Willard Wunnerful Wednesday 6-26-20

[TubeDude]

Met up with fellow tuber Lee at the north marina this morning.  Air temp 70 and water temp 76…rising a degree or two before noon.
 
Today started out great.  Then it took a downturn.  But all’s well that ends…and I ended up bringing home a good batch of kitties for the smoker.
 
Upside?  I hit all green lights from the time I left my house until I got to Willard…including the onramp to I-15 and the offramp to the Maverik at 2700 N. where I stopped for a breakfast break.  Total of about 9 or 10 lights.  Never happened before.  Usually just the opposite…all red lights.
 
Downturn?  When I got ready to put my big battery (series 27 AGM) in my tube…for the electric motor…there was an empty spot in my car.  I had left it on the bench after charging it after my trip to Utah Lake Monday.  Lucky me.  I still had my 33 ah backup battery.  And it worked fine.  Got me all over the lake and back to my car with still over 70%  charge.  Life can be good.  CAN BE.

Just as we were launching...on a nice smooth wind-free lake...the midge minions arose in a cloud of fury.  They swarmed all over everything.  Thankfully I had my bug screen mask...even if I didn't have my covid mask on.
 
With not enough battery for trolling my new U-rigs, I fell back on flig dragging.  My main game plan was to bring home a limit of kitties for the smoker.  My smokitty fan club has been murmuring ominously so I thought I better restock the supply.  The really good news was that the catfish were on the chew and helped me get ‘er done.
 
I was dragging some blue-silver “whirly fligs”…with little spinner blades…tipped with small chub minnows.  In a shad-rich environment like Willard that appeals to all the predator species…usually.  Today, several different models all caught multiple cats.  Most were nice healthy kitties in the upper teen inchers to early twenty inchers.  A few were still just kittens.  I kept my limit of 8 smokeable size and released almost twice as many before my minnows ran out.
 
While fishing the catfish rigs I had a few “rattle rattle” bites that I suspected might be perch.  I finally caught one on a kitty rig so I knew they were there.  After I ran out of minnows, I switched my fligs over to sizes and colors that usually appeal to perch…and decorated them with crawler.  Wouldn’t ya know it?  No more perch but the kitties didn’t read the instructions and they intercepted the perch rigs.
 
Met up with fellow tuber and fishing buddy Fatbiker at the ramp.  Had seen him out and about in his boat while Lee and I were fishing but never got close enough to exchange pleasantries.  Antisocial distancing, ya know? 
 
Headed for the fish cleaning station about 11ish.  Ta daaaa.  Wasn’t working…as usual.  So I put all my cat carcasses in a big plastic bag and deposited them in the dumpster.



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