06-24-2019, 04:28 PM
Day 1 .......Wanted to spend some quality time on the water at Utah Lake so reserved a hotel in Springville and left Ogden early Friday morning. Made our first stop at American Fork Marina. Last month after the BFT LB Flotilla, we had a pretty good day at the inlet of the AF River, so gave it a try again.
The overnight low pressure cold snap Thursday really must have flipped the "OFF" switch, at least for me. The weather for us anglers got pretty nice about 11 a.m. and we moved around a bit, but nary a whitey was brought to the boat.
Along about noon, the wife says " I think I got something" Well her cat pole is bending pretty good, and she says she can feel the head shake. By the amount of pole bend, and the effort she was expending to bring whatever it was to the boat, I had visions of a fat 36 inch....................Carp [laugh]
Nope.........turns out it was a wiley Catfish that has learned to get around or behind something when it's hooked. This one couldn't find anything more substantial than the grass on the bottom, but the wife kept the tension on, and pulled in 25 inches of Catfish and about 40 pounds of grass. I was busy with the landing net, but sure wish I had gotten a photo of that Cat hiding behind all that grass. [laugh]
That fills her contest 3 for a total of 75.5. Measured Cat photo on her contest post.
Day 2....... Headed to Lincoln Beach even though the weather was looking not so good, and the forecast had been for cool, windy, and thunderstorms possible. And that was an accurate forecast, darn it ! [
]
Got to LB ramp about 9 a.m. was a bit windy, but wasn't seeing any white caps, so got launched. Was nice to see the LB channel and marina as full as it was. Headed out and got hailed by some bank tangler that was Catchinon. Had a few words of greeting as we motored toward the main body of the lake. Made a left turn at the buoys and got out to where there was 2 other boats near the first spring. Anchored in about 8-9 fow, put out 2 lines each and leaned back to concentrate on swatting bugs.......[:/].
After a good hour plus, wind seemed to be decreasing, so decided to make a run to Bird Island for whatever window of reasonable weather we could sneak thru.
If not for having BI well marked on my GPS, I might have run up on some barely submerged prop dingers. I have never seen BI with that much water over it. The birds were sure packed in.
We moved around to a couple spots at 3 to 3.8 fow, finding one hole that was not very large in area, but was 10 feet deep. Marked lots of fish in and hanging around the edge of that hole, but we just were not presenting anything they were interested in biting. Saw 3-4 other boats around the east and south sides of the island, but they didn't stay long and never saw them catch anything.
Long about 12 noon there was a loud and long rumble of thunder, and some ugly dark clouds moving in from the west and south west. That decided it. Got our lines in, anchor up, and boat pointed straight for LB marina. In the 30 minutes or so it took to make it to LB, the air temp must have dropped 10 degrees, and just as we hit the marina channel, started raining.
Got the boat tied to the dock, and wife went to back trailer down ramp. Rain stopped just as I was getting boat up on the trailer. Called it a day.
Both skunked [] Had the boat almost road ready when Pisco came over and introduced himself. He and his wife had done much better than we had. Was nice to meet and put a face and boat with the name. Had a nice dinner at The Strap Tank.
Day 3 ........ Had a late easy breakfast, headed for our 3rd planned launch point at Provo State Park. Weather was beautiful, very light breeze going to almost dead calm. Launched about 930 a.m. Motored out thru the marina and made a left towards the river inlet. Again more water that I have seen in several years.
And again, I got skunked.
The weekend was a bust for me as far as catching anything beside bugs. But it was a great relaxing time away from work, and we discovered a nice place to eat in Springville. Still have 2 weeks of my vacation left. Probably won't make it back to UL, but the Catfish hunting will continue [
]
[fishon]
[signature]
The overnight low pressure cold snap Thursday really must have flipped the "OFF" switch, at least for me. The weather for us anglers got pretty nice about 11 a.m. and we moved around a bit, but nary a whitey was brought to the boat.
Along about noon, the wife says " I think I got something" Well her cat pole is bending pretty good, and she says she can feel the head shake. By the amount of pole bend, and the effort she was expending to bring whatever it was to the boat, I had visions of a fat 36 inch....................Carp [laugh]
Nope.........turns out it was a wiley Catfish that has learned to get around or behind something when it's hooked. This one couldn't find anything more substantial than the grass on the bottom, but the wife kept the tension on, and pulled in 25 inches of Catfish and about 40 pounds of grass. I was busy with the landing net, but sure wish I had gotten a photo of that Cat hiding behind all that grass. [laugh]
That fills her contest 3 for a total of 75.5. Measured Cat photo on her contest post.
Day 2....... Headed to Lincoln Beach even though the weather was looking not so good, and the forecast had been for cool, windy, and thunderstorms possible. And that was an accurate forecast, darn it ! [
]Got to LB ramp about 9 a.m. was a bit windy, but wasn't seeing any white caps, so got launched. Was nice to see the LB channel and marina as full as it was. Headed out and got hailed by some bank tangler that was Catchinon. Had a few words of greeting as we motored toward the main body of the lake. Made a left turn at the buoys and got out to where there was 2 other boats near the first spring. Anchored in about 8-9 fow, put out 2 lines each and leaned back to concentrate on swatting bugs.......[:/].
After a good hour plus, wind seemed to be decreasing, so decided to make a run to Bird Island for whatever window of reasonable weather we could sneak thru.
If not for having BI well marked on my GPS, I might have run up on some barely submerged prop dingers. I have never seen BI with that much water over it. The birds were sure packed in.
We moved around to a couple spots at 3 to 3.8 fow, finding one hole that was not very large in area, but was 10 feet deep. Marked lots of fish in and hanging around the edge of that hole, but we just were not presenting anything they were interested in biting. Saw 3-4 other boats around the east and south sides of the island, but they didn't stay long and never saw them catch anything.
Long about 12 noon there was a loud and long rumble of thunder, and some ugly dark clouds moving in from the west and south west. That decided it. Got our lines in, anchor up, and boat pointed straight for LB marina. In the 30 minutes or so it took to make it to LB, the air temp must have dropped 10 degrees, and just as we hit the marina channel, started raining.
Got the boat tied to the dock, and wife went to back trailer down ramp. Rain stopped just as I was getting boat up on the trailer. Called it a day.
Both skunked [
] Had the boat almost road ready when Pisco came over and introduced himself. He and his wife had done much better than we had. Was nice to meet and put a face and boat with the name. Had a nice dinner at The Strap Tank. Day 3 ........ Had a late easy breakfast, headed for our 3rd planned launch point at Provo State Park. Weather was beautiful, very light breeze going to almost dead calm. Launched about 930 a.m. Motored out thru the marina and made a left towards the river inlet. Again more water that I have seen in several years.
And again, I got skunked.
The weekend was a bust for me as far as catching anything beside bugs. But it was a great relaxing time away from work, and we discovered a nice place to eat in Springville. Still have 2 weeks of my vacation left. Probably won't make it back to UL, but the Catfish hunting will continue [
] [fishon]
[signature]