05-08-2018, 10:04 PM
Saturday morning my girlfriend and I arranged to rent a boat on Utah lake for my birthday. We rented from a place inside Provo marina which is currently closed so we planned to pick up the small inflatable boat from the Provo River near the state park entrance at 9am. Got the boat and were on the water by 9:15. Unfortunately before making it out of the river the motor had stalled 5 or so times and wouldn't run for more than a few seconds by the time we pulled off to the side and called the rental company. They thought they might have a spare motor but no such luck. After a long process they decided to have us drive to Lindon Marina and they'd bring over one of the wake boarding boats for us to use for the rest the day. Finally got that boat launched and ready to go shortly after 12:30. Not an ideal fishing boat but it was better than nothing and definitely bigger and faster than the initial inflatable we had.
Started out by drifting past some of the shoreline just past Lindon. No takers on any of the rods. We then did the same out a little deeper in 6-8 ft of water, again no luck. Hoping the bite was just off during the heat of the afternoon we drove out toward the middle of the channel and ate our lunch before heading toward American Fork harbor.
Shortly after setting up another drift outside the harbor we hooked a few white bass within a five minute span on small grubs and swim baits. Apparently we got lucky and drifted past a small school because after the quick flurry of bites the fish were gone. After a couple more drifts we got the first bite on one of the catfish rods. Turned out to be a small bullhead. Over the next hour and a half we caught around 10 bullheads on chicken liver, shrimp, and cut whitebass. The chicken liver definitely seemed to be the preferred bait as 7 of the cats and a handful of other short bites came on them. Around 6:30 we headed back to the harbor and got the boat back on the trailer.
With hopes of getting into some larger channel catfish I returned to American Fork harbor this morning. Arrived just before 7:45am and quickly got the rods rigged. The first rod had a dough ball and shrimp combo and the second had chicken liver and worms. Within 10 minutes of having the poles out I got the first bite on the shrimp. Brought in a nice 19" channel cat. As soon as I got it back in the water the other rod went off and it was a 23" cat that bit the chicken liver. For the next 2 hours the catfish bit about as quickly as I could keep the poles in the water. I ended up with 12 channel cats in a little over 2 hours In addition I caught 2 carp and a few white bass. Again the chicken liver was the most popular bait catching 6 of the catfish. 4 were caught on shrimp along with the three white bass. 1 was caught on worms and the other along with the 2 carp bit cinnamon dough balls.
All in all it was a great couple days of fishing for my first time at Utah lake. I'm only taking a couple classes during the short spring semester at BYU so hopefully I'll have time to get out and fish several more times in the coming months
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Started out by drifting past some of the shoreline just past Lindon. No takers on any of the rods. We then did the same out a little deeper in 6-8 ft of water, again no luck. Hoping the bite was just off during the heat of the afternoon we drove out toward the middle of the channel and ate our lunch before heading toward American Fork harbor.
Shortly after setting up another drift outside the harbor we hooked a few white bass within a five minute span on small grubs and swim baits. Apparently we got lucky and drifted past a small school because after the quick flurry of bites the fish were gone. After a couple more drifts we got the first bite on one of the catfish rods. Turned out to be a small bullhead. Over the next hour and a half we caught around 10 bullheads on chicken liver, shrimp, and cut whitebass. The chicken liver definitely seemed to be the preferred bait as 7 of the cats and a handful of other short bites came on them. Around 6:30 we headed back to the harbor and got the boat back on the trailer.
With hopes of getting into some larger channel catfish I returned to American Fork harbor this morning. Arrived just before 7:45am and quickly got the rods rigged. The first rod had a dough ball and shrimp combo and the second had chicken liver and worms. Within 10 minutes of having the poles out I got the first bite on the shrimp. Brought in a nice 19" channel cat. As soon as I got it back in the water the other rod went off and it was a 23" cat that bit the chicken liver. For the next 2 hours the catfish bit about as quickly as I could keep the poles in the water. I ended up with 12 channel cats in a little over 2 hours In addition I caught 2 carp and a few white bass. Again the chicken liver was the most popular bait catching 6 of the catfish. 4 were caught on shrimp along with the three white bass. 1 was caught on worms and the other along with the 2 carp bit cinnamon dough balls.
All in all it was a great couple days of fishing for my first time at Utah lake. I'm only taking a couple classes during the short spring semester at BYU so hopefully I'll have time to get out and fish several more times in the coming months
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