Willard...Tuesday tugs 10-28-14

Utah Fishing Reports & Discussion Utah Fishing General
1

**Call me an optimistic masochist…or whatever. Figured the water at Willard would be cold and still murky from the past blow. Figured right. Temp 53 and brownish.

Hoped for a walleye, some crappies or maybe a suicidal wiper. Got a bunch of everlovin’ cookie cutter kitties…and one chilly silly smallie.

Saw lots of suspended fish over the usual places that sure looked like crappies. But with the murky water they weren’t active at all. The only boat on the lake was pursuing crappies too…and he also felt those fish were lockjaw crappies. He didn’t get a bite. Bummer.

Did my usual routine of dragging around a minnow on one rod while pitching a whole arsenal of plastics on the other. Got quite a few whacks on the plastics and brought in a couple of small cats on the jigs. Also got molested by a teen incher smallie. S’prise.

Started out cold (30 degrees) at 7:30 but stayed calm and warmed up to one layer weather before I departed just after noon. Purty day.

I ended up catching about 10 or 11 kitties…keeping a limit of 8. For those who are into the details…I was using chub minnows…left handed, blue-eyed chub minnows. Got a lot more hits than I hooked. They were slow and tentative in the cold water. But they were hungry and they did come to play…even in the murky water. Gotta love those whiskery wascals.
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2

I’ll call you an optimistic madochist. As low and murky Willard has been I am surprised anything wanted to play.

3

Nice job Pat that’s a great haul with the temps being what they are. But then again they can’t resist those blue eyed wonder lures. Glad the smoker will get another batch. I expected you would have some walleye, maybe next time. Later J

4

**Actually the temps are getting down to where they need to be for “late fall” fishing. Once the weather calms down for a few days and the water clears the “schooling” fish…walleyes, perch, crappies…will start to move in to the humps and bumps and go on the chew again. Sight oriented fish just shut down when visibility drops to less than 1 foot. Those with sensitive lateral lines and a good sense of smell can make a living but it doesn’t get wide open until there is more green than brown in the water.

I will probably keep hitting Willard until the hard deck makes it too difficult to launch without an auger. I have caught some of my biggest fish of all species in the last weeks before iceup.

Here’s a pic from the olden days…when both cats and walleyes got bigger. Pic is one of each.

[inline “FALL FISHING ON WILLARD.JPG”]
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5

I expected you would have some walleye, maybe next time. Later J

Lot likely or at least with good numbers. Walleye numbers are down. I pulled gillnets with DWR Chris Penne on 10/14/2014 and only managed two walleyes out of the eight nets we pulled.[:/]

6

Nice fish, that cat was a whopper. Hope I can get out and find a few of your sight feeders before the big freeze. Got cold in Benson last night, had 20 deg F. Falls here now time to batten down the hatches and enjoy the mobility before I’m stuck to a hole. Thanks for the insight. Later J

7

Great job pulling that minner around for those game fish.

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Any idea what they typically get in that many nets? How were the other species doing? Thanks J

9

Olden days are right. Must have been prior to the invention of PVC and Graphite by the looks of it.

Great work on those kitties. Maybe some will want to play at UL on Thursday as well.

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Sir, I am the solo boater you met on Willard today. I don’t often visit this site, but when I do, I always look for your posts. It is obvious that you are interested in helping other fishermen. I tend to struggle on Willard this time of the year. Thank you for the fall Willard tips you gave me this afternoon. You are a credit to this site.

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+1000 to that comment.

I just joined and TD’s posts were quickly found by me when I searched about Willard. TD PM’d me all kinds of good, free intel on Willard, the species I aim to target there and info on Fish finders. I use a kayak when not on shore fishing.

Great score on the kitties despite the water and temps.

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You and zig both, this is the kinda stuff I want the LIKE button for.

Welcome to BFT. You’ve discovered a fountain of information. Oh, and opinions.

Maybe cross lines someday…

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That pic he took of you would make a great avatar pic.

14

Olden days are right. Must have been prior to the invention of PVC and Graphite by the looks of it.

Great work on those kitties. Maybe some will want to play at UL on Thursday as well.

