Fishing Forum

I hit utah lake @ 6:00 am. I was on the water before the sun came up. The wind was blowing north when I got there. It slowly turned and was blowing to the south by the time I left at 1:00 pm.
I was fishing at the Knolls. I started fishing out about 300 yards from the shore and in 7 to 8 feet of water. Not a single bite.
I worked my way back into shore and started casting a green split tail on a jig head. I caught three white bass in a short time.
I started working my way down the shore and caught a nice cat on a minnow. The first fish came at 9:00 am.
I ended up catching 5 channel cats, 1 mudcat and 4 white bass.
I lost one really good cat at the boat, it ran hard and fast towards the boat and when it got to the boat it came to the surface and started thrashing around, I had the net almost under it and it came off the hook and I lost it.
Most of the cats were caught up close to shore and in as shallow as 1.5 feet.
The bugs were very heavy at launch but thinned out quickly as I got away from shore.
I stopped at the marina on the way back to filet the fish. I was glad I was farther south, the parking lot was jammed full of trucks and trailers. Very heavy boat traffic in the area.
Quite a few people stopped to watch me filet the fish, most had never seen a cat fish before. It was educational for some of the kids, they came over and touched the fish. I am hoping they will want to go and catch some for themselves.
I am attaching a picture of the biggest cat, it weighed just over 5 lbs and was about 25" long.
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Good job, sorry I couldn't make it out. Maybe this weekend if plans don't change.
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[cool][#0000ff]Good report. Nice work and nice fish. You need to get a bigger basket if you are going to whack 'em like that.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I haven't been down to Utah Lake for a couple of weeks. I hear the water level is dropping. How much at the Knolls?[/#0000ff]
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Looking at the tree line, it looks like the water is down about a foot. But it is hard to tell, the higher water line could just be from the wave action.
I bought a bigger basket at Walmart as I went down there. I looked for an even bigger one at Cabelas yesterday. The fish are getting beat up pretty bad in there with the basket so small.
Those bigger cat fish sure do fight hard.
I need to learn to reel the other pole in before I fight the fish on the line. The biggest of the fish pulled me around quite a bit and pulled back and forth through my other line. After I got him landed, I had a wad of line and ended up cutting both lines to get it all untangled.
Oh well, live and learn.
It was a small price to pay to play with the cats.
There was something out there that kept taking my bobber down and then releasing it right away, I tried setting the hook while the bobber was down, but it must have been too small to take the bait in.
The was a group of people fishing from shore at the knolls, I didn't see them catch anything though.
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Mom and Dad are coming up in the next little while and they wanted some cat fish, so I am kind of torn as to where I want to go fish. I think I have enough catfish to take care of them, but you never know who all is going to show up when the cooking starts.
With the reports of perch and bass at Jordanelle and the trout at Strawberry, it is hard to decide where I want to go this weekend.
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[cool][#0000ff]Sportsmans has the 19"X30" basket for about $10. I have had limits of large cats in it before without any "casualties".[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The unhooked bobber pullers were probably white bass. They whack the same baits as cats but usually don't get the hook.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Those bigger kitties do indeed pull you around, and they like to make a couple of circles. That CAN be a problem if you have another line out. I fish with two lines, and I often reel in the second line when I have a runner going on the first rod. Since I have my rod holders set up so that the fish cannot take the rods, I sometimes put the "active" rod in a holder, after hooking the fish, and then reel like crazy to get the second one in out of the way. Just be sure you have the drag set on the fish rod or you can have a "tackle failure". Fun, fun, fun.[/#0000ff]
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Thanks, I will go by Sportsman's. The basket I picked up yesterday was only 15"
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There are tons of 4" bluegill at Pelican Bay. That may be what is hitting your bait. I had a hard time keeping bait on a couple of days ago.
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That could be, I wanted to hook one just to see what it was.
They would pull hard enough to take to bobber under but not enough to get a hold of the hook.
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