Fishing Forum

[#0000FF]Well, both the air temp and water temps were hot. The fishing...not so much.

It has been like forever since I have fished the south marina of Willard. Wasn't overly optimistic...after the big holiday weekend and water temps hitting 80. But today looked like the best potential weather for the next few days so I went for it.

Oh yeah. Sometimes I love it when the weather forecast is wrong. I almost cancelled this morning when the forecast showed winds in the teens all morning. Glassy calm mostly with only a fishing ripple from time to time. I have bailed on too many trips with wind in the forecast only to find out that there was no wind at all. Plenty of the other kind too...with calm forecast and gale force winds.

Water level is almost as low as it got last fall. No good for fisherfolk...at least the boaters. There were still some decent sized boats launching but cautiously. And there was a prop casualty.

Air temp at launch was 63...warming to 91 by noon. Water temp was 77...going to 80 midday. That is out of the preferred comfort zone for most species. At least for all but the kitties.

I launched at 6:30 and was smelling skunky before I caught my first fish a couple of hours later. It was a yearling kitty. Purty little thang. Better than skunk. Took some big S turns and a lot of sonar watching to find any fish. Saw singles here and there but nothing exciting. There were fish at all depths from about 7 feet out to 12 feet...the deepest water I found.

I caught the first little kitty in about 8 feet of water and spent too much time in that range. I finally moved out deeper and when I got into the 10 - 11 foot zone I began to get a few more munches on both my tandem jig rig and on my "hanger shot" tube jigs. But I suspect that a lot of the inquiries were more of the small kitties. They were eager but just couldn't open their little mouths wide enough to get the hooks.

I saw a few sonar marks that looked suspiciously like suspended crappies...with their mouths closed and their middle fins upraised. Also saw some marks that could have been wipers. Same attitude. Lots of carp cruising the surface and tail slapping. And when I turned around to investigate what sounded like either a carp orgy or a wiper boil I witnessed two BIG cats rolling and battling each other right on the surface. I was close enough for a positive id. Tried to get a picture but before I could get the camera out and turned on they had taken it out to the street...or whatever.

Then someone flipped the cookie cutter switch and I got several Willard Bay cookies in short order. Each was on either side of 18 inches and each fought much bigger than they were. Much fun on my light jig sticks. I caught 3 or 4 on white jingle jigs...with a little propeller spinner. Another 3 or 4 slurped the blue/clear sparkle hangershot tube jig.

It was fun while it lasted but it didn't lasted very long. Glad I got to the party before it was over. I talked to three other boaters and two of them had not even had a bite. The other was getting bites but suspected they were some of the little kitties I told him about. They were playful even if nothing else was.

Didn't keep any fish today. TubeBabe is still in Arizona and I don't like or need to freeze fish. We usually enjoy it fresh but only freeze catfish for future smoking subjects. Made it much faster at the cleaning station. Didn't even have to plug in my electric fillet knife.
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Glad you found a few willing cats. The low water isn't good. on my 2 trips earlier there wasn't a lot of water coming in. I was hoping Pineview would fill and a lot of excess would be released. The farmers are irrigating and the run off is slowing so don't look good.
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[#0000FF]Just a small amount coming in from the canal, over the baffles. Not enough to keep up with evaporation and water user suckouts. It is really going to get low before the water year is over.
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Even though I had fun last month there at willard, I am a little "low water" shy to get the beast out there again this year. Hope we get some water this winter.
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Glad you were able to get out there early and catch some willing kitties.
Qball and I hit it yesterday at the worst time possible 1:30 pm. Water temp was 85* at launch and 86* when we were getting off the water around 7:30 pm. I guess the bugs don't like the heat either because we had little problem with them. We ended up with three average sized eyes and two wipers, one was a dandy at 23". I doubt I'll try that again for a while, I like the mornings much better[].
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Glad to see you are still finding a few fish. Its way too hot for me in the afternoon . I cant believe how much the water temp has climbed in a couple weeks.
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[#0000FF]Yep. The fish are still there...just changing up their habits. They don't like the heat any more than we do. In the shallower water they have more difficulty finding cool spots to their liking.

In days of old I fished walleyes at night during the summer...when we could go in and out of the State Park whenever we wanted. But in those days the walleyes stayed around the rock dikes more. That's where the crappies were and crappies were the main forage base before the gizzard shad came on the scene. A couple hours of throwing Thin Fins and plasics parallel to the rocks would usually produce a limit. But in those days a limit was two fish over 20 inches...6 total. It was difficult to find under 20s so a limit would be two fish...and releasing another 8 to 10 that were over 20.

