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Took the morning and headed down to Willard with a buddy from work.
Bumped into Tin Can and his wife on our way out, and Wiperhunter and Wiperslayer on the way back. Good seeing ya'll!
Headed out to the south corner, and trolled north. Got one good slam dragging shad-cranks, and brought in a 21inch walleye.
Washed lures a while longer, then headed over to the feedlot to try some kitty play, but we were out of time.
But this fish made my day.
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More importantly, it made your dinner!
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[#0000FF]Nice work.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Good to see you rejoining the fray. Hope life is treating you better.
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Nice job John, good to see ya harassing those eyes again... That one is big enough to make a feast, hope you enjoyed it.... I'm sure you found a fancy way to prepare it... Thanks for the report and congrats... J
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Good to see you out there John, with all the shad in the water, there is little chance the catching will improve, for most of us at least. We felt lucky to catch two yesterday. Here is a pic of the shad we were seeing out there.
The yellow line is the bottom and all those are baby shad in purple above that yellow line. [crazy]
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Nice goin John. Good to see ya out and about again.
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"OCD = Obsessive Catfish Disorder "
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WiperHunter2. Wow. Where was that at? What is the big yellow ball toward the surface? What do you think all the other fish are in the middle?
Were the two you caught Wipers? What speed and depth? Big cranks or small cranks? Are the wiper starting to pattern on those little fry?
Thx.
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[quote Optimizer]WiperHunter2. Wow. Where was that at? What is the big yellow ball toward the surface? What do you think all the other fish are in the middle?
Were the two you caught Wipers? What speed and depth? Big cranks or small cranks? Are the wiper starting to pattern on those little fry?
Thx.[/quote]
That was at Willard, everywhere we fished.
There are at least two different age class of shad in that pic, the larger ones are in that yellow ball toward the surface the smaller ones are in that purple wave close to the bottom. I'll attach a pic of the smaller shad. The bigger fish are fish like crappie wipers and walleye but they could be just about any fish that feed on shad. We caught 1 wiper and 1 eye. We had another 6 or so on but they did not hang on[  ] but most were biting on the bottom. Got to go now, hopefully today is better.
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Shoot - those are teeny weenie and blurry! Haha
Talk about a bunch of small-fry.
Definitely saw lots of birds diving, so those bait-balls must be forming up.
Might turn into a good year for boils.
Think I'll be taking the crew over to Mantua this weekend, see if we can't get the kids into some bluegill action, and then some.
I do need to get over to the Pig for some more Koke chasing.
Maybe even a camping trip.
Heading to the Gorge for a day mid-July, hopefully find the big ones!
When I'm not out fishing, might be off checking out Music with my ladies.
Canyon Jams - Stokes Nature Center. Up Logan Canyon - check it out!
http://logannature.org/canyon-jams/
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Yote, wife and I hit Mantua for a couple hours yesterday. No luck
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"OCD = Obsessive Catfish Disorder "
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Hi WH2. I am looking at your sonor picture from this thread on 6/28; shad clouds 4' on the bottom, bait balls 0-2' on top, big fish all over the middle. What deth do you run your lures when trolling in this? Do you run them right down the middle at 7' depth? temp was 74. What speed do you run? What lenght lures at this time? Thx.
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Right on the bottom is the only place I have caught a fish there in weeks. I use lead core line and let out line until I see the rod tip ticking, because it is hitting the bottom, then I reel up until the rod tip stops ticking. You could catch fish with almost any type of lure but lately I've done best trolling worm harness, using this lead core method. We have done best trolling at 2.3 mph but faster and slower can work depending on the day.
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Thanks WH2 for sharing this information. I suppose using the S-turns while trolling will help nail down the speed for the day. Do you know if mornings or evenings are doing better right now at these temps? Have you heard how others are doing at Willard? When you are down off the bottom, are you catching more cats, walleye, or wipers? thx
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IMO doing S turn always helps. I haven't heard of anyone fishing Willard in the last week but two weeks ago, there were people that I know from out there that were still catching walleye but few wipers. IMO fishing the early morning, before sunrise is always best for walleye this time of the year but wiper and cats are a different matter. That being said I rarely fish the evening this time of the year because of the mosquitoes. I catch cats, walleye and wipers, just off the bottom.
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You're right. I hit Willard tonight and the shad balls are everywhere. This is the time of year that I usually give Willard a break and pound the smallies at Pineview.
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Hi! Want to take the kids to pine View. What do you use for the small mouths ? Thanks
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Me too, when all those baby shad start showing up in huge numbers like that, it is pretty hard to compete with that. Time to venture farther away from home. Hopefully we will see some good boils this year but I have my doubts after last year being so poor.
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Anything that looks like a crawdad casted around the rocky banks will work. Size 5 glass shad raps work well. Missile baits crawdads... Really anything that mimics them will catch em up there.
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Saw quite a few boils this morning, trolled thru one and picked up a double, one being our largest of the morning at 23 inches the other a couple inches shorter.
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Would bottom bouncers be good to use to be sure you are fishing the bottom?
I have little knowledge about trolling at Willard
Any and all help is welcome.
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