White Bass Questions

[UThunter]

When do the White Bass begin to spawn in Utah Lake? Also, where at Utah lake would be the best place right now to catch White Bass and Bluegill. Any information would be helpful.
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[kbfan]

I've seen it in may thru the first part of June depending on temperature I believe, but it's not been very good the last few years. Maybe it's the low water level but it's not been nearly as good as I've seen it in the past. Hopefully somebody else will chime in.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]The only semi constant in the white bass spawning situation is water temperature. They start getting busy when the water stays above 60 degrees and full blown spawn by 65. The dinger the past three years has been the low flows in their spawning tributaries and the lack of flooded rocky shoreline around the lake where they also spawn. Poor spawn equals low numbers of whities.

White bass populations have been somewhat down for about 3 years. A combination of low water, poor feeding, winter kill in some shallow areas with low oxygen and other factors resulted in a much lower showing at the usual spots.

There are still hordes of white bass in Utah Lake. It is just that they move around to find food and conditions to their liking. If you can find their comfort zones you will catch a lot. Otherwise, they will still come in around the dikes on the harbors and some will come inside the shallower harbors but just not in the numbers of past good years.

When they really get rocking and rolling...usually about mid May...you can catch them in very shallow water next to the rock dikes off most harbors. In the meantime, look for them out in at least 3 to 5 feet of water. If in a boat you can troll small plastics or spinners until you find a zone. If fishing off the shore you need to move up and down the bank and try different baits/lures, presentations, retrieves, bobber or bottom, etc.

Both white bass and bluegills can be caught inside most of the harbors...especially around the deeper docks. But they move around a lot so keep prospecting if the bite suddenly turns off.
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[picespursuer]

One of the old-time sayings was that the white bass spawn when the lilacs bloom. Everything is blooming so early this year, I'm not sure that it will be true. But most years that seems to be the case.
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[UThunter]

Thank you very much for all of this information. It is very helpful and this site is a great resource for obtaining fishing knowledge. Thank you again!
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]Here are a couple of excerpts from my book chapter on whities. Maybe a bit more info to use in your quest.
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[UThunter]

Thank you. This is great. Tubedude, did you write a book? What is the name of the book and how does someone get a copy?
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[KodiakFisher]

+1
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[TubeDude]

[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=925749;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;page=unread#unread"]Utah Lake Book[/url]

[#0000FF]Yes, I did put together a CD/book on Utah Lake Fishing. The link above will take you to the post I put up on the 4 sale board.

It was originally compiled from a bunch of individual articles/writeups I have been writing over the years to answer posts such as yours. Eventually I assembled them, edited them, added pictures, wrote new pieces to fill in blanks and said DONE.

Never had any intentions of getting rich or becoming one of Oprah's faves. Just wanted to download what I have soaked up over a lot of years...much of it with the help of others. Paying it forward. Every year there is a whole new crop of Utah anglers who want to discover Utah Lake.
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