Glad you guys found a few. I'm sure you were hotter above water than I was below. Reminded me of my days in Arizona. There were days when it was already 90 degrees at daybreak and over a hundred by the time we had enough...about 10 in the morning. But, as they say in Hell...it's a nice dry heat.
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Pat, I just missed you. I wanted to take my Kayak out for the morning but hadn't Renewed my season pass so I opted to fish the south dike until the service booth was open. I couldn't see buying a day pass then turn around and paying for the season. I got into the park just after 12, purchased my pass and used the cleaning station.

I caught 9 cats releasing 3 of them. They didn't start biting until 0900.

No bugs ( well very few) to bug me.

I agree with the heat thing. Sweating with out work is no fun. It helps when you are able to connect once in awhile.

Richard J
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Good to hear from you again about Willard. I have had good luck around the feed lot. Not sure how deep it is there though. Think as far as I can cast from the rocks its only 3 feet or so. How far away from the rocks were you where you finding 10 feet of water. Thinking the water is that depth 2 or 3 hundred yards out..
I don't understand where the water is. Pineveiw is full and the rivers are flowing well...The powers that be must be selling off the water somewhere else.. .
Haven't seen any boils yet but shouldn't till August or September. The rocks don't seen to have any small shad in them yet.. Sure am looking forward to an active feeding pattern to start again.
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[#0000FF]I did not get closer than maybe a hundred yards from the rocks. That was a depth of about 4-5 feet and I had not had any hits shallower than in 7'. Of course that can change day to day and even during the same day. The fish will move to find food or comfort according to their own moods.

The depth changes very slowly out to the 7' depth. Then it has a faster slope out to 9-10 feet. And to find 11 or 12 feet requires another bit of kicking. I am guessing I was nearly 1/4 mile from the waterline before I found the deepest water. And I went out that far because I saw a couple of boats come out from the marina and start trolling there. I thought maybe they knew something I should know. I did see fish but they were not active.

I was surprised at how the depth varies while coming back in a more or less straight line. When I started I was in 10.5 feet...maintaining a fairly strait track. But the bottom kept changing...up to 8' and then back down to over 11 feet and back up again. That's my main use of sonar out there...first to find what depth the active fish are using and then to try to keep myself in that zone. On most trips there are a lot of big S turns involved to find the fish.

And by the way, the "zone" from which I caught most of my fish was pretty much due west of the feed lot structures. I think I originally introduced you guys to that area when we had our first floatilla out there. As I told you, that general area is usually money...if you want catfish. But I have caught plenty of the other species around there too.

As I recall, you ride your bike out on the dike (kinda rhymes, huh?). In earlier days I used to think nothing of parking on the main road and hiking all the way around to the feed lot. I don't think much of it these days either. Tough enough in a float tube with a motor on it.
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Sounds like you had a good time. Thanks for the report. If these temperatures keep up I can see you making some additions to the tube. Maybe an adjustable beach umbrella with a small solar panel on top to power a pump for a mister. You could put it on a timer to spray you down every 15 - 20 minutes.[]
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[#0000FF]Silly you. Ya gotta know I have tried something to cool off. Attached is a pic of a PVC and tarp cover "Bimini" cover. Worked too. But the novelty wore off about the time it kept getting in the way of mobility and casting.

[inline "BIMINI COVER.JPG"]
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I got Bekki a great Bimini made for chairs. She loves it.
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I was at the south marina today on the shore. First time I have ever been there. No luck whatsoever. I did see lots of cats and carp flipping around the surface. I have heard that mussels have been doing well, can you confirm that?
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[#0000FF]Mussels were a hot bait in May, when the wipers were close to shore on their false spawn thing. And the catfish ate them too. But I haven't heard of anyone fishing them successfully since.

When I was at the south marina on Tuesday I spent quite a bit of time fishing inside the boat channel. I saw only a few fish on sonar and only got a couple of "rattle rattle" bites on jigs tipped with worms. I suspect they were bluegill but didn't hook any.

I usually get cats up and down that channel almost all year. Not this trip. They do move in and out, according to their own schedules. But there were none on Tuesday. As I posted in my report, I did best out in about 10 feet of water. There are a couple of 9-10 foot spots in the channel but the cats weren't hanging out in those either.
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