Fishing Forum

[cool][#0000ff]I often brag that I catch catfish every month of the year. Off to a good start this year. Got some Willard Bay size cookie cutter kitties through the ice on Utah Lake this morning.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]BFTer Waljustia has been trying to get me out to the "Utah Lake Abyss" he discovered several years ago. It is an anomaly of Utah Lake with a couple of spots of DEEEEEP water. Last week he caught a couple of small cats in an area of about 25 feet of water...only half of what the depth is a short distance away from his spot. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]No way you could find that spot without his GPS marks. So, when his cold handheld GPS unit started "greying out" when we were only about halfway out on a LOOOOOOONG hike, he began to run so that he could find the spot before the batteries conked out. He made it. This fat old man just kept trudgin' and finally reached the spot, several minutes after Dave had started fishing. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Dave is a nice guy. He waited until I got there to catch the first fish. It was the first of several of those cookie cutter kitties. Small, but great eating. And, much better than either a skunk or sitting at home or in an office. No complaints from either of us all day. Dave drew first blood with a kittie and followed it up with his first and only white bass just about the time I was ready to make my first drop.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Water depth? 24 feet in my first hole. I could not believe it. Saw lots of fish cruising through at different depths too. But, they all seemed to have lockjaw or had simply not paid attention in school when instructions were given on how to bite for the nice fishermen.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I fired up my new electric auger and swiss cheesed a large area of ice around the original spot Dave had taken us. Wow. When I began walking around and dunking the sonar transducer I really got a lot of different readings. Checking holes in a 360 degree circle around us through the day we got readings from 6 feet to over 25 feet. Some holes had lots of (non-active) fish. Some holes had nothing.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]After an hour of "musical holes", with only a couple of iffy bites, I drilled two holes close together and set up camp for the day. I would let the fish find me. GOOD MOVE. One hole was in 20 feet and eight feet away it was 23 feet. Both produced several fish over the next few hours.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The bite was light, but doable. The kitties just pulled the rod tip or strike indicator down very slowly. No whack, like active summer cats on Utah Lake. If they felt enough pressure they dropped it. You had to set the hook or they were gone. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Dave was using one of my "bitty bugs" in glow chartreuse, with wax worm. He drew first blood and caught several more fish all on that setup. I tried minnow, perch meat and nightcrawler...on several different glow jigs. I caught my first three or four kitties on glow chartreuse "wermz" and then the bite switched to my pale perch "flat rinkees". Caught all of my last few fish on that lure, with a piece of crawler.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Yeah, Dave drew first blood but one of the kitties drew MY blood. As I was spreading out my catch one of them flopped and got me right in the left birdy finger with one of their sharp pectoral spines. I usually cut those off as I catch the fish but not today. I paid for it. Lots of blood all around the hole I was fishing. Anybody else coming upon that hole would think the fishing was great.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I took home 7 lovely cookies and released a couple of bitty kitties. Of course I also did some professional mid depth releases and a couple of hole unbuttons. Lots of missed bites too. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]All in all a nice day on the ice with temps in the high 20s to early 30s. Ice was a solid 8 to 10 inches, with light crusty snow and no slush. BUT...the edges were open around the edge when we returned to our access spot. Thankfully Dave had brought a plank. It was almost not enough and it sank beneath the ice when my considerable weight went across it. No water in the boots though.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Thanks for the show and tell Dave. Now we gotta hit that in the tubes.[/#0000ff]
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Good on ya ol' buddy.. Way ta ,,,,,
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Once again.....awesome report. Nice, helpful and entertaining details. Thanks Pat. I am, however suprized that you almost sunk the plank with your small stature.....good thing Ivan and I didn't go. Great to see you @ Utah Lake in the new year and I look forward to many more awesome reports,

Shawn M
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Yeah yeah yeah always braggin' about your magical-I-can-catch-catfish-anytime-of-the-year abilities.

By the way.....did you add chocolate chips with your ice cookies? I prefer mine with butter scotch, yum!
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[quote catfish-logic]Yeah yeah yeah always braggin' about your magical-I-can-catch-catfish-anytime-of-the-year abilities.

By the way.....did you add chocolate chips with your ice cookies? I prefer mine with butter scotch, yum![/quote]

[cool][#0000ff]As my old buddy Dandy Don Meredith used to say "If ya kin do it, it ain't braggin'."[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Butterscotch kitty cookies? No, no no. Ya gotta use waxies or meal worms. Sure does keep the girls away from the cookie dish...especially when they are still wigglin'.[/#0000ff]
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[#502800]Did you use your holy setup today, and do you use it for trout?......I tried it today at Rockport, but I was fishing deep for perch......The DNR guy told me he hasn't seen anyone with perch in the last week or so, and that it is kind of a bust year for them at Rockport.[/#502800]
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I have heard of this honey hole from a guy at work. He keeps telling me how his son found it and about a couple of weeks ago he went there and threw his camera down there and found it was full of minnows. The deepest area was aound 90 feet. Temp with ice over it 86 degrees. I would say hot spring???? Sounds like you had fun. I agree would be a great place to tube if not just boat out to it if it is far.[cool]
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Great report TD. like always !!!!!
I have never tried the kittys through the ice will have to
try it some day,

Good to see you found one of the deep hole good job not very many of them out there !!!!!!!! []
give me a shout some time,
Roger
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Very nice work!!! That is something else! I may have to get you out there on a boat this summer to see if its any good! Did you get a GPS of where it is?
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[font "Courier New"][#000050][size 3]Great narration--...er, I mean, report!
I would say that you don't give reports, you tell stories...but that would - especially since we're all fishermen - insinuate you tell falsities.

