Fishing Forum

Went to Shad Flats last night with wiperhunter2. The fishfinder was black with fish as usual and neither of us got a bite. That's a depressing report and neither of us wanted to post it up BUT I had to say what good company he was and that a man can learn a lot from him.

SOoooo...wiperhunter spilled a rumor that there may have been 3 shad spawns this year!

Anybody else hear that? Is this common?

Should the DWR put a million more wipers in Willard Bay this year? []
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[cool][#0000ff]Careful now. Curt is not widely known for giving out ALL his trade secrets. Are you sure he did not remove the hooks from your lures before putting them out? Are you sure you were actually fishing in water more than 4 feet deep?[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Knowing Curt, I wouldn't be surprised if you did not misunderstand him. He may have told you that only 3 shad actually spawned this year. He watches them very carefully you know. Sits up on the bow of his boat with little binoculars...looking into their bedrooms and all. What a prevert.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Actually, with the extended spring (cold rainy June) it is likely that the spawn spread out over an extended period of time. That happens with many species in years with unusual weather. Kind of a natural hedge against failure of the spawn. But they only spawn once...when the combination of sun, moon, water temps and power squadron activity (just kidding) is exactly right for them. And that can vary from fish to fish within the same species.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Oh yeah, about that sonar. Curt likes to leave it on demo mode so he at least finds some fish. He cries a lot when there is nothing on TV for him to watch.[/#0000ff]
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[laugh][laugh]

Who knows! [cool]

But it was my boat, sonar, etc.
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Well, I'll go ahead and post up my latest willard report on here. Against my better judgement, I took my boat out to Willard Monday afternoon for the first time since early June. I knew the power squad would be pretty bad, but it was the worst I seen all year! So as I launched, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I was going to be lucky to have a pleasureable boat ride, let alone catch some fish.

Well I took off trolling from the North Marina about 4 pm, headed over to freeway bay, hit the southeast corner and headed out on a b-line for the light pole. A little better than half way across, picked up a fair walleye flatlining a crank - 18 incher. Got to the light pole and did a few loop-diddy-loo's, then took off on a b-line for the marina. About a 1/4 of the way there I hit a 20 inch wiper on a crank off the planer board. It was nearly 9 when I finally got back to the marina, and those were the only 2 bites I had. I was pretty happy considering how bad the power squad was, they did finally mellow out around 6:30. Nice little boat ride with the wife and kid, my wife got to reel in her first fishies since starting Bridgerland's nursing program back in July, plus I got beer battered filllets on the way - yipee!

FYI - I was letting the flatlines out about 40 ft, and running my cranks 40 feet off the boards, and kept my troll at about 3.1 mph GPS (+/-). I thought coming off the full moon the fish would have swollen guts, but nothing in the walleye's stomach, and 1 little 1" fish in the wiper that was too digested to identify.

I got a couple pics that I will try to put on later.
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Hey Jim, I really enjoyed getting out there with you even if no fish were caught. I got that information from one of the past DWR folks, Tom Petingale(sp?) but I did an on-line search and all I could find out about it was that thinfin can spawn more than once a year. Oh well, life goes on but with the different sized baby shad in the bay this year and the vast numbers that are out there I sure felt it was possible. One thing is for sure, if the shad keep producing offspring at the rate they did this year, we will be able to walk across the lake on them and never get get wet by next year at this time[].
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[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/community/community.cgi?do=user_page;pg=user_profile_view.html;username=Got_Bait"]Got_Bait[/url], Glad to see someone boating some dinner! It's just that the catch rate is about 5 miles of trolling per fish.[pirate]

