Deer Creek 8-16-21

[TubeDude]

In looking at the weather forecasts for this week, it looked like Monday might be my best shot.  And I figured Deer Creek would probably be a lot quieter with school starting.  It may have been a bit quieter but there were still plenty of non-school folks out with their noisy water toys. 



Started out bad.  I got to the water just after 6.   Before I could even get anything out of my vehicle a trailer with a single jet ski backed back and forth down the ramp and stopped right in the middle at the bottom.  No room for either of the boats that were also trying to launch.  Heard some unpleasant words.  But the jet ski got launched and was soon pulling around a skier...AT 6:30 ON A MONDAY MORNING.




After having some connection issues with my sonar I got launched just before 7...after a looooooong hike back down the hill...after having to park over 50 yards away from the store because they have all the close in parking tagged as reserved.  And after my last run-in with the booth Gestapo lady I wasn't about to try parking in a boat trailer spot again.




Air temp was a cool 54 and water at the ramp was a tick over 70.  It never warmed much before I left at noon and it actually got one degree cooler uplake toward Charleston...and the Provo River inlet.  As expected, the California smoke contribution made things kinda hazy.  Could barely make out the outline of Timp.










No recent reports on species, locations or tactics...so I decided to work through my old routine.  Started by pitching plastics around the rocky shores of the island.  No perch or smallies came out to play.  So I moved around on the other side of the island and started dragging  some crawler rigs...hoping for a walleye.  Got some "rattle rattle" light inquiries I assumed to be perch so I traded one crawler rig for my tandem tube jig rig.  Big whoop.  Got 3 or 4 little "seegar" walleyes. 







Moved out into deeper water (16 - 19 feet) and resumed crawler harness fishing.  Saw more fish marks appearing on sonar but still no solid takers.  Changed one of the crawler harness rigs to a fire tiger mini whirly flig with a couple of pieces of crawler on the single hook.  That's what caught ever other fish I caught today.  The first good take was a teen incher walleye...that declined to be netted.  The next good whack was a feisty rainbow that kicked my behind good before spitting the hook.  I was started to feel jinxed.  Thought I got Friday the 13th out of the way last week.




Then I got into a "keeper zone".  Got two nice rainbows (surprise) and lost another.  Then I got a 16 inch walleye that remembered how to hang on clear to the net...and lost one more.  The rainbows measured out at 17 and 19 inches.  Not bad for a day when I thought the trout would be deep somewhere.
















By now the power squadron was getting well tuned up and the attention to proximity rules didn't seem to be real big with them.  So I started my way back to the ramp.








Got to the ramp.  Got my 3 take home fish to pose and then did the looooooooong trudge back up the hill to get my vehicle.  Boy.  We sure do some weird stuff in the name of enjoys.