Utah lake fist time

[Redrebel]

I had a great flig making lesson with Pat on Thursday, I walked out of his fish emporium with tackle and a rod that needed to get some action. I headed to Utah lake early Friday morning to try out a place I’ve never fished. Launched at Lincoln marina about 6am. I worked the dock area for about 30 minutes looking for WB with no luck. Cruised out to about 4.5 fow and started trolling the fligs. I didn’t have any luck until I hit about 9 feet of water. I returned that 26 inch cat and kept working an area for a few hours and picked up a total of six cats ranging between 26 and 30 inches topping out at almost 11 pounds. I need to get better at taking pics and proving my fish stories. On my Final retrieval when cleaning up, I picked up a little white bass. I met a few anglers at the dock that we talked for quite some time and gave me plenty of tips. I may not have such a bad taste in my mouth for Utah lake. Buzz blade fire tiger and a purple perch were the best fligs. Much thanks to tubedude for all the time he spent giving me the flig lessons. 

[TubeDude]

Glad to be able to contribute to your fishing affliction, Joe.  I recognize in you the same "perpetual student" syndrome with which I have been afflicted my entire life.  And since I have to give thanks and recognition to countless other anglers along the way who contributed to my knowledge base, I do so in the form of "paying it forward".   Almost more than enjoying fishing myself, I enjoy helping others learn new stuff and shortening their own learning curves.

Glad you found some decent fish.  It should get even better for a few weeks before the water temps drop below about 55.  You can still catch them then, but they don't nearly pull as hard.  

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I have fished Utah Lake going back to the early 1960s.  Yeah, I'm that old.  In recent years I have put together several writeups and videos on Utah Lake.  As a longtime Utah Lake lover and student, I collect a bunch of papers and articles on that body of water and the subjects they cover.  I have a bunch of stuff on Utah Lake Pollution... of which I am attaching a few.  

I will say that I have watched this poor abused body of water go through multiple changes in the ecology and overall importance to Utah Valley and the state of Utah.  During the late 1970's, for example, the now-defunct Geneva Steel operation in Vineyard was pouring in vast quantities of untreated wastewater...used and polluted with a variety of chemicals used  in the steel making process.  Consequently, fish caught around the "bubbleup"...and even in other parts of the lake...smelled like well-used 30 weight motor oil when filleted.  

Thankfully that all went away around Y2K...when Geneva shut down forever.    There are no doubt still residual pollution components left over deep in the lake sediments, but not as much as one might think.  This shallow lake actually gets well flushed each year by annual runoff...even in low water years.  The main sources of pollution these days are from poorly treated wastewater (sewage) and from both agricultural and residential runoff waters.  Bad enough, but not bad enough to close the lake or to worry unduly about the taste or quality of most fish consumed from the lake.  And, thankfully, there are steps being taken to update and improve the sewage treatment facilities around the lake...to reduce the phosphorous and other elements that contribute to pollution and algae blooms.
  1. UTAH LAKE HISTORY 2017.pdf (Size: 1.58 MB / Downloads: 6)
  1. UTAH LAKE POLLUTION 2017.pdf (Size: 2.27 MB / Downloads: 3)
  CATFISH ADVISORY.pdf (Size: 41.21 KB / Downloads: 5)
  UTAH LAKE CONSIDERATIONS.pdf (Size: 393.64 KB / Downloads: 1)
  UTAH LAKE PCB STUDY.pdf (Size: 2.19 MB / Downloads: 1)
  UTAH MERCURY TESTING.pdf (Size: 1.4 MB / Downloads: 1)
  Utah-Lake-Workplan-2016-2019.pdf (Size: 714.72 KB / Downloads: 0)