Fishing Forum

Decided the weather was warm enough today to justify skipping class and heading down to UL to see if I could rustle up some bluegill.

Rigged my short rods with light tackle and stopped at a pet store for crickets on the way down.

Crickets turned out to be a good call. I dropped my line into the water for the first time and I'm pretty sure my bobber hadn't even made contact with the surface before I had a fish on.

Pretty sure it was a green sunfish. Can anyone confirm the ID on that? Wasn't terribly colorful, but size wise it was pretty decent and seemed very healthy to me. See attachment

Unfortunately, no bites the rest of the hour or so I spent at the lake. I dunno if that was just a stupid sunfish, or if I spooked the rest. Still, nice to avoid the skunk within 5 seconds of starting

As the water warms up I'm hoping to make a return trip with some friends, and hopefully between all of us catch enough for a big ol' pot of chowder.
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Sorry but that's no stupid sun fish. It's a black crappie.
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Oh man. After googling a bit, you're totally right. Well cool.

Either way, it was delicious.
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Yup you have a good old Utah Lake black crappie there. [cool]
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Catch 20-30 of them and they sure make a good fish taco. [cool]
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Yeah... I was hoping to catch a bucketful, but that's the first crappie I've ever caught. A little strange that I never got another nibble after that first fish. I thought crappie traveled in large schools? Do they spook easily or something?
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Here's a bunch I caught last Friday, was a case of being in the right spot at the right time.
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Nice! See, I was expecting to catch a nice mess of SOMETHING. I dunno. Like I said, I'm no crappie expert, but I thought that where there was one, there were more. Seems weird to catch a single one and then not see a nibble for an hour.

Is that a perch in the corner?
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Yes a nice size perch, sometimes you catch one straggler when going after crappie. Got them off the dike.
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My experience with Utah Lake crappie is that sometimes you will pull out one or two, or (like was mentioned before), you happen onto a pretty good group of 'em. I usually get into good bunches of them when they are in pre-spawn and spawn mode...and they will be willing to bite. I like using small jigs tipped with crawler or crappie nibbles. The small gulp minnows (like the 1 inch size) are great for panfish at Utah Lake as well.
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