Picked up submoa at 6:25 this morning, stopped in Heber for a quick bite and was at the Starvation boat ramp at around 7:45.
Went straight to Rabbit where we did so well on the tourny last sept, and put the crawler harnesses down, water temps 38 degrees. 20 minutes later and in 58 feet of water my rod got an ever so slight bend to it. Feeding the fish line till I felt weight I set the hook and felt a solid THUD.
The first run that fish took at least 75 feet of line. Alot of head shaking going on down there and I told my partner " I think I'll need the net on this one". One more shorter run and what ever it was came unbuttoned [frown]
It was the only bite in Rabbit.
Trolling down the right side towards the bridge submoa picked up a nice 19 in. eye and missed another bite (64 ft. of water).
On the other side of the bridge we trolled all the way down to the ice in the back side of the bay, crossed over and headed up Bobs Wall. Just before we get to the bridge submoa wacks another eye and misses 1 more (58 feet of water). Then it's my turn [
] I could go on and on with a play by play report., But I'll shorten this up.
We ended up with 6 eyes 16 to19 inches, 3 apiece. Had one snap a harness and missed about 7 or 8 bites and 1 came unbuttoned..
That's where the fun stuff stopped happening. Both my Lowrances went down at the same time [crazy] Scratching my head and trying to figure out what the blankety blank
was going on a light went off in my head. OH NO!
I hit the key for my main motor and the cranking battery is deader than a door nail.
We tried to rope start the 175 Yamaha but all the ropes I had in the boat were to big to fit arounds the fly wheel. Tried to call parks and got a recording [frown]
We had a long ways to go to the marina and It didn't look like I had enough juice in my trolling motor battries to make it in on the electric.
Not to worry I saw a boat go up lake earlier and knew he had to come back by us.
About 15 min. later I'm waving an orange flag like a mad man and submoa giving him morse code with some kind of flash light from hell and here he comes. "PEREZ THE YUBA PIKE KING " to the rescue [
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He got us started and back to the dock thank god. First time I've met him and a heck of a nice guy. What a small world a BFT guy just happened to be there [
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So all our fish came out of 58 to 64 feet of water, on crawler harnesses (you paying attention idahone [
]).
At least the first 3/4 of the day was fun. Not sure if I can get submoa back in my boat. Don't know If he can stand all the excitement [:p] By the way submoa's a heck of a nice guy to, good company and he's welcome in my boat any time just as soon as I get a new battery [:p]
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Nice report, sorry about the battery problems. Looks like there still a ways fom spawnin. Did any of them have eggs ?
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No eggs and no milt. I think they we all males. It wouldn't have made any difference if they were ready to spawn.
We invited them all home to dinner [
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It totally blew us away how deep those fish were. I mean were talking spring time lake trout depths.
These were not suspended fish, they were belly to the bottom.
Bummer deal losing the battery. It took us most of the day to find active fish and then just after we do the boat shuts down [shocked]
I'm sure we could have put more eyes in the boat if we hadn't missed so many and had another couple of hours to work them over.
Very light bitters. Your rod tip would get just a slight bend to it and if you didnt. feed them (ALOT) you would come up empty handed.
It was a nice day weather wise. Slight wind, sunny and warm I got a little sun burned on my face and neck.
We talked to a few boats at the ramp and none of them had any fish or bites.
Must have been our lucky day, I guess. If you can call boat problems luck [crazy]
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Can't believe no one caught any Browns. Last year at this time we were catching Browns on the ramp side towards the Dam. The Eyes we were catching were in Salaratus area.
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Sorry to hear about your equipment problem, maybe time for a new battery, I'm replacing all 3 of mine this spring, they are going on their 8th season. I hope your bad luck with equipment ends here. I was glad to see you guys connected with some eyes, you're getting me fired up. I'll be taking our rig out of storage this week and running her down to Cal for her annual checkup. I also need to get the new GPS/Fishfinder combo installed in her. Looking forward to seeing you on the Bay soon.[fishin]
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Salratus was iced in. couldn't fish there.
Pete how the heck do you get 8 years out of batteries? I change mine every 3rd. year. This is the 3rd. year for mine [shocked]
In fact I'm worried about my 2 Optima trolling batteries (2nd. year on them). Put 8 hrs. on them yesterday very slow speeds and not fighting any wind and they were showing almost complete discharge.
I can't live with that kind of perfomance.
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It was great to meet submoa and crankem at starvation even if it was under unfortunate circumstances. We were just glad to be there with the jumper box to be of assistance.
We arrived at Starvation shortly after 8. I had never fished it before but wanted to try for browns. We trolled most of the day learning the lake and taking notes on the map relating to structure, etc. The water was cold and iced over in 2 of the bays,
I had left my kicker motor home thinking I could use the electric if I needed to slow things down.
We didn't catch a single fish,, but it was a day of great knowledge building. We talked to numerous fishermen that showed us partial stringers of beautiful browns. Most explained that the caught them trolling rapalas early on in the day and trolling very slow as the cold water had made the trout lethargic. The browns we say were 18 to 25 inches.
We also saw a couple that had a limit of browns and a 4.5 lb smallie. The SM was caught on a dark maribou jig casting to the bank while slow trolling.
The greatest enlightening came from our crankup and submoa. Although we were not fishing for walleyes we would never have thought to bottom boaunce for them in that depth of water. Their explanation of what the did and how they did it will prove to be invaluable in future trips.
This is what I learned beside the knowledge of how the lake lays and the structure; The browns are being caught slow trolling in the shallows (10 to 25') using crank baits, especially Rapalas and lucky crafts. Long line the lures.
