Not sure whether Monday the 13th is luckier than Friday the 13th. But it was TDH and NBC…too %$#@ hot and nothing but cats.
Met up with fellow tuber Lee at the south marina of Willard Bay. Launched by 6:30 am. Air temp 66 and water temp 76. Fairly good clarity in the water. A bit of a chop on the water from a lingering NW breeze until late morning. Got a little bouncy at times and we even had one brief session of rain drops.
I was rigged with some small cranks and started with those…using the electric motor to cruise around looking for schools of young shad and accompanying predators. Found neither and my washed lures went unmolested. Also trolled them all the way back in about 11:00 and had a couple of light bumps…probably silly crappies or something.
**About 7:30 I switched rigs and started dragging some snarl flig rigs baited with Gulp minnows, real minnows or crawlers. Promptly got my first kitty on a white snarl with a white gulp minnow. Then got two more cats on “perple purch” color snarl rigs with small chub minnows for bait. **
Between 8:00 and 10:30 I covered a lot of water from 10’ deep out to 21’ deep. Saw very few fish on sonar but did pick up several more cats…mostly in water from 13 – 15 feet deep. Kept 6 for a two family fish fry coming up. Only caught one cat on a crawler harness rig. The rest were mostly on minnow tipped snarl rigs…of several different colors. The bait seemed to be more important than the color.
Lee had his best day of the last several trips to Willard. As I recall he released a half dozen standard Willard cookie cutter kitties. But he also brought to net his first ever Willard Bay wiper. Wasn’t big by Willard standards…but it would have been a whopper white bass at Utah Lake. See the picture.
Thanks for sharing. I hit Rockport on Friday afternoon with my daughter. It was a skunk for is as well. Camera showed plenty of perch on the bottom in 38 ft of water but they wanted nothing to do with what I had to offer! They would just watch it and stare then slowly swim away uninterested. Weather was beautiful though and elk were everywhere. Fun to be out but catching was non existent!
I hit Willard this morning before sunrise. I wanted to venture out past the exposed island near the north marina, but after walking out I decided against that. I headed then towards the area near the buoys out of the marina. As a previous post stated, I wouldn’t walk out from the boat ramp. I ran into another BFT guy, I think he said joatmon? I am bad at names. Brett was his real name. He said he got one 12-inch perch. I got a stinky skunk. I did mark one fish come for my offering off of the bottom, but he would commit. I also marked fish higher in the water column that would not budge on anything. We home to take a nap because I had picked up a night shift at my “regular” job. After my nap, I decided to try Rockport. I would mark the occasional trout here and there. I was looking for perch. I found fish in 17 ft up to 28 ft of water that looked perch-like. Several interested fish would come up to my offerings with no desire to eat. I got one solo hit. 28 ft of water on a small tungsten jig, with a clam silke trailer. Two skunks, I’ll take anything as my trips are too few and far between. Edges were fine on both locations where I accessed the lakes.
Gabe
