07-23-2009, 09:29 PM
[cool][#0000ff]Met up with Wildcat94 and his brother Wes at the South Marina of Willard Bay this morning. Me in my float tube and they in their toons. We had wipers in mind but ended up settling for a lot of playtime with those everlovin' cookie cutter kitties.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Air temp 72 and water temp 76 at launch, about 6:30 AM. Absolutely clear and calm. Surprisingly, no bugs of any species. Somebody was lookin' out for us kids today.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Surprised none of us got even a touch on either bait or lures on the way out the channel. Lots of fishy marks on sonar, but none of them had their little mouths open. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I didn't get my first hit until almost 7:30. Got a fairly skinny cookie cutter kittie on a minnow. A few minutes later I got a munch on the tandem jig rig I was throwing on my second rod. Didn't fight like a catfish...because it was a perch. A dandy 12 incher. Lovely.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]As I worked to the north, a ways out from the dike, I kept moving from deeper to shallower. Caught a couple of strays intermittently. Catfish...not wipers. Didn't see any signs of surface activity and not much evidence of bait schools. The fish were evidently in another part of the lake.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I finally reached the fringes of my "Kitty Condo" area and it was GAME ON. They were there in force and they wanted action. As I put my third in a row in the basket I hollered for the Wildcat boys to get over and join in the fun. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Just as they were cruising in on their motorized toons, I experienced something I have never done before...a TRIPLE. Let me explain. I had two bait rods dragging minnows out behind me. The first one went zing and as I set the hook, the second one had a pickup and runner. I put the first rod in a holder, to let the fish fight itself, and set the hook on the second fish. I had made only a few turns on the reel for the second cat when a rod I had laying under my left arm, with a jig about two feet out of the rod tip, suddenly came to life and almost got pulled overboard behind me. I put the second rod in a holder and brought in the fish on the jig rod. Then I brought in the other two. Got all three safely aboard. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The jig fish may be considered illegal, since I do not have a 3 pole permit. But, I was really not fishing with it. I merely had it in the water to keep the worm from drying out in the heat...only a foot or so under the water. I couldn't help it if a stupid catfish came up off the bottom in 13 feet of water to smack it. Just to be proper about it, I release two out of the three anyway. I did not think I would have much trouble keeping a limit if I chose to.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]As the Wildcat boys watched, I proceeded to catch two or three more doubles right in front of them. On one occasion I had a minnow soaking about 5 feet under a bobber on one rod. I was throwing jigs on the second rod. No third rod in the water this time. The bobber went down and I set the hook. I had put the jig rod in a holder, with a few feet of line still trailing out that I hadn't taken the time to reel in when the bobber went down. Yep, you guessed it. Another masochistic kitty whacked one of the "dead sticked" jigs and impaled itself on the sharp Matzuo hook. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I directed the Wildcat boys as to which landmarks to watch for along the dike and at what depth to keep fishing. I left them to work the kitty condo while I went prospecting for wipers. I did ultimately have a couple of wipers on...briefly...on plastics. But none on minnows or hardbaits.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]On the slow leisurely kick back down the dike, I went through 2 bags of minnows and most of a box of crawlers. The rod with a minnow on it seldom settled into the rod holder before the line popped out of the clip and i had to set the hook in another cookie cutter. During brief lulls in the minnow munching action, I got to make casts with my tandem tube jigs...tipped with crawler. I got bites on almost every cast with the jigs. Unfortunately, as I discovered by hooking a few, many of the pesky little devils were very small catfish. I haven't caught little cats like that in Willard for a long time. However, I did catch a few "average" size cookie cutters on jigs too. They are always fun on the light rod I use for fishing small jigs.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The Wildcat boys done good too. They both ended up with nice baskets of cookie cutters for the fish cleaning station. They were already anticipating an evening fish fry.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Air temp 72 and water temp 76 at launch, about 6:30 AM. Absolutely clear and calm. Surprisingly, no bugs of any species. Somebody was lookin' out for us kids today.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]Surprised none of us got even a touch on either bait or lures on the way out the channel. Lots of fishy marks on sonar, but none of them had their little mouths open. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]I didn't get my first hit until almost 7:30. Got a fairly skinny cookie cutter kittie on a minnow. A few minutes later I got a munch on the tandem jig rig I was throwing on my second rod. Didn't fight like a catfish...because it was a perch. A dandy 12 incher. Lovely.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]As I worked to the north, a ways out from the dike, I kept moving from deeper to shallower. Caught a couple of strays intermittently. Catfish...not wipers. Didn't see any signs of surface activity and not much evidence of bait schools. The fish were evidently in another part of the lake.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]I finally reached the fringes of my "Kitty Condo" area and it was GAME ON. They were there in force and they wanted action. As I put my third in a row in the basket I hollered for the Wildcat boys to get over and join in the fun. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]Just as they were cruising in on their motorized toons, I experienced something I have never done before...a TRIPLE. Let me explain. I had two bait rods dragging minnows out behind me. The first one went zing and as I set the hook, the second one had a pickup and runner. I put the first rod in a holder, to let the fish fight itself, and set the hook on the second fish. I had made only a few turns on the reel for the second cat when a rod I had laying under my left arm, with a jig about two feet out of the rod tip, suddenly came to life and almost got pulled overboard behind me. I put the second rod in a holder and brought in the fish on the jig rod. Then I brought in the other two. Got all three safely aboard. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]The jig fish may be considered illegal, since I do not have a 3 pole permit. But, I was really not fishing with it. I merely had it in the water to keep the worm from drying out in the heat...only a foot or so under the water. I couldn't help it if a stupid catfish came up off the bottom in 13 feet of water to smack it. Just to be proper about it, I release two out of the three anyway. I did not think I would have much trouble keeping a limit if I chose to.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]As the Wildcat boys watched, I proceeded to catch two or three more doubles right in front of them. On one occasion I had a minnow soaking about 5 feet under a bobber on one rod. I was throwing jigs on the second rod. No third rod in the water this time. The bobber went down and I set the hook. I had put the jig rod in a holder, with a few feet of line still trailing out that I hadn't taken the time to reel in when the bobber went down. Yep, you guessed it. Another masochistic kitty whacked one of the "dead sticked" jigs and impaled itself on the sharp Matzuo hook. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]I directed the Wildcat boys as to which landmarks to watch for along the dike and at what depth to keep fishing. I left them to work the kitty condo while I went prospecting for wipers. I did ultimately have a couple of wipers on...briefly...on plastics. But none on minnows or hardbaits.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]On the slow leisurely kick back down the dike, I went through 2 bags of minnows and most of a box of crawlers. The rod with a minnow on it seldom settled into the rod holder before the line popped out of the clip and i had to set the hook in another cookie cutter. During brief lulls in the minnow munching action, I got to make casts with my tandem tube jigs...tipped with crawler. I got bites on almost every cast with the jigs. Unfortunately, as I discovered by hooking a few, many of the pesky little devils were very small catfish. I haven't caught little cats like that in Willard for a long time. However, I did catch a few "average" size cookie cutters on jigs too. They are always fun on the light rod I use for fishing small jigs.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]The Wildcat boys done good too. They both ended up with nice baskets of cookie cutters for the fish cleaning station. They were already anticipating an evening fish fry.[/#0000ff]
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