**Had a long overdue meetup with FatBiker this morning at the Willard north marina. Getting lighter later. Barely light as we got out of the marina about 7. Air temp 50 and water temp down to 63. But the water level was up a few inches from last week, thanks to the recent storm. And it was pretty clear too. Calm and looking good.
I started off with the usual…dragging a minnow on one rod and tossing plastic on the other. About my second cast…just past the green buoy…I got a thump on the fire tiger plastic and brought in a 20 inch walleye. I should say a 20 inch snake. As you can see in the pic, I could reach all the way around it with my fingers. Poor thing.
FB was throwing flies on one rod and dragging Gulp Minnows on the other. Neither of us had any love for the next hour…fishing shallow to deep and back again. Not much on sonar either. Saw one bait ball all day and very few larger fish.
A little after 8 I put up the larger plastic and switched to a tandem tube jig rig…hoping for maybe an early crappie..or another (healthier) walleye. Got a chomp on my first cast. After a couple of string zings and some bulldogging I rassled in a junior sized wiper.
Before leaving I had told TubeBabe my primary goal was to have a good time with FB and to maybe score a 4 species Willard slam. After the (skinny) walleye and the wiper that left catfish and crappie.
I scored two cats…22" and 19"…but nary a sniff from any other species. So I had to settle for a trifecta. Still, not bad, considering there was a nasty (skunk) smell coming from FB’s tube. He had missed a few bites…but no fish. At least a few inexperienced fish had made an attempt but were unable to hang on.
The weather was absolutely beautisimous, but the fishing sucked. And when neither of us had a sniff in over an hour, about 11 am we elected to make an early day of it. Nice guy that I am I tossed him my tow rope and let my electric motor pull us back to the ramp through the glassy water.
FB figured to do lunch with the Mrs. and then move around to his fave area on the west side of the lake for an afternoon matinee. I’m guessing he will report better treatment from the fishies after I got away from him.
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Hey, I caught a skinny one today too. Sad lookin’ cat. Almost 30 inches long and no bigger around the gut than my arm. Maybe some fishes are just poor fishers and can’t catch anything to eat.
It was a very clear calm day, almost tried to ice skate it was so smooth. Just not cold enough. I left tubedude and fatbiker about 9:00 moved down the dike , ended up working all the way to the west dike. Saw some fish but they had lock jaw. Went to south marine and located the new rock reefs and they did hold fish but no takers. Reefs look good, I think it will be helpful. Might try it if we get ice. I found that nasty skunk, he got me too. Better than working.
TD, I been trying to teach my bro (Fat Biker) how to catch a fish for years. I figure that if you were unable to do it, he must be a lost cause…
**Hey, that’s kinda harsh. He’s been doing great on flies over along the west dike. Probably took him a while to train those fish. What can you expect on his first fly-flinging trip around the north marina? Some of those fish are slow learners…just like some anglers.
**Not sure if you can see it in the picture but that fish also had an injury/deformity on one side of its body down toward the tail. That has to make it tough to chase fast prey…but not slow bouncing jigs.
Howsomever, some of the wipers and other walleyes being caught recently are not nearly as fat and healthy as normal for this time of year. And the small shad seem to be less populous. According to DWR surveys there are just not as many shad as usual. That should make the predators more catchable…if not skinnier.
On another note, saw another guy out in a Prangler today. But he slipped by a ways out and headed for the north dike. I figured that YOU would have come by for a howdy if’n that had been YOU.
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**All I can say is it’s a good thing the contest is based on inches and not weight. That ugly thang looks like he missed a few trips to the table during the spawn, and then afterward too.
I am sure the hit on the baby white bass has had a bad impact on other fish too. The same thing happened toward the end of the last drought, back in 2004. Here is a pic of a skinny walleye I caught at Lincoln Beach in those days.
Pat thanks for the trip this morning. While I wasn’t successful, it was still a great day and I picked up a couple of things watching you catch fish. After a wonderful lunch with LVT, I packed up and drove out west. The north end of the dike road is still really muddy so I stopped about a third of the way down the dike and hucked it over and started fishing. Wasn’t much better, but in three hours I did scare the skunk away. Caught a cookie cutter kitty on a gulp minnow and convinced a SMB to take my blue crystal bugger. Must have been a dumb one. Thanks again, we’ll have to make another trip before the snow flies.
Doitall, nice meeting you this morning. It’s always good to put a name with a boat. Sorry to hear about the skunk. Sure looked like i was due, but redeemed myself this afternoon. Unless your name is TD, skunks happen at Willard.
Hey Lynn, I saw you fishing this morning by the spring. I was going up to the Observatory on top of West Mountain. BYU sent me up to do a drywall repair. Stop by to chat about 10:30 but you had already vacated. Way to go on the 30"er. If I’m not mistaken I seen that same cat laying about up on the bank couple a weeks ago!
**Glad we could get together. Sorry the fish weren’t more welcoming around the north marina but good to hear you got rid of the stank on t’other side of the lake.
I’m guessing that if that perimeter road stays muddy it will be right back to the deeply rutted moonscape that keeps a lot of anglers from making that trip. You begin to realize how bad it is when you see only the tops of cars sticking up out of it.
Stay in touch. With both of us having 7 day weekends we should get together more often. Lots of good fishing left this fall.
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Too bad for the slow fishing… I was hoping for a good report for my trip coming up on Saturday. Well hopefully things go a little better then. Thanks for the report.
**Hopefully things will be better by Saturday. A few days of warming after a big storm usually gets the fish turned on again. But Tuesday we were all seeing a lot more (on sonar) than we were catching. A classic case of lockjaw.
Fishing is always good…even if the catching ain’t.
**The cooler weather has knocked down the flying snacks. Only a few midges. Didn’t see any skeeters. As long as the water remains above the 60 degree mark and daytime temps stay warm there will still be a few bugs. But nothing like the big clouds of early summer.
I would suggest you try the new rock Reefs at the South Marina I saw lots more fish on the sonar in that water. I don’t know if they will bite but did see lots more fish . I think there are no more bait fish left for food.
