Summary of the Past Few Weeks

I'll admit it, I've been a major slacker this past month on posting. It's been a great month, with lots of fish, but my efforts on the blog have been lacking. This post will sum up the past several trip, all of which have been targeting white bass at Utah Lake. During the spawn, once you find a school of whities, it blazing-hot fishing! I would hit it for an hour here and there before work, and and have 50+ fish every time. I used silver or chartreuse spinners and jigs while spin fishing, and woolly buggers and clouser minnows when hitting them on the fly. Catching these guys on a fly is a blast! This year I started to double and triple rig woolly buggers. I had lots of double on, and even had a few triples landed. It made for an interesting fight having several fish on at once.

 

Rob and Matt joined me the last time I went out. Unfortunately, the spawn was all but over, so the fish had slowed big time. He brought his canoe, and I had my float tube. On the way to one of our spots, we past through school after school of carp on the surface. I hooked into a few on my fly rod, but they broke me off each time. we moved on, and soon started getting a white bass here and there. All three of us landed white bass, with Matt catching his first ever. When Matt was little, We would tell us "I want to catch a wipe ass". It was great seeing him land his first "wipe ass" as well as landing several small sunfish he hooked that were hiding under boulders.

 

The surprise of the day came a few hours into fishing the same hole we hit for white bass. each of us had made tons of casts through this hole with spinners, jigs and flies. I cast to a spot I had cast to several times all ready and had just started the drip when Whack! my pole bent over and I though I had a carp at first. Then I felt a few good head shakes and I knew it wasn't a carp, but what? The fish stayed deep, fighting and running where ever it wanted to go. On one pass, I got him break the surface where we saw it was a good sized large mouth bass. I was surprised, and landing this fish now became so important. This would be a new personal best on this lake if I landed it. It made one more hard run, and then gave up, literally. I eased it in, and lipped the biggest Utah lake bass I had ever caught! I was pumped! I got a few pictures before releasing him back to grow bigger.

 

On the way back to the harbor, Rob landed a bullhead catfish. We also hooked into some more carp, but again didn't land any. The fishing wasn't as fast as I was hoping. I really wanted to get Rob and Matt into a nice school of fish, but it didn't happen. We all caught fish, and that is a win in my book.

 

 

 

Action on a Clouser Minnow.

Doubled up on Woolly Buggers.

Matt with his first ever White Bass!

16 inch Large Mouth! My best on Utah Lake so far...

Close up shot before he swims away.

Rob wrangled a Bullhead Cat on the way back.

Big Browns and Big Smiles

This past week for Boy Scouts, we took our troop to a private pond that the Scout Master had access to. He said there were big rainbows, and that a few brown trout had made there way in somehow.  We had a few of the boys that that never caught a fish before, so the excitement level was pretty high. We rigged up with gold Jake's spinners and Rapalas.

 

As we started making casts, it didn't take long until we had fish following our lures. Soon after, I saw a big brown engulf my Rapala 15 feet from where I was standing. It gave me some monster head shakes, but one of the boys was johnny-on-the-spot and netted the fish for me. The brown measured 20 inches. Shortly after, one of the boys hooked into another solid fish, and got it into the net. from then on, the catching was consistent for a lot of the boys, and we also missed several fish.

 

In all we landed eight browns. We had a few Rainbows hit, but we didn't land any. I had one that made three big jumps out of the water, spitting the Rapala back at me on the third. It's so neat to see how acrobatic the Rainbows are, and then how a Brown will just bulldog you. It was a great two hour trip, and It seemed the boys had a blast. We filleted the trout, and I'm smoking them up tomorrow so all the boys can try out some smoked trout. Hopefully, we will get another shot to go up and try this pond again. It was a blast.

Gearing up.

Staking their claim on the fishing spots.

First fish of the night; a 20 inch Brown!

Teamwork! Landing another big Brown Trout.

Beautiful surroundings to catch fish.

Big fish and big smiles!

It's About To Get Crazy On Utah Lake

The White Bass are in the beginning stages of spawning at Utah Lake! Once you find them, the fishing is fast and furious. I landed several today in the half hour I had to fish before work. They will be the start of my cat fish bait supply to get me though the year. I have a feeling May is going to be epic!

Results of  30 minutes of fishing!

Knocking Off The Dust

It's finally time to start cat fishing again! I dug out my cat gear, blew off the dust, and headed down to the Jordan River. The water temps are rising, so the fishing is only going to get better from here. I've been out twice for a few hours each time. If you use worms, you can't keep the little fish off, so I suggest using cut bait. Both times I went, I landed mostly bullheads, with an occasional little channel catfish. Last night I finally felt that pull and power of a decent catfish. The fight didn't last long, but it was what I needed. Here's to looking forward to a great summer of fighting kitties!

 

A small channel catfish (left) and bullhead catfish (right).

Fishing day and night.

First keeper of the year at 22 inches.