Spent a couple of hours on willard today. Always remember when using the NWS for a forcast, multiply their wind for the next day by at least 3 
. Fishing was slow as expected for this time of year but did manage to squeak out one walleye and one catfish. I missed 3 slow tuggy walleye bites within 20 minutes of catching the first, but lost the school fighting the wind. All fish came out of the southwest corner in 17 ft of water. I used a macks smiley on a bottom bouncer harness at .4 to .6 mph. Water temp was 45.6 and the lake looks to have only dropped about 3ft. Nothing that looked like wiper hits on the sonar for you wiper guys, theyre probably piling up on the north dike like they did last year before ice on. The south marina is still open and i encourage everyone to use it so we have it next winter also[;)].
Still gettin it done, nice job Mike. I am planning on fishing the bay this winter for sure. I will finally get some use out of my yearly park pass. IT has been a slow fishing year for me. I hope it changes this winter.[unimpressed]
Let me know when you are going. I plan on using my one of my HDS units as my ice finder. I have a ton a structure saved on them that I found with the structure scan that has produced all year. With a four wheeler they would be easy to bounce to. Would sure beat drilling random holes all over the place.
I was on Willard Nov 5 and saw a ton of fish on the northwest corner hanging about 20 ft. I could not get anything to bite.
I plan on going tomorrow in the am if it isnât too windy, as I plan to be in the tube. Hoping it will be calm enough early to get in some fishing. Planning on hitting the north marina.
Last year in December (like 2 days before unlaunchable ice) I was searching with the sonar on the north end and seen what looked like fuzz right on the bottom with HUGE schools of fish just on the out side of it. I watched this for about 1/2 a mile before curiosity got the best of me. I got out my underwater camera out and found out the âfuzzâ was thousands and thousands of shad within a foot of the bottom! And the schools of fish⌠you guessed it, wipers. These were, and so far have been the largest single concentration of fish I have seen at any lake in Utah. I think close to every wiper in the lake was there(it seemed).
I thought I had hit the late season motherload. Wrong. I dropped just about every jig I had in the boat at em. I anchored right over the top of the school and using the camera and fishing right under the transducer tried every vertical technique I know. Lots of looks, no takers. One of the most frustrating days I have ever had⌠EVER!
That area is always the first to ice off in the spring, which leads me to believe there is some sort of current over there that brings food to the shad. But after seeing 10 inches of ice in the marina with the channel ice free with a visible flow, I will never trust the ice from the mouth of the marina out and along the north dike.
Thats why I personaly wont take a wheeler out of the north marina this year or attempt to fish for em over there.
Even though you didnât get them to bite. It still has too be pretty cool to watch fish that thick on the camera and sonar.