Baker's Dozen @ Mantua Ut.

[Leaky33]

Last week the Sparkinator and I went to Mantua for a hike and fishing from shore. Not a bite. Figured it was still too early. Well, we got cabin fever and decided to try deeper water from the tube. Didn't get there until about 1 pm and right off saw that it was going to be a bit dicey. Mantua was right on the edge of the front moving thru with a mixture if breeze, cool temps., rain clouds skirting by with an occasional shower. Launched anyway, fished for probably over 3 hours and managed 3 bass, all in deeper water around bottom weeds. Kind of tough finding these areas w/o fish finder. Decided that 3 was plenty for dinner so headed back along the shore line towards the truck dragging my "Reaper" with a small split shot , letting the breeze move me along. Of course Sparky visited me in the tube about 50 times. All of a sudden, around 4:30 it turned nice, calm, and mostly sunny. Well as I drifted along about 40-50 yds from shore, apparently I drifted over a large weed area and immediately started catching em. I just hung over this area and caught the remaining to make my Baker's Dozen. Decided to give the area a rest and headed home. Man, that was a goooooood spot, deep water with weeds. The bassies were all fat and healthy and seemed to be getting a little bigger since last year. Kept the original 4 for dinner and Sparky and I hauled out of the water and headed back to the truck and home. Took a pic. of a typical bass that we caught. They all seemed to be about the same size varying only about an inch. Made sure that I only kept 1 over 12".
P.S. Rechecked my notes and measurements of the ones I kept. They varied from 11-14+". []
Leaky and the Sparkinator

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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Great report. Sounds like you did much better than your last trip. Also sounds like Sparky is in midseason tubing form.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Good to hear the bass are healthy...and biting. Now you gotta hang a couple of the bigguns.[/#0000ff]
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[Leaky33]

Yeah, the biggest was just over 14" and the only one that had eggs, dang it. [frown] I guess that's no surprise, huh? The egg sack was still firm so had a ways to go yet but she had eggs. [frown][frown] Wish there was a way to tell before hand. They all had extended bellies so I couldn't rely on that. Any suggestions? Obviously this is real early in pre spawn so, -------------? I don't know how to tell. I guess one female won't destroy the hatchery, but I wish I could avoid keeping a female.
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Don't beat yourself up about keeping a female, and don't let anybody else do it either. Your intentions were good and until they get really fat and ripe with eggs there is no way to easily tell the difference between male and female. Also, for a lake that size, it really does not take too many big females to spawn enough younguns to keep the lake in balance. There are PLENTY of big old mamas in there to resupply the gene pool.[/#0000ff]
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