Willard Wunnerful Wednesday 6-26-20

[TubeDude]

Met up with fellow tuber Lee at the north marina this morning.  Air temp 70 and water temp 76…rising a degree or two before noon.
 
Today started out great.  Then it took a downturn.  But all’s well that ends…and I ended up bringing home a good batch of kitties for the smoker.
 
Upside?  I hit all green lights from the time I left my house until I got to Willard…including the onramp to I-15 and the offramp to the Maverik at 2700 N. where I stopped for a breakfast break.  Total of about 9 or 10 lights.  Never happened before.  Usually just the opposite…all red lights.
 
Downturn?  When I got ready to put my big battery (series 27 AGM) in my tube…for the electric motor…there was an empty spot in my car.  I had left it on the bench after charging it after my trip to Utah Lake Monday.  Lucky me.  I still had my 33 ah backup battery.  And it worked fine.  Got me all over the lake and back to my car with still over 70%  charge.  Life can be good.  CAN BE.

Just as we were launching...on a nice smooth wind-free lake...the midge minions arose in a cloud of fury.  They swarmed all over everything.  Thankfully I had my bug screen mask...even if I didn't have my covid mask on.
 
With not enough battery for trolling my new U-rigs, I fell back on flig dragging.  My main game plan was to bring home a limit of kitties for the smoker.  My smokitty fan club has been murmuring ominously so I thought I better restock the supply.  The really good news was that the catfish were on the chew and helped me get ‘er done.
 
I was dragging some blue-silver “whirly fligs”…with little spinner blades…tipped with small chub minnows.  In a shad-rich environment like Willard that appeals to all the predator species…usually.  Today, several different models all caught multiple cats.  Most were nice healthy kitties in the upper teen inchers to early twenty inchers.  A few were still just kittens.  I kept my limit of 8 smokeable size and released almost twice as many before my minnows ran out.
 
While fishing the catfish rigs I had a few “rattle rattle” bites that I suspected might be perch.  I finally caught one on a kitty rig so I knew they were there.  After I ran out of minnows, I switched my fligs over to sizes and colors that usually appeal to perch…and decorated them with crawler.  Wouldn’t ya know it?  No more perch but the kitties didn’t read the instructions and they intercepted the perch rigs.
 
Met up with fellow tuber and fishing buddy Fatbiker at the ramp.  Had seen him out and about in his boat while Lee and I were fishing but never got close enough to exchange pleasantries.  Antisocial distancing, ya know? 
 
Headed for the fish cleaning station about 11ish.  Ta daaaa.  Wasn’t working…as usual.  So I put all my cat carcasses in a big plastic bag and deposited them in the dumpster.



[/url][url=https://ibb.co/R9T70qm]

[FatBiker]

Always good to see you Pat. Unlike you I started slow but the end of the morning made up for it. Five or six kitties in a half hour. Selfish SOBs ate all my baits so it was time to go home.

[TubeDude]

Always good to see you Pat. Unlike you I started slow but the end of the morning made up for it. Five or six kitties in a half hour. Selfish SOBs ate all my baits so it was time to go home.

Cats got no class...and they never read the instructions.  But they sure do provide some good tugs and some good eats.

Hoping the cool-down next week gets some of the "other guys" stirring.

[SkunkedAgain]

Sounds like fun.... Hey Pat give me a heads up for your next week trip, I may take a day off and join you... Got my last crop of hay watered and growing, so I'm on the way to fishing again before too long... Thanks for a great report... Jeff

[TubeDude]

Sounds like fun.... Hey Pat give me a heads up for your next week trip, I may take a day off and join you...  Got my last crop of hay watered and growing, so I'm on the way to fishing again before too long... Thanks for a great report... Jeff

Been a while since we ganged up on Willard together.  But you gotta wear your mask.  Not just for the bugs...or for Covid.  Makes you look better.

Not sure about next week...with the weather downturn.  But soooooooon.

[doitall5000]

Sounds like you never tried to find any toothy walleyes. They have got to show them selves soon.
Now those ghostly whipers, did you see any birdy action? Did you see schools of those elusive shad. Got to be big two inches by now..
I'm sure there are some fat predators just waiting to charge up from the depts like a great white after a tuber.

[TubeDude]

Sounds like you never tried to find any toothy walleyes. They have got to show them selves soon.
Now those ghostly whipers, did you see any birdy action? Did you see schools of those elusive shad. Got to be big two inches by now..
I'm sure there are some fat predators just waiting to charge up from the depts like a great white after a tuber.

Because of my diminished battery situation on this trip I did not do any widespread lure dragging for ABC...anything but cats.  On other recent trips, however, I have gone through crawler harnesses, crankbaits and other enticements without anything to show for it.

There were a few shadlets slurping up the surface scum of dying midges but no evidence of larger fish working them from below.  And in the marina there were both shad and spot-tailed shiners boiling on said midges.  Did see a few terns divebombing the occasional dumb one that stayed too close to the surface long enough to be spotted.  And there were several areas where small balls of bait showed up on sonar.


My fishing log records from the past show that once the surface temps drop into the 65 to 70 degree range again that we can expect to get more love from W&W.

[Cowboypirate]

Why do I imagine that Jeff's mask looks like this

[TubeDude]

Why do I imagine that Jeff's mask looks like this

Still looks better than mine:

[SkunkedAgain]

Why do I imagine that Jeff's mask looks like this

Hey I need one of those. That’s alright. J

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Why do I imagine that Jeff's mask looks like this

Still looks better than mine:

Now I know what happens if you eat too many catfish. Great picture Pat. Very cool.