike and I went out this morning. Weather sucked. It was way too windy to launch when we got to the channel at 6:45 or so, so we walked around the other side of the channel and mike got his bait rig in the water first. Less than 5 minutes later, he had the first fish on while I was still rigging up my bait rig. He strong fish didn’t learn very well that it was supposed to cooperate, so into the snag bushes she went, and mike didn’t get here out for like 15 minutes. I was over pumping up my tube to try to get out there and help unsnag her. Mike got here out, and it was a 4.5 pound female channel cat. I was thinking “hot diggity dog, today is going to rock, even though it’s too windy for tubing.” Boy was I wrong. That fish all snagged up and thrashing around must have scared all of her friends off, because that was the only fish we got all day.

Mike and I both had a few hits on jigs, but no cigars (probably little whities). At about 10:30 or so, it finally got calm enough to launch our tubes (but it still wasn’t calm) so we launched in the channel and fished around in there and out towards the rock pile, but neither of us got any fish, and at 11:30 or so we both had to get off the pond to go do other things.

Catching sucked, and so did the conditions, but it beat sitting on our butts at home.

Hope I can get back out there again soon (on a good weather day). Water temp in the channel was 67 on down to 63 as we left the channel towards the rock pile.

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How big is that lake? White bass, are they about ten inches long with stripes on their sides? Lots of walleyes in that lake? What other fish in that lake? I remember catching white bass in Wisconsin on Mepps spiners, they were so many and every cast caught one. Wow on the big walleye! Bet ya made a special night to dine on it.

11

Bluegillman,

Utah Lake is over 96000 acres. Yep white bass get to about ten inches long with stripes on thier side. There is a good population of walleyes, white bass, channell and mud cats, crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass, carp, and several endangered species. There is also the occasional trout that will come out of the big pond. And probably some other species of fish that I have not caught out of it.

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Practicing conservation ? You way too kind ! Unless that’s how you say “half asleep at the wheel” or semi-delerious. No, I’m afraid it was a series of comedic errors on my part and trying for the wrong fish in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was stupid and forgot my light and couldn’t see in the dark, so I had to go with what I had set up on my rods the day before and it was apparently all wrong. Oh well, I had originally intended to catch some white bass and walleye - I already had catfish fillets in the fridge from the day before.

I started out with one rod rigged with a walleye crawler/minnow spinner just off the bottom trooling set-up in chartruese, another rod with a float and tiny hook for white bass, and the last rod had just a trolling black head roadrunner with a white grub and chartruese tail.

Like everyone else, I was marking lots of fish and got a few inquiries but no real serious takers. After seeing FairwayPhilly’s monster walleye(and that hugh grin he was sporting when he waved it at me), I had enough light to change everything to walleye rigs - and went for it trolling. All I got for my effort were a lot of bottom snag bent rods, ruined hooks and a forced cut off that I couldn’t get unsnagged - lost a good walleye rig.

About 3/4 of the way through the day TubeDude, gave me a few of his home growed float jigs and I finnally gave up and tried for some catfish. But by that time, I think the catfish bite had dwindled to nothing already. Anyway, right after rigging up with one of his jigs, I got the worst snag of the day and bent the nice hook on it straight as a sewing needle and went back to looking for a white bass to play. Didn’t happen though.

Oh well, I still had a great day on the water and vicariously enjoyed hearing of everyone else’s successes over the radio.

P.S. FairwayPhilly, Sorry I feel asleep on the way home and wasn’t much conversation. I only had about 2 hours of sleep the night before. That was a great fish you got - I’m glad the pictures turned out OK.

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Wow, lots of acres! The one I go to looks like a bathtub! It has about 200 little ponds from 1/4 acres to 30 acres. Those bass boater with upwards 150 hp would get in and it would look so silly, but they aren’t allow to power it up only electic motors only. Almost all the other ponds are walk in so that is really nice fishing. There are four power house cooling lakes and they are big at 2000 acres but they don’t allow tubers or canoeist. You got to have a working outboard in case the wind picks up and that lake does get real rough as most of it is pretty shallow at maybe six feet.

