07-09-2012, 05:24 AM
My cousin invited me and my son Alex to join up with his group that were planning to fish the south side of Provo Harbor on Saturday. Plans were to hit the water between 6:00-6:30am.
We got there as Jeff and his crew was already part way setup and they finished and were on the water before we were. Alex was using a different set of fins today, my force fins, to see how they would compare to the fins he got with his tube for performance, kicking power, comfort as well as how they did or did not stay on his feet better. The biggest benefit is not having to lace up the fins and he should be able to put these on himself after a seeing how they work.
Once Alex and I launched we headed out across the river flow and around the edge of the weed line where the others were at. I'm not sure what they all already had at this point as we had some mix up on what channel to be on with the radios. It didn't take us long to get into a few crappie to get things started.
Most everyone was getting a crappie or two here and there with a stray white mixed in most of the morning. The action was not overly fast but still pretty constant overall. You just had to work the weed line faces and the water near there to find the crappie. If you didn't get any action after a few casts move a bit and try again.
I had my second line under a bobber and it vanished and ended up with a mud cat on the hook. That's the only cat I know of for the day. I did run a piece of carp meat for a while with no apparent interest. The rest of the time I had a bobber with tandem jigs about 3' down and then the main line was casting either tandem jigs or spinners.
As things slowed down Alex and I moved out to the open water near the SW point of the harbor where the river water and lake water mix. We had seen a few boats holding place out there suggesting maybe they were in the whites. As we made our way out Alex had a few friends decide to caravan with us for a couple minutes.
However as we got near the other boats whatever affinity they had had for following us vanished as they took off toward one of the aluminum boats. I'm not sure what they were hoping for or how long they stayed with the boats but I found it interesting.
Well our effort of kicking out there didn't pan out well. All but one but had moved off shortly after we got out there. The one last boat was doing great for whites. We didn't get close enough to see exactly what he was fishing but he would cast out a large looking rig on his line a short distance from his boat on one pole. Then pick up the other pole which had already been cast out. He would give it a couple small tugs and reel a bit, tug tug, reel, then by that time he was near his boat and he would start to jig and usually pull a white up. Then cast out again and swap to the other pole. I'm not sure how many he boated but for the time I watched I'd say he pulled in a dozen or more. I did mange a couple whites out there on a spinner.
At somewhere near 11am or just after Jeff's group decided to call it a day and head in. Alex and I figured we should head in at least to the weed line and give that area a bit more time before we called it a day. Turned out a pretty good choice as we manged to put a few more fish in the baskets to round out the day. That included a nice blue gill and getting me to the 4 species day.
Well a few more fish and an hour or so more and we called it a day and started to head in. Alex was pretty happy with how the force fins compared to the previous ones we had been having him use.
As far as a fish count went I'm not sure exactly how many Alex and I ended up with. Maybe something like 1 bluegill, 5 or so white bass, and 18 crappie (I didn't keep the mud cat today). Jeff reported that his group came out with 40 crappie, 7 white bass, and 1 perch.
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We got there as Jeff and his crew was already part way setup and they finished and were on the water before we were. Alex was using a different set of fins today, my force fins, to see how they would compare to the fins he got with his tube for performance, kicking power, comfort as well as how they did or did not stay on his feet better. The biggest benefit is not having to lace up the fins and he should be able to put these on himself after a seeing how they work.
Once Alex and I launched we headed out across the river flow and around the edge of the weed line where the others were at. I'm not sure what they all already had at this point as we had some mix up on what channel to be on with the radios. It didn't take us long to get into a few crappie to get things started.
Most everyone was getting a crappie or two here and there with a stray white mixed in most of the morning. The action was not overly fast but still pretty constant overall. You just had to work the weed line faces and the water near there to find the crappie. If you didn't get any action after a few casts move a bit and try again.
I had my second line under a bobber and it vanished and ended up with a mud cat on the hook. That's the only cat I know of for the day. I did run a piece of carp meat for a while with no apparent interest. The rest of the time I had a bobber with tandem jigs about 3' down and then the main line was casting either tandem jigs or spinners.
As things slowed down Alex and I moved out to the open water near the SW point of the harbor where the river water and lake water mix. We had seen a few boats holding place out there suggesting maybe they were in the whites. As we made our way out Alex had a few friends decide to caravan with us for a couple minutes.
However as we got near the other boats whatever affinity they had had for following us vanished as they took off toward one of the aluminum boats. I'm not sure what they were hoping for or how long they stayed with the boats but I found it interesting.
Well our effort of kicking out there didn't pan out well. All but one but had moved off shortly after we got out there. The one last boat was doing great for whites. We didn't get close enough to see exactly what he was fishing but he would cast out a large looking rig on his line a short distance from his boat on one pole. Then pick up the other pole which had already been cast out. He would give it a couple small tugs and reel a bit, tug tug, reel, then by that time he was near his boat and he would start to jig and usually pull a white up. Then cast out again and swap to the other pole. I'm not sure how many he boated but for the time I watched I'd say he pulled in a dozen or more. I did mange a couple whites out there on a spinner.
At somewhere near 11am or just after Jeff's group decided to call it a day and head in. Alex and I figured we should head in at least to the weed line and give that area a bit more time before we called it a day. Turned out a pretty good choice as we manged to put a few more fish in the baskets to round out the day. That included a nice blue gill and getting me to the 4 species day.
Well a few more fish and an hour or so more and we called it a day and started to head in. Alex was pretty happy with how the force fins compared to the previous ones we had been having him use.
As far as a fish count went I'm not sure exactly how many Alex and I ended up with. Maybe something like 1 bluegill, 5 or so white bass, and 18 crappie (I didn't keep the mud cat today). Jeff reported that his group came out with 40 crappie, 7 white bass, and 1 perch.
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