Iffy weather again but looked doable for a quick morning shot. That was okay with me since I had to make a short day of it anyhooters.
Drove up to the ramp at Lindon in the dark. Well, not really dark. The lights shined into the water and it was alive with little white bass. Recognizing an opportunity to score some prime bait I rigged my ultralight with a couple of bitty jig heads tipped with a tiny bit of worm. Many doubles later I quit so that I could go put them to use. Only took out ten. Caught fish on every one of them.
**Water temp 70 at daybreak and about 3 degrees warmer at noon departure. **
I wanted to hit the bubbleup to see what was there. Hoped for some walleyes but with the 70 degree water I didnāt have much hope. Good thing. No walleyes were harmed on this trip.
No boats launched or motored by during the entire morning. Awwww-riiiiiiiight. My kinda conditions. It was really sorta lonesomeā¦but not lonely. The whities and the kitties kept me plenty of company.
There was a pretty good outflow from the bubbleup early but it slowed and dropped off to almost nothing before 9 am. After that there was still a barely discernible ripple on the surface near the buoys but not the heavy flow that brings in the fishies.
**Started out by tossing a tandem jig rig. Doubles were the rule rather than the exception. The whites were stacked up next to the flow and anything that came through got pounded. One would hit the first jig and then you could feel another one climbing on the loose second jig. Lost track of the doubles and forgetaboudit on the singles. At least a grundle and a half. **
As usual, I started working through my lure boxes, trying to find something they WOULDNāT hit. Couldnāt do it. Got them on all sizes, shapes and colors. They hit spinners. They hit crankbaits. They even hit the whole small white bass I was using to drag for walleye.
Speaking of the small white bass. I finally got around to dragging a minnow and promptly caught a decent cookie cutter kitty. Instead of rebaiting with another minnow, I sliced a small white bass a few times along the side and send it out with a big red hook in its nose. Fish pizza. I delivered and they bitā¦big time. Several cats and several larger white bass all snarfed up those little white bass like they hadnāt eaten anything in a week.
I was not really surprised to catch adult white bass on the bitty bass. But I was surprised to reel up another small whitie hanging on to the one I had rigged for bait. Not sure which was biggestā¦or what the second one had in mind. But it held on to the bait one until I started to lift it clear of the water.
The fish were still biting well when I cranked up my trolling motor and threw a roostertail (yeah, right) back to the harbor. I had planned to head back about noonish. I did stop inside the marina to pitch a few plastics and got some more whitiesā¦along with a lot of ārattle rattleā hits from the little ones.
I didnāt keep any cats today. And I only kept a few of the white bass. Needed some fillets to replace the stash I used up in a big pot of chowder for a family fish fry. I figured I should keep 25 to 30 and idly tossed one in the basket once in a while. I ended up with 28. Right in the middle.
Sometimes it is nice to have a bit of solitudeā¦or at least have a big lake to yourself. Works for me.
