07-11-2013, 08:11 PM
[#0000FF]Can't hardly plan a trip nowhere in Utah these days if you are a tuber...or are otherwise messed up by the wind. Been a lot more windy days than the other.
Fellow tuber LloydE and I had been having one trip after another wiped out the night before by changing weather forecasts. We finally wrote off Jordanelle, Deer Creek and Starvation and said "The heck with it." Let's just get in whatever time we can at Lindon and be happy widdit.
6:30 am launch saw 75 degree air temp and 76 degree water temp. That's about as close as you can get to a break even point. Better than 32 - 32. Skies were mostly overcrashed with intermittent zephyrs...from all directions. Calm then breezy and from all points of the compass. Intermesting.
The water level in Utah Lake is lower than at this time last year...about a foot lower. Less than 4' of water in Lindon Harbor most places. And you had to go a long way offshore to find any 5' depth. The pipe at the bubbleup is exposed between the last two buoys and the shore. That didn't happen until late fall last year...and last year was a low water year.
Didn't see anything on sonar going out of the harbor and got no love on any of the jigs I pitched to the better holding areas. Headed for the bubbleup and started pitching jigs there by about 7 am. Nary a bump. Not a nibble. White bass are still absent.
Pitched out a bling bead decorated minnow to drag on one rod while I pitched jigs with the other. Didn't take long for the first "inquiry". Turned it into a feisty 20 incher...the standard cookie cutter size for the day. Hollered at Lloyd on the walkie talkie and told him the depth and what I had caught the fish on...4.4 feet...minnow.
Kept working along the pipeline...out about 20 to 30 feet...casting jigs to the pipe and dragging a minnow further out. Got into a ZONE full of hungry kitties and kept pretty busy for the next couple of hours. Couldn't even make a cast and retrieve with the jigs without having to crank the jigs in fast to set the hook on a fish trying to take all my line off through the open bail on my bait rig.
I was put on notice that I have been "elected" to do the annual catfish fry...again...by the end of July. So I decided to keep a limit of kitties to provide the guests of honor. I had my limit of 8 in the basket before 9 am...and released several more. Oh yeah, I caught one ugly mudder too. Took it's picture and sent it back to harass the carp. Lots of them on top today...slurping up midges and black ants that were blown into the water by an offshore breeze early. Carp were acting like brown trout taking caddis. Had several oblivious to my presence swim right up to my tube before noticing me and splashing me with their blastoff.
About 9:30 the breeze got stronger from the SW...just as it was forecast. But then it suddenly turned around and started blowing twice as hard from the NE...the direction we had to go back to get back into Lindon Harbor. Stupid weather forecrashers. Never trust 'em.
Lloyd had 4 cats in his basket and we decided we both had enough for our respective needs...and that we didn't need any more wind. So we boogied into the harbor, fished a few more minutes and hit the ramp.
Didn't get anything around or inside the harbor today. But saw some bank tanglers catching a few bullheads close to shore both outside and inside. That can be fun for the kids and if you hit it right a larger channel cat might cruise in.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Fellow tuber LloydE and I had been having one trip after another wiped out the night before by changing weather forecasts. We finally wrote off Jordanelle, Deer Creek and Starvation and said "The heck with it." Let's just get in whatever time we can at Lindon and be happy widdit.
6:30 am launch saw 75 degree air temp and 76 degree water temp. That's about as close as you can get to a break even point. Better than 32 - 32. Skies were mostly overcrashed with intermittent zephyrs...from all directions. Calm then breezy and from all points of the compass. Intermesting.
The water level in Utah Lake is lower than at this time last year...about a foot lower. Less than 4' of water in Lindon Harbor most places. And you had to go a long way offshore to find any 5' depth. The pipe at the bubbleup is exposed between the last two buoys and the shore. That didn't happen until late fall last year...and last year was a low water year.
Didn't see anything on sonar going out of the harbor and got no love on any of the jigs I pitched to the better holding areas. Headed for the bubbleup and started pitching jigs there by about 7 am. Nary a bump. Not a nibble. White bass are still absent.
Pitched out a bling bead decorated minnow to drag on one rod while I pitched jigs with the other. Didn't take long for the first "inquiry". Turned it into a feisty 20 incher...the standard cookie cutter size for the day. Hollered at Lloyd on the walkie talkie and told him the depth and what I had caught the fish on...4.4 feet...minnow.
Kept working along the pipeline...out about 20 to 30 feet...casting jigs to the pipe and dragging a minnow further out. Got into a ZONE full of hungry kitties and kept pretty busy for the next couple of hours. Couldn't even make a cast and retrieve with the jigs without having to crank the jigs in fast to set the hook on a fish trying to take all my line off through the open bail on my bait rig.
I was put on notice that I have been "elected" to do the annual catfish fry...again...by the end of July. So I decided to keep a limit of kitties to provide the guests of honor. I had my limit of 8 in the basket before 9 am...and released several more. Oh yeah, I caught one ugly mudder too. Took it's picture and sent it back to harass the carp. Lots of them on top today...slurping up midges and black ants that were blown into the water by an offshore breeze early. Carp were acting like brown trout taking caddis. Had several oblivious to my presence swim right up to my tube before noticing me and splashing me with their blastoff.
About 9:30 the breeze got stronger from the SW...just as it was forecast. But then it suddenly turned around and started blowing twice as hard from the NE...the direction we had to go back to get back into Lindon Harbor. Stupid weather forecrashers. Never trust 'em.
Lloyd had 4 cats in his basket and we decided we both had enough for our respective needs...and that we didn't need any more wind. So we boogied into the harbor, fished a few more minutes and hit the ramp.
Didn't get anything around or inside the harbor today. But saw some bank tanglers catching a few bullheads close to shore both outside and inside. That can be fun for the kids and if you hit it right a larger channel cat might cruise in.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]