It's been a very strange year at Willard for me. Most of the old tricks just aren't working. At least I'm not the only one having trouble catching the silver-finned thugs.
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[quote wiperhunter2]Hey Jim, I really enjoyed getting out there with you even if no fish were caught. I got that information from one of the past DWR folks, Tom Petingale(sp?) but I did an on-line search and all I could find out about it was that thinfin can spawn more than once a year. Oh well, life goes on but with the different sized baby shad in the bay this year and the vast numbers that are out there I sure felt it was possible. One thing is for sure, if the shad keep producing offspring at the rate they did this year, we will be able to walk across the lake on them and never get get wet by next year at this time[].[/quote]

I still think there are some boils to be had before the boat gets winterized. Too bad you're on swings.
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We hit it Monday evening too. Weather channel said the wind was going to be calm, oh boy was it wrong. We stayed for a bit after dark, wind really started picking up, white capping. lots of fun. We didnt get any either, my brother did miss one tho. Didnt see any boils, however, with the white caps, i dont think we would have seen them unless we were right on top of them. Talked to another boat who picked up 3. Last wednesday was awesome. Seems like every other trip we see boils. Which means next trip should be ok lol
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ya, just tell me when that is going to be so that I can be there too! [] I started hearing about "boils" back in the mid 90's when I made my first trip to Lake Powell, and the stories have just piled up since. I have still never actually witnessed one with my own eyes, so I'm not totally convinced yet that it's not just an old wive's tale [:p].

Monday, I did see several of those crazy birds committing what appeared to be suicide quite frequently. That kept getting me real excited, but it never amounted to anything though.

I experienced the same thing with the wind. Looked it up on weather.com. I think it said like 5-10 mph, but I'm pretty sure it went over that. I just have a little 18ft aluminum crestliner that doesn't handle big waves too well. So I was a little nervous coming in, and thankful that it didn't get much worse than it did [shocked].
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I think we're going to try to hit it Friday night. There is suppose to be a small cold front coming in on the weekend, so we want to get there before then. This is our first year fishing the boils, it is frustrating to say the least, but i will tell you, it is way exciting. When we were up there last Wednesday, there was one point there were boils on all side of the boat. My daughter ended up catching her limit, but me or my dad didnt catch anything. Go figure lol. I bet with your boat you were freaking out, we have a 21 ft fish and ski, so the sides dont go up very high and doesnt take big waves to come crashing over the side. Wasnt that bad tho thank goodness.
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Friday huh? Where was my invite?
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ummmmm, ummmmmm [blush] wanna go? wanna go? []
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I would show up but I am taking Vivid-Dawn up to Newton to catch a fish over 2 lbs... She will enjoy catching a nice Tigermusky or 2 or more. She needs to have a big fish story to tell here at BFT. Her story to me was a 1 lb 7 oz catfish is her bigfish of the year... So she needs to experience a Tigermusky this year....... Have fun friday and tell kait to leave some wipers in there for the rest of us..............
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[font "Times New Roman"]I took the boat out Monday evening too, with my son. Need to check out the new additions to see how they work. Didn’t have much time I got there a little later than planed. I had 4 lines in the water for about one hour before the wind got bad and decided to head back in. By the time I made it back from the south west corner to the north boat ramp both my boy and I where wet from the water splashing over the boat. Nothing quite like a ride across choppy water not knowing when you’re going to get wet. We were the last ones to leave the parking lot. We didn’t spot any boils or catch any fish, not even a hit. [/font]

Those crazy little birds are terns. And my limited knowledge of the subject are those are the birds you watch for. A boil is so exciting you loose track of what you are there for. Kind of like Buck Fever :-)
Looks like Holly and I will head up Friday night. Then again Sunday to take my son.
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ya, I was of the understanding that they kinda point the boils out to you, so I was keeping a close eye on them. But I never saw them hitting the water at a particular spot more than once. It was pretty random and infrequent. I got the idea that they kinda rallied up and tried to take part in the boils as much so as the wipers did, but I might be wrong.
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You are right, but the way I figure it the more boils the less birds per boil. We fished some boils on the 2nd there was no birds on.But others had 4 or 5 birds on a boil. But I am far from being an expert. I have only seen boils twice in my old age.
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