**That pic is from the late '70s. That Insul-Dri tube is about the third or fourth commercially made model in my progression. Those were the single rod days…and that was a spinning rod I made from one of the first Sage spinning blanks available. Worked good too. But I didn’t need a lot of PVC then.

It do bear little resemblance to my current craft.
**

15

**Thanks for the kindly comments. It was a pleasure meeting you, chatting and the show and tell on our individual lure making stuff. You do good work.
**

16

“Great score on the kitties despite the water and temps.”

**Thanks. Willard can be tough. I have been skunked about 3 or 4 times in the last ten years. EVERY TIME it has been on Willard…usually the first trip after iceout. If I was only more patient…or a better angler.

By the way, very few of your carpinskis showing on the surface yesterday. Occasionally I would see one poke its nose up a fraction of an inch…but being careful to avoid frostbite in the open air. I did have one hooked on a jig for a couple of minutes. But it was a “dorsal diner” and I pulled it free to attend to my bait rod when a catfish got jealous of the attention and tried to run off with my bait.

Again, welcome to the board and thanks fer the kindly comments.
**

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TD promotes fishing to all that inquire, Outstanding! He is willing to help you with whatever you might ask. Although I usually fish with a Flyrod I have asked questions of him and he has always responded positively!
A BIG THANKS!!

18

In all fairness the nets we were pulling that Tuesday were mid-lake, or as WH2 would say “the openness”. These areas, or at least in my experiences are typically inhabited by Wipers and Cats but I have caught a lot of Walleyes just west of where we were at which maybe gave me some false hope for the eyes. Lots and lots of 16”-18” wipers with the occasional 20” toads in the nets. Also had a good showing by the cats, they were ranging from 7”-21”. As far as numbers go it varies from net to net. That’s why the division sets so many nets all around the lake. Below is a copy paste from an email I received from Chris this morning. Note, these are preliminary numbers.

Trevor,

Saw a post from you on a BFT discussion regarding the Willard netting, and it reminded me to send you a quick note on how the rest of the survey went. Despite not seeing many walleye the first day, we saw plenty as we worked our way towards the north side of the lake on days 3 and 4 of netting. Walleye numbers still appear to be trending down, but not dramatically. For example, we had 28 walleye in the nets on day 3, demonstrating why we set so many nets, which is to reduce variability in our numbers and increase confidence in our estimates. Also, the young walleye I predicted did indeed show up, meaning our numbers should begin climbing again next year. Anyway, here’s some preliminary numbers and observations I sent to our managers after the netting.

Fall index netting at Willard Bay was conducted the week of October 13th. We set and emptied a total of 27 nets over a 4 day period. Preliminary results suggest the fishery continues to be strong. Wiper abundance continues to increase. Wiper catch per unit effort (CPUE) appears to be up about 50% from 2013 (29 versus 19 fish/net night), It’s worth noting that 2013 was the previous high wiper abundance for the decade, so observing another 50% increase in CPUE is a surprise, but a positive one at that. Plenty of young of the year (YOY) wiper were observed, suggesting good recruitment of stocked fish.

Walleye numbers are down, which we’ve been predicting for a few years now based on age and growth data. Despite this downward trend, CPUE may increase next year as we observed that YOY made up about 20% of the catch. Walleye YOY generally aren’t fully recruited/vulnerable to gill nets in their first year since they are slender and only about 8-10 inches long. When the YOY make up about 15-20% of the catch, in the past it has indicated the presence of a large year class of fish that will be present the next fall as 15-18" fish. This is encouraging and may indicate that supplemental stocking of 1,000,000 walleye fry this spring experienced some survival and recruitment. We’ll know more as our marking study gets underway next year.

Other fish. We continued to see plenty of catfish, young and old. Crappie appear down somewhat from last year, but numbers still appeared higher than what is typically observed.

Long story short - wipers numbers are looking great, walleye are down but expected to begin rebounding next year as this year’s recruits grow and become vulnerable to angling and netting.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Chris

19

**Great info. Thanks for sharing that.

Hopefully we get some water back in the lake to make a better home for all those poor fishies.
**

20

Great info Trevor, thanks for sharing it with us.

TubeDude, great report for this late in the year, gives me hope for my next Willard outing. In case nothing else is biting I now know where to find some cats to brush off a skunk[;)].