Been quite awhile since I posted here. I’ve been hitting Willard from the south marina about once a week since late April. Total of 8 trips so far. First 5 trips were goose egg skunks. Then trip 6,7,8 have boated at least 1 Catfish.
My son came up from Sunnyside Tuesday for a visit. He hadn’t been out in the boat with me for more than a year. So we got on Willard at 8 a.m. yesterday (Wednesday) We dropped our trolling lines over just north-west of the south marina bouy line heading toward the west wall at a slight agle. Running at 2.2 to 2.5 mph pulling cranks. Mine was a Fire Tiger lipped crank, think his first one was a Silver/Black rat-l-trap. Less than 20 minutes on the water I got a hard hit and run on my line. Medium size Wiper, released. Less than 11 minutes later a second hit, another Wiper, a bit smaller also released. Son changed over to a Fire Tiger and we turned and trolled back thru area of first 2 hits, nada. Ran almost all the way to the west wall, nada, reversed course towards feed lot area, nada trolling. Switched over to drifting with shrimp. Had several hard hits and bait strips till son got one Cat to stay hooked. Also released. Good thing we released everything, south marina cleaning station was bagged up, closed for some reason. Was a nice day on the water and at least no skunks.
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(08) 4 Jun 2025 — Postimages)
Glad you were able to get out with your Son and have some success Forest. By the way, I’m not familiar with Sunnyside, is that in Utah? We too have noticed the cat numbers are down this year, hopefully, it is just that they are so well feed, they don’t want anything else.
Good to read your reports again, Forest.
It’s sad about that south cleaning station. That’s one reason why I much prefer launching from the north. For some reason, there are fewer morons using that one. When I got there on Thursday with my four walleye, there were two guys cleaning wipers - with the grinder already running.
New member here. Long time lurker. I’m the guy with the big hat in the orange kayak you might see sometimes. Especially on jordanelle and deer creek where I fish the most.
Wednesday at Willard was baby wipe city for me. Caught a dozen off pelican beach down to freeway bay, all 16” and under on crawler rigs trolled fast (1.8-2). Only caught one walleye, and a 13” perch. Surprisingly no action on #7 flicker shad in gold and white. Around 10am switched back to bottom bouncers and slowed down and caught a half dozen cats before calling it a day.
Yes, I have seen the North cleaning station stuffed tight with protruding fish, so there’s no moron shortage there, either. If that’s true about the full holding tanks, it’s one more strike against the park people.
