Willard N. Marina 9-15-20

[TubeDude]

Met up with tubin' buddy, Lee this morning.  We got our tubes launched by 6:30...still darkish.  Shoulda stood in bed.  First fish came after 8 am.

Air temp 50 and water temp 67.  Water fairly clean...but dropping.  Absolutely glass calm most of the morning.  Shadlets popping hatching midges all over the lake.  Terns and gulls swooping down to pick off one here and there.  No fishy boils and the only splashes were carp.  Only downer to the day was the hazy horizon.  Thanks California.

Lotsa bait balls outside the harbor.  Saw small schools in water from 8' to 18'.  The fish must be spoiled and not have to work hard for their meals.  All the ones I kept and filleted had plenty of visceral fat.  And the bites were a lot more tentative than usual.  When cats hit baited fligs they usually smack them hard and hook themselves on the strike.  Not today.  The first few bites I got I thought might have been perch...tap, tap, rattle rattle.  But then I started finessing them a bit and went bendo...with kitties.

Got the first couple of cats in shallow (8') water off Eagle Beach.  Then I worked out deeper and back toward the channel outside the harbor.  Found an area in 15 - 17 feet that held a few cautious kitties.  But I put some hooks in their lips too.  However, I missed a lot of tentative bites and had a few fish come off on the way in.  That almost never happens on fligs. 

The two best colors were blue-back silver and my chartreuse perch.  Fished them with small chub minnows.  That is usually my best offering for the big perch, but there didn't seem to be any around yet.  Water needs to cool off a bit more.

My last cat of the day came inside the marina.  I wanted to see what the depth was and whether or not anything was hanging out inside.  Saw very little on sonar and when that last cat bounced the rod tip as I was getting ready to boogie it was a pleasant surprise.  Water depth inside the marina has dropped to 8-9 feet and will be lower before the real cold sets in.  That makes me think the big perch might stay outside this year.  They seldom come inside unless there is at least 11-12 feet of water...or more.  Also, it is a lot tougher for floating anglers to fish some of the best areas of the marina now.  They have strung a long line of buoys out off the east shoreline...NO BOATS.  That pretty much eliminates a lot of the late season fliggin' which produced so many hefty perch last year.

Met FatBiker as we got out of the water.  He was just heading out with a couple of other folks in a small kayak.  But no fishing rod.  Silly.  Why would anybody go afloat on Willard without a fishy pole?

I ended up keeping about 6 cats for a couple of fish fries.  As I recall, Lee donated about 2 dozen minnows to the persnickety bait stealers without bringing any to the tube.  Bummer.  But you gotta admire his sense of conservation and all that.

[Cowboypirate]

Pat do you think the lower water level will also impact the crappie coming into the harbor? I like to sneak in some evening/night runs in late Sept Oct to grab a few cats and slabs- hope they will oblige again this fall

[ELM 71]

As always good fishing with you Pat.  I may not have brought fish to the tube today but I really enjoyed  being out. Bobbing in my tube is the best therapy for me since I gave up on the Crown Royal. I found the fish got them to bite just couldnt get the hook in them but thats ok. Guess thats why they call it fishing instead of catching. There will be other days.

[TubeDude]

Pat do you think the lower water level will also impact the crappie coming into the harbor? I like to sneak in some evening/night runs in late Sept Oct to grab a few cats and slabs- hope they will oblige again this fall

Too soon to tell.  Most of those bigger fish are females and they pretty much do what they want...good reasons or not.  Seriously, the crappies do not seem to be as depth sensitive as the perch.  I have caught crappies under the ice on Willard in only a few feet of water...because they sometimes cruise very shallow under the ice.  But I have also caught them around the docks in maybe 5-6 feet of water.  All depends on food, temperature, clarity and a lot of other things.  However, I am optimistic that the water level will not drop too much lower this year.  The water users' demands are about over so there will be less drawdown.