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Hey Fairway what were you using when you caught that hog?

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:sunglasses:Hey Scott, welcome to “the dark side”. Phill doesn’t drop in too often, so I will answer for him until he checks in.

**We were all throwing different plastics. He got the big fish right at 7 AM, in about 7 feet of water, in a channel between two rock ledges. It hit a 5" plastic…junebug top with chartreuse tail. **

Through the morning we went through all the standard colors…purple and chartreuse, black and chartreuse, white and chartreuse, white and orange, etc. I also tried solid colors, such as white, chartreuse, black and purple. We fished from very shallow out to about 10 feet. We saw lots of fish on our sonar, but even the white bass were not very active. Some days they hit and some days they don’t.

The water levels are dropping enough that you can park and wade around to the ledges off the L now. Of course, as you know, you need to know the bottom contour and wade carefully to avoid going swimming.

Good luck.

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The water levels are dropping enough that you can park and wade around to the ledges off the L now. Of course, as you know, you need to know the bottom contour and wade carefully to avoid going swimming.

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Funny story that took place a year ago last Spring while in the tubes.

It was May as I recall and 3M and I were setting dead still on the hump about 40-50 yards out from rock pile on the west side of the channel and counting the kitties in the basket. There had been an aluminum bass chaser boater buzzing the area a couple times earlier that morning and just as we got ready to leave here it comes again. Apparently the driver thought he was going to pull a fast one and rattle our chains by high speeding it between us and the shore line.. Well all of sudden all sorts of sweet grinding sounds could be heard as the boat slid arcoss the humps that were still hinden under the surfice of the water. They came to a stop (very suddenly of course) and so 3M and I stood up. The water where we were setting wasnt even knee deep and they’d tried to pass between us and the shore line another 20 yards closer to shore. Needless to say the boat driver had a completely stupid look on face after we’d stood up. It was sweety!

**Whats more as you say Pat, its best to be very careful in that area. Some of it drops off VERY fast. I’ve seem many a walker fill the waders along those shore lines over the years.. There are several guick drop pockets out there.. **

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:sunglasses:I hate to admit it, but I have taken some cold early spring water over the tops of my waders a few times when I used to do more wading down there. What is really embarassing is when you are taking a new fishing buddy out and telling them to be careful and then you step off into a hole.

Your story of the boater reminds me of a similar episode on Lake Pleasant, down in Arizona. Same situation. I was tubing quite a ways from shore, fishing a hump that was almost exposed as the lake was dropping. The lake rangers had not yet put a buoy on it. Some wacko jacko in a tricked out bass boat came roaring across my casting zone at full throttle…as they love to do to float tubers. As in your story, he smacked into the highest rock pile on the hump and his boat went airborne…with the transom and motor still attached to the rock pile. Fortunately (for the boater) he launched free from the boat rather than slamming against the steering wheel. He sustained some pretty good damage but he lived.

Can’t say the same for a couple of guys in Powell that we found after their bass boat hit an unmarked rock. They were both cut in half. We were fishing a tournament and they blasted off and got ahead of everybody else in their higher powered boat. The rest of us all came around a bend and found them. Kinda put a damper on the tournament.

Yep. It pays to know the contours whether you are wading, boating or tubing. And a little bit of caution can save some serious discomfort and embarassment…or worse.

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Hey skot, TD hit it on the head. Junebug W/ chartruese tail. More like 4" though not 5. Single rig. Threw a tandem rig also for a while, nothing but whitties on that though. Fished that same area with the same rig for the next half hour and not even another bite.

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Damn nice eye phil! Fat compared to the ones I have pulled out of UL this year, guess the carp minnows are helping to provide some big uns this latter part of the year.

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:sunglasses:Hey Craig, how was Willard? Was it windy up there too, or did it stay away from you?