Willard Wednesday 6-2-21

[TubeDude]

Met up with yakker FatBiker at the south marina this morning.  Already a warm 62 degrees air temp and 65 water temp at 7 am launch.  Water warmed to 68 by noon.  He went his way and I went mine.  Not sure how he finished since his truck was gone when I hit the ramp at noon.
   

Was pleasantly surprised to meet Anglinarcher in his boat.  Our first meetup after a lot of cyber chatter.  Also not sure how he did since he headed out and covered a lot of water to the west of where I fished mostly.

Wanted to try a new rig today...a "high-low" rig...using 3 way swivels to fish two separate crawler harnesses at different levels above the bottom.  Attaching a writeup and one pic to explain it a bit.  The fish approved.  Hooked 4 walleye, landed 3, kept 2.  One posed briefly for a picture and then dove off my plastic apron back into the lake.  Caught 2 walleye on the top rig and 2 on the bottom. 
   
   
   
   

Also caught about 10 cats...some on the crawler rigs and some on minnows on whirly fligs.  All fun and all released on today's trip.
   
   

Dragged the crawler rigs at about .8 mph average.  Tried pulling some cranks at 2 mph for a while but got no love.  Went back to BB  but the fish pretty much quit playing a little after 11.  Dang.  I lived 20 years in Arizona and should be heat tolerant.  But even 90 seems hot in Utah.

[jjannie]

Water looks like it was as calm as we had it yesterday.  Did you notice how deep the water was in South marina? 

The Hi-Lo rig is an interesting set up and sounds like it worked pretty well for you, we just may have to give that one a try next week.  What's the simplest way to keep it from tangling up when out of the water - do the 2 tri-swivels hinder or help with this?

[TubeDude]

Water looks like it was as calm as we had it yesterday.  Did you notice how deep the water was in South marina? 

The Hi-Lo rig is an interesting set up and sounds like it worked pretty well for you, we just may have to give that one a try next week.  What's the simplest way to keep it from tangling up when out of the water - do the 2 tri-swivels hinder or help with this?

6' in the boat basin...10' in the channel.

The secret is using a long rod and being very careful in setting out and bringing in the rigs.  The more leaders and danglies you have the more likely you will get tangles...especially with other rigs.  Almost impossible to rig effectively without the 3-way swivels.  I have done modified versions in the past using blood knot connections.  They work for shorter leaders but not so much for longer ones.  But I think I could shorten up the leaders on the 3-way swivel rig without sacrificing effectiveness.  Still a work in progress and more experimentation to be done.  At least some fish voted for it on this trip and there were no tangles.

When not in use, I bring the lower rig down and around the reel and up the rod to hook onto the top rig.  Then they pull against each other to stay close on the rod and not tangle.  It's a variation of how I put away a tandem jig rig...with the two hooks hooked together after dropping one down around the reel shaft.  Here's a picture.
   

[FatBiker]

Pat, sorry I missed you. Ran out of baits by 10:30. Burned through the pack of BELH minnows you gifted me (thanks again) by nine and a pack of marinated chicken 90 minutes later. Three sets of doubles and I lost track of how many kitties were caught and released. Didn't seem to matter what I used as long as I stayed between 9 and 12 FOW. 10 FOW was the sweet spot. I'm guessing the kitties are about to spawn so they've put on the feed bag. Wore me out so a nap was my first order of business at home.

[TubeDude]

Pat, sorry I missed you. Ran out of baits by 10:30. Burned through the pack of BELH minnows you gifted me (thanks again) by nine and a pack of marinated chicken 90 minutes later.  Three sets of doubles and I lost track of how many kitties were caught and released. Didn't seem to matter what I used as long as I stayed between 9 and 12 FOW. 10 FOW was the sweet spot.  I'm guessing the kitties are about to spawn so they've put on the feed bag.  Wore me out so a nap was my first order of business at home.

Yep.  Some problems are better to have than others.

Glad we could make it out today. 

I knew that if I fished shallower I could catch more cats.  But I caught plenty while working for the other guys.