In the picture of the pressure ridge, is it zoomed at all? I can't tell if those are your footprints at distorted size, or true size and made by something like a coyote or raccoon maybe?
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"good thing Ivan and I didn't go."

[cool][#0000ff]Ivan would have no problems. He is so light the breeze would just blow him across the top of the water like a cottonwood fluff.[/#0000ff]
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[cool][#0000ff]Didn't even try the "holy jigs" today. They seem to work best for perch but trout do like them too. Also some crappies.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]It was such a finesse bite today you had to use a small jig and small bait and not look away from your rod tip. One strike and you're out. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Rockport has been semi perchless for the third winter now. There was a good catch for everybody in the winter of 2005 - 06. Then there was a massive dieoff at iceout...all age classes. Only a few straggler perch since then. I have tubed it and sonared the heck out of it and there are just not the huge schools of perch there used to be. Ditto for some other lakes...like Echo.[/#0000ff]
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Well, you got January all taken care of for the kitties on the line. Funny thing is, I have heard you talk before about catching kitties every month of the year. I decided I would like to copy that statement for myself. It has cost me many a skunk trip in the past, but I got a good feeling about 2010! January is almost done... time for some Febuary open water kitty catchin! I thought I would add one more pic from todays activities..

McKitty. Very tasty!
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Thanks again for a fun trip!
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[cool][#0000ff]That is pretty much the same info that Waljustia has put together over many visits to the area...both open water and under the ice.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The warm water has to be from an underground thermal source. As such, it is highly mineralized and the fish do not stay right in the warmest water. Best fishing is around the fringes.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]It is best reached by boat. WAAAAAAAY too far for kicking in a tube, but a motorized toon would handle it easy. Come to think of it, it was WAAAAAAY too far for me to hike. Waljustia is a healthy young animal and does not give proper consideration to us old fat guys. But, I think I probably did better than a lot of my younger acquaintances might have done.[/#0000ff]
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[:p] I honestly did not think in any way shape or form you was a braggin'. That was pure 100% total full-of-it crackpot smelly jelly joking.

By the way you and your fishin' partner scared me a little being out on that lake with that ridge in the ice.

You didn't think that ridge attracted cats during the coldest months did you? Come on now! Or was you yourself snorting too much smelly jelly! I doubt it was the deeper water you just didn't want to look stupid, am I right?[]

I would never venture out on any lake with a ridge like that! You remember what happened at Utah Lake that one year do you? Those guys got stuck when a huge chunk went a floatin' in another direction.

Sorry if I sound like your dear mother, but hey lets be safe.
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"give me a shout some time,
Roger "

[cool][#0000ff]HEY ROGER![/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]You know where I live and you got my number. Have your peeps call my peeps and come on over some time. Not enough BS around here when I am by myself. Plenty, but not enough.[/#0000ff]
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"Did you get a GPS of where it is?"

[cool][#0000ff]Out of consideration for my guide, I made no attempt to glom onto his "numbers". [/#0000ff]

[#0000ff]But, I did mark the spot well so I can find it again. Here's a pic of my "G Pee S" mark.[/#0000ff]

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I know exactly where you were. Right in front of Mount Timpanogos. Congrats on getting some kitties through the ice. You are likely among the few that have done that.
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[font "Courier New"][#000050]"In the picture of the pressure ridge, is it zoomed at all? I can't tell if those are your footprints at distorted size, or true size and made by something like a coyote or raccoon maybe?"[/#000050][/font]
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[font "Courier New"][#0000ff][cool][#0000ff]I am guessing the tracks were probably a coyote. They are all over the lake. Those "yodel poodles" have learned that sometimes anglers leave food or fish on the ice...or birds or animals come to a bad end out there. So, as part of their winter survival mode they make regular forays out onto the ice.[/#0000ff][/#0000ff][/font]
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[font "Courier New"][#0000ff]You may be interested in knowing that I have proposed that we adopt a new mascot for Groundhog Day. I am nominating you to be the official icon of winter vs spring transition. If you poke your nose outside and it turns white and frosty, then we won't see you again until June. If it merely turns blue then we might see you by the end of April.[/#0000ff][/font]
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[font "Courier New"][#0000ff]Hope you are wintering well and that we get a chance to launch another expedition for the ferocious saber toothed crappies at Willard Bay. Oh yeah, maybe some of those wascally wallies too.[/#0000ff][/font]
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[cool][#0000ff]Well, we both got open water kitties in February last year. You beat me by two or three days. As you noticed today, I usually like to give you a small head start so you don't whine as much at the final outcome.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Here's to some bodacious cat smackin' this year.[/#0000ff]
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