The lessons on the prespawn walleye are detailed above in crankem's report.
If you are looking for a place to put your boat and catch some beautiful browns and walleye to boot, consider Starvation. It a beautiful place.
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It was a fun trip. I think we pulled a couple from China they were so deep. They wouldn't have survived putting them back in any case not that I would have with this size walleye. They were pretty much belly up in the livewell. I snapped a few photo's of half of them, I left my pack in the living room (temporary insanity as I was about to actually get on the water) which had my camera in it. Crankem took the other half home for dinner. Friendly FYI, Don't park at the gas station off of I40 and I80. I had a note on the windshield that said they'd tow me if I did it again. I figured they wouldn't mind, plenty of parking spaces and I bought about $30.00's worth of snacks for the day in their store. I was wrong. I was planning on filling up with Diesel there for the trip back but since they threatened to tow me I decided to fill in Park City. Can't wait for the water to warm up so they become more active. The males were not leaking any milk at all.
Thanks Crankem for letting me on the boat. We'll do it again soon.
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Pez, thanks for the jump start. For the boat and with the apricon brandy after.
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its good to see that somebody has the skill to pull out the early season eyes. Way to go ,now I am going to have to go out there next week to see how I fare. Those fish are nice lookin cant wait to have some of the sweet meat with a spicy beer batter and homemade fries. My mouth is already watering. Thanks for the report!![fishon]
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Beer battering them today for lunch. They were thick fillets.
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Ill be right over LOL and I will bring some extra dark beers
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Thems be some nice eyes!
We've now got our work cut out for us cause crankem and his wife will be attending the Yuba contest with us and it looks like he knows EXACTLY how to do it!
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If you fish with dynamite you may beet Crankem? Emphasis on the MAY beat him.
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Kinda what its sounding like!
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Crank Em, this story brings up a question I have as a newbie to the larger boat scene. Upgraded from the 14 valco I fished for the last 30 years to an 18 ft Tundra this winter. I a situation like yours could a guy swap out the cranking battery with one of the trolling motor batteries, or better yet use a set of jumper cables between them?
I was so smart yesterday I forgot to put the plug in my boat before we launched at Utah lake. Luckily I was putzing around in the marina waiting on my buddy to park the rig and use the facilities. After about 10 minutes I happened to notice the carpet wet along the edge near my feet. I turned around and saw water sloshing in the back part of the cockpit. I instantly remembered the plug and started hollering for my buddy to get the trailer back in the water. By the time we got it on the trailer and back out the storage compartment in the center of the deck as full to the top which was about 15 inches deep. Figure we had close to a couple hundred gallons of water on board. Took about 15 minutes with both the bilge pump and the drain hole going full blast. Don't think I'll do that again. Working on getting it dried out now.
Thanks for the walleye report. I may head up there next week. After learning how to fish for them last year I am fully addicted now.
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Just got back from getting my boat out of storage, I checked my batteries and they all were holding a 3/4 charge according to my gage. Haven't had them plugged in for a charge since last Sept. Maybe I'll get another season out of them. I run Interstate deep cycle marine batteries, but I don't fish them as much as you do. The other brands I have used in the past only lasted 3 seasons or so. I also carry a set of jumper cables in my boat so I can jump from my batteries up front to my cranking battery( been there done that in my old Tracker) Those are some nice looking eyes, I know a few guys were picking up some good eyes thru the ice when she first froze over.
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Nice report and great fish....glad to see fellow BFTers out there break-in ice to get to the eyes
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[font "Verdana"][size 4]Oh my are these bad boys good![/size][/font][font "Verdana"][size 4][/size][/font] [font "Verdana"][size 4]Easy Beer Batter [/size][/font][font "Verdana"][black][/black][/font][font "Verdana"][black][size 2]1 cup baking mix (like Bisquick)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup beer[/size][/black][/font]
[font "Verdana"][black][size 2]Oil for frying [/size][/black][/font]
[font "Symbol"][black][size 2]·[/size][/black][/font][font "Verdana"][black][size 2] Combine baking mix, salt and egg. [/size][/black][/font]
[font "Symbol"][black][size 2]·[/size][/black][/font][font "Verdana"][black][size 2] Slowly add the beer and stir until blended. [/size][/black][/font]
[font "Symbol"][black][size 2]·[/size][/black][/font][font "Verdana"][black][size 2] Coat foods thoroughly with the batter and deep fry until golden brown. [/size][/black][/font]
[font "Verdana"][black][size 2]Tips:[/size][/black][/font][font "Verdana"][black][size 2] [/size][/black][/font]
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It's funny you mentioned jumper cables. When I cleaned the boat out this spring, I took my jumper cables out ( along with starting rope and a few other things) be cause I never needed them [shocked] De Ja Vu!!!
Yes we could have started the boat with either the jumper cables or fly wheel rope. Now I have to put em back in.
Day late and a dollar short [crazy]
I allways figured anyone launching their boat with out the drain plug wasen't very bright.
Well I'm not very bright sometimes. My partner backed my Crestliner in up at Key Hole res. in Wyo. and went to park the trailer a couple hundred yard away.
I didn't have the option of putting the trailer back in so I ran her up on the beach, and waded around to the back and put the plug in. Bilge pump ran for 10 min.
All this in front of about 50 or 60 tournanet boats LOL
It was a cold ride down lake that morning [blush] Not to mention embarrasing.
Like I said in my post. We didn't talk to any one who caught any "FISH". I don't count bass and trout in "MY" "FISH" catagory [:p]
If I catch anything but a walleye (sometimes a tiger muskie) It's an accident. [laugh]
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