So my dad–who is probably reading this–flaked out on our trip to Powell next week. I was really hoping to go down and target largies. Now I have all this LMB tackle, and I don’t really know where to go around here to specifically target large mouths. Within an hour and a half of Orem, what are your favorite LMB waters and techniques?
UL is close if you want to travel out west theres a couple spots
Yes, Utah Lake is close. How about some patterns to look for out on the lake (depts, structure, etc) and some techniques?
Utah Lake has a good population of LMB, but you have to invest some pretty serious time to be able to catch them consistently. Soft plastics.
Deer Creek has some pretty good LMB and SMB fishing. Spider Jigs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits.
PM Sent
I forgot about deercreek i used to catch a few on the north west side but its been years
I have fished Deer Creek for trout and smallies, but have yet to target LMB. Truth be told, didn’t really realize that it had significant numbers of LMB. Good to know. Where can you find bass producing structure on Deer Creek–especially with the unusually low water levels?
Before the smallies took over, DC was a great lake for largemouth. Still some there, but not as many.
It is gonna be a “seek and ye shall (maybe) find” year for largies again this year. When the lake is full, they move into the brush at the east end of the lake. Traditional bass cover and fishing techniques. Also used to be a pretty good batch in the upper end of Walsburg at high water. Had some great topwater action on white buzzbaits in the brush along the edges at the very back end. That will not happen this year.
So, it will be rocks. Look for larger rocks and points coming down into the water and fish both sides from shallow to deep until you find a pattern. Sometimes you can find them in a small patch of shade on a steep bank. Deep diving cranks and the usual assortment of crawdad colored plastics are about the best way to go…both for smallies and largemouth.
You will even catch one once in a while out on the flats while dragging a worm harness for walleyes.
Good luck.
Little bit of drive but you can alway hit mantua and it usually warms up faster than alot of the lakes around. I have seen some monsters come out of there just takes a little patience.
LMB UL Camelot say no more!!!
Well, Utah Lake is my personal favorite. However, like has been mentioned, that place can take a lot of investment of time in order to consistently catch LMB out of. Unless you feel pretty confident in your abilities to find and catch LMB, I would go elsewhere. And then, even a lot of the guys who feel pretty confident in themselves go out there and come home pretty frustrated. Utah Lake has got some real pigs though. (See my other recent post/report on UL).
I would personally suggest fishing Deer Creek, as has been mentioned. There are a heck of a lot more largemouths in that lake than most people think there are. Last year I had an easier time finding good numbers of largies than I did finding the smallies. I had one day last year where I put 35 largemouths in the boat at DC. That sure surprised me. Tube Dude gave some pretty decent advice about how to target them. Good luck…
Living so close to Utah Lake (Orem) I don’t really mind investing some time into figuring out the patterns for LMB. What I need is a jumping off point or nudge in the right direction. How deep of water do I look for, do I fish the reeds, do I fish open water, do I fish rip rap in and around the harbors. Is there anywhere on the lake where there is brush or brush piles, etc. etc. I wouldn’t ask for anyone’s specific locations, I just want patterns that I can search for.
There is very little structure in the open water. There is some, but people that know where it is guard it closely. They are where you find them, but the harbors are a good place to start.
I wish I could answer that question with a more specific answer…but the only thing I can say is that it all depends on the given conditions (time of year, water temps, air temps, weather, etc…). Sometimes you’ll catch fish in the reeds, sometimes on the edges of the reeds, sometimes in brush, sometimes on rock, sometimes in less than a foot of water, sometimes in 7ft of water. That is what I mean by Utah Lake takes a big chunk of time investment in figuring out. Sorry, I’m not one to type a full article on what to do under different situations. That’s what Tube Dude is for…har har! I mean, I’ve got no problem telling you that on Wednesday I caught a bunch of fish flipping a jig-n-pig in the reeds…but that will probably completely change next week. The best advice I can give you to catching them on Utah Lake is to read all the bass fishing articles you can find about fishing in muddy water…that will give you a pretty good nudge in the right direction.