In the past I have caught a lot of crappies out of the north marina in the fall.  When they slow down a bit in the cold, the best bet is a sliding bobber to present your lure about a foot or so off the bottom.  Then use a small ice jig with a wax worm...just like ice fishing.  Use a small bobber and watch it for any "change in the force".  The tiniest ripple coming off the bobber can signal a slurp.  They don't smack it hard.  Sometimes the bobber just moves an inch or so to one side.  Hooksets are free.

A lot of the crappieholics prefer to work around the docks...vertical presentations with a light bobber...or just a delicate touch.  Little tungsten jigs with a bit of worm or waxworm will get bites if they are there.  One of my fave tactics is to drop to the bottom and then raise the jig up through the water column a few inches at a time...leaving the jig dead still for a few seconds after each move.  If you have sonar and can tell what depth the fish are holding it is a bit easier.  Just remember, crappies will come up a ways for your jig, but will almost never dive down to hit something below them.

If you can't get down to prospect for yourself, watch the reports.  However, most of the really good crappie whackers do not post on BFT, so you kinda just have to watch for numbers of folks working along the shoreline or off the docks.  They won't be there if the fish aren't.

[fishskibum]

where da wipers at?
fishtacoed?

[TubeDude]

where da wipers at?
fishtacoed?

It has been a couple of years since DWR published an "annual" netting survey report.  So the relative strengths of the individual species populations is purely guesswork these days.  But in the two previous netting reports numbers were visibly down from some of the peak years...and anglers' results have definitely been on the low side.  And there have been no wild and wooly boils for several years.  The predator- prey (wiper-shad) ratios have been low enough (on the wiper side) that there has been abundant food.  Fewer wipers and more shad reduces the numbers and sizes of any wiper schools...and the need to "gang feed".  The wipers and walleyes have only to swim around with their mouths open to get all the food they need.  Well...no really.  But close to it.

Earlier in the year...when wipers were actively feeding during the spawn and post spawn periods...there were some good catches.  Walleye too.  That's when there were no young shad of eating size in the ecosystem, so the predators had to scrounge for food...and they would readily smack all the silly stuff fishermen dragged by them.  But once the newly hatched shad got big enough to eat, angling success dropped way off.  Again, too many shad and too few predators.  

There seems to be about 3 year classes of wipers in the lake.  The fewest are among the 4-5 year old wipers that are over 20 inches long.  Some have been caught over 24 inches this year.  But not many.  The next size down is the 15 - 17 inch crowd...probably 2 year olds.  There have been more of them caught than other sizes.  But still not in the numbers of past years.  Lastly are this year's plantings.  They have grown to several inches and are often caught on small lures being fished for crappies or other smaller species.  They would be average sized white bass in Utah Lake but are not much on Willard.

A lot of us fondly remember the years before about 2010...when there were hordes of wipers all over the lake.  And they could be caught year-round on a wide variety of lures.  During the late summer into fall it was a rare day when there were not multiple wide-open boils somewhere on the lake...and anybody who could cast a lure (or fly) into the fray would get bit.  I recall days when fishing in the back of the north marina my wife and I...in our float tubes...would sometimes be surrounded by boiling wipers.  It got crazy, with shad-crazed wipers almost jumping into our tubes and bouncing off our legs below the water.  And all we had to do was dip a lure into the water in front of our tubes and we would be instantly bendo.   We had days of hooking over 20 fish each...from our float tubes...even back inside the marina.  

Alas...no mas.

[FatBiker]

Pat, always a pleasure to see you. I spent a few days in the campground with some folks. Wendy has made me realize that their are a few, very few, things more important than fishing.

Larry

[TubeDude]

Pat, always a pleasure to see you. I spent a few days in the campground with some folks. Wendy has made me realize that their are a few, very few, things more important than fishing.

Larry

I agree.  There are aspects of living that might take precedence over fishing.  But if I were challenged I'm not sure I could name more than one or two.  Good luck.

Oh, and if the insane urge to go fishing overwhelms you, give me a call.  We can go through the 12 cast program together.