Let's see if there is a mutually agreeable day next week we can do it some more again...or even get you down to Utah Lake for some REAL TUGS.  Hard for me to leave Willard though, when the wallies are still playing.

[wiperhunter2]

Nice report Pat, good to hear your new rig worked for you today. Tomorrow we will be trolling too fast to use that rig but we can give it a try if we get at least one limit early, see you in the morning.

[FatBiker]

I'd love to next week. Busy Wednesday and Thursday and out of town all of next week.

[Anglinarcher]

Glad the fish worked liked you.

I misplaced my phone so I don't have pictures, but Three Walleye, one kitty liked my offerings.  It was good to see the cleaning station at the South marina working and clean.

Found my eyes at between 9 and 12 feet, in groups.  I was using bottom bouncers on a long line with crawler harness.  My bodies are a gold and green I found some years ago.  Best was 19", other smaller.

Did find my phone, once I had a second phone to call it and a quite place to listen.  I was sweating blood for a while.

When I finally called it a day, water was 73.5 degrees.  Looks like it is getting hot out there now.

[MrShane]

A little trick when running a high/low rig, especially for bottom hugging fish (walleye/perch):
Run the bottom rig on as short a leader as possible and the top rig leader as long as possible.
When passing over a neutral fish, the bottom rig puts the fish on ‘alert’ and then the top rig passes over it and hopefully incites a strike.

[TubeDude]

A little trick when running a high/low rig, especially for bottom hugging fish (walleye/perch):
Run the bottom rig on as short a leader as possible and the top rig leader as long as possible.
When passing over a neutral fish, the bottom rig puts the fish on ‘alert’ and then the top rig passes over it and hopefully incites a strike.

Too "high tech" for me.  When I gotta overthink it my head hurts.

[Paddler]

A little trick when running a high/low rig, especially for bottom hugging fish (walleye/perch):
Run the bottom rig on as short a leader as possible and the top rig leader as long as possible.
When passing over a neutral fish, the bottom rig puts the fish on ‘alert’ and then the top rig passes over it and hopefully incites a strike.

Too "high tech" for me.  When I gotta overthink it my head hurts.

Too complicated.  I fish to relax, not worry about tangles.  I used to really enjoy bottom bouncing in my old Alumacraft, but can't can't do it in my Hewes.  Now I just troll cranks.  Easy peasy.

[JArner]

Nice write up and interesting rigging, always appreciate the info. May be out on Monday morning to try for some walleye.

[PACKFAN]

Met up with yakker FatBiker at the south marina this morning.  Already a warm 62 degrees air temp and 65 water temp at 7 am launch.  Water warmed to 68 by noon.  He went his way and I went mine.  Not sure how he finished since his truck was gone when I hit the ramp at noon.


Was pleasantly surprised to meet Anglinarcher in his boat.  Our first meetup after a lot of cyber chatter.  Also not sure how he did since he headed out and covered a lot of water to the west of where I fished mostly.

Wanted to try a new rig today...a "high-low" rig...using 3 way swivels to fish two separate crawler harnesses at different levels above the bottom.  Attaching a writeup and one pic to explain it a bit.  The fish approved.  Hooked 4 walleye, landed 3, kept 2.  One posed briefly for a picture and then dove off my plastic apron back into the lake.  Caught 2 walleye on the top rig and 2 on the bottom. 





Also caught about 10 cats...some on the crawler rigs and some on minnows on whirly fligs.  All fun and all released on today's trip.



Dragged the crawler rigs at about .8 mph average.  Tried pulling some cranks at 2 mph for a while but got no love.  Went back to BB  but the fish pretty much quit playing a little after 11.  Dang.  I lived 20 years in Arizona and should be heat tolerant.  But even 90 seems hot in Utah.

My son and i launched the boat at the North Marina Weds morning, we fished from 7 to 11 and landed a couple doz. walleye during that time frame we kept our limit that ran from 17 to 20 inches. All caught trolling.