07-28-2022, 04:35 PM
I was lucky enough to back on the lake July 25 with my friend Jon. We launched out of Provo at about 6:30 A.M. and got to say hi to Richard at the ramp. I think I left them enough room on the ramp. Water temp was in the low to mid 70’s all day and the winds were SE at about 10 the first hour or two and dropped to almost nothing after that.
The cats were scattered in groups and they wanted to play almost as much as I did, we landed about 80% of the fish that hit. We fished from 3 to 6 FOW and found fish at any depth, but most of our time was in 5+. We averaged a little over 4 cats/hour and also picked up 1 bullhead and 4 or 5 whites.
Despite the average, the catching was somewhat sporadic. We had several 20+ minute stretches with nothing and we also had 3 doubles, a triple and one time where all 4 rods had fish on them (albeit on was just entering the net when the last one hit.) The graph below shows how they came in little bunches and they didn’t slow their feeding until after about 2:30 P.M.
Lots of tugs and fun to go around and the fish were a good grade with only about 20% being less than 25”. Sadly, we didn’t find really good ones that Richard and (mostly) Violet found. Our best of the trip was 29”.
We started dragging thawed WB and later supplemented with fresh although the cats didn’t seem to care until after about 9 A.M. After that they only seemed to want fresh. Lucky for us we got just enough whities to keep them happy. None of the whites were over 9” long. The cats liked medium to large FLAIT’s moving anywhere from 0.3 to 1 MPH, but most of the fish voted for about 0.7.
We saw lots of algae slicks early on and they may have been blown out of Mud Lake with overnight SE winds. Later in the day and father out in the lake we didn’t see as much. Water clarity was almost zero.
We kept 7 or 8 small ones for a friend of Jon’s and we started cleaning them just before 3 and got back to the ramp about 3:30.
A good solid day of cat catching and good company. I can’t wait to do it again, but there are rumors of a basement that needs some finishing at my Sons’s house it Provo. Still lots of good cat catching time left though and Julie is almost ready to get in the boat again after ne knee replacement. Lots of reasons for optimism!
BTW, I’m a bit out of practice so the video was long, a bit boring, and would have needed lots of editing so I saved myself the time and left it out. I’ll get back in shape again soon.
![[Image: graph.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/Ff1tWrTT/graph.jpg)
![[Image: 10.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/hXBmV0zy/10.jpg)
![[Image: 29.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/kVMtpXyW/29.jpg)
![[Image: Algal-slick.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/yDsJDYt2/Algal-slick.jpg)
![[Image: Another-good-one.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/ZCrBYy7r/Another-good-one.jpg)
![[Image: IMG-0866.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/G4K4Gn1t/IMG-0866.jpg)
The cats were scattered in groups and they wanted to play almost as much as I did, we landed about 80% of the fish that hit. We fished from 3 to 6 FOW and found fish at any depth, but most of our time was in 5+. We averaged a little over 4 cats/hour and also picked up 1 bullhead and 4 or 5 whites.
Despite the average, the catching was somewhat sporadic. We had several 20+ minute stretches with nothing and we also had 3 doubles, a triple and one time where all 4 rods had fish on them (albeit on was just entering the net when the last one hit.) The graph below shows how they came in little bunches and they didn’t slow their feeding until after about 2:30 P.M.
Lots of tugs and fun to go around and the fish were a good grade with only about 20% being less than 25”. Sadly, we didn’t find really good ones that Richard and (mostly) Violet found. Our best of the trip was 29”.
We started dragging thawed WB and later supplemented with fresh although the cats didn’t seem to care until after about 9 A.M. After that they only seemed to want fresh. Lucky for us we got just enough whities to keep them happy. None of the whites were over 9” long. The cats liked medium to large FLAIT’s moving anywhere from 0.3 to 1 MPH, but most of the fish voted for about 0.7.
We saw lots of algae slicks early on and they may have been blown out of Mud Lake with overnight SE winds. Later in the day and father out in the lake we didn’t see as much. Water clarity was almost zero.
We kept 7 or 8 small ones for a friend of Jon’s and we started cleaning them just before 3 and got back to the ramp about 3:30.
A good solid day of cat catching and good company. I can’t wait to do it again, but there are rumors of a basement that needs some finishing at my Sons’s house it Provo. Still lots of good cat catching time left though and Julie is almost ready to get in the boat again after ne knee replacement. Lots of reasons for optimism!
BTW, I’m a bit out of practice so the video was long, a bit boring, and would have needed lots of editing so I saved myself the time and left it out. I’ll get back in shape again soon.