06-04-2015, 03:03 PM
[#0000FF]It had been a while since TubeBabe was able to get out in her tube. Sciatic nerve problems and a gimpy knee. Runs in the fambly. But after a period of less pain and more flexibility she wanted to go chase some kitties. That's why she is known to some on the board as the Kitty Queen. She does love dem cats. Better than being known as a crazy old cat lady I guess.
We were the only ones launching at Lindon about 6:30. A couple of other small boats launched a bit later...and of course the power squadron started showing up as we left just after noon. But, with water level in the harbor at just under 3 feet in many spots the big boats will fade away as the water drops further.
Air temp was a nice mid fifties and water temp was 67 at launch. Warmed to 72 by the time we ramped up at noonish. Prime temps for kitties...and for lusty white bass too.
Made a few casts inside the harbor on the way out. A few taps but no real takers. At the mouth of the harbor and for a ways beyond we found some white bass willing to play. Kept a few for potential bait and moved north to the flats out from the mouth of Battle Creek. We used to fish that area a lot during times of higher water but for the past couple of low water years we have been fishing mostly south and down to the Bubbleup.
With the low water we couldn't get close to the mouth of Battle Creek. I suspect there are a lot of whities up in there but are accessible only to bank tanglers or waders. Had a report from a week ago that a few guys were hammering whities there.
The Kitty Queen (KQ) didn't wanna waste her time and energy playing with anything without whiskers and attitude. So she worked two bait rods...one with carp meat and one with some "long time no sea" freezer burned Alaskan rockfish. The everlovin' kitties voted for both and the otherwise calm of the morning was disturbed often with the sounds of her whoopin' and hollerin'. She done good.
Just because I am duly registered in the cat contest I made a show of dragging around some cat offerings on one rod. On my other rod was a tandem jig setup...with one of my "Pistol Pat" airplane spinner blade jig heads on the bottom and a regular tube jig on the top. I also had rods rigged with a "hangershot" setup...one with weightless plastics and the other with a pair of "hothead" flies.
I tell ya, it really didn't seem to matter what you put in front of those fish. They were all on the chew and they voted for just about anything we put in front of them. My first cat came on one of the "pistols"...with red and chartreuse plastic (RC Killer). That was on my light action rod with 6# line...a rig meant for white bass and walleyes. That 24 inch lady fish slammed the jig, put the line over her shoulder and screamed off several yards of line on the first run. Whiskery bonefish.
From then on it was non-stop action on both rods. Sometimes on both at the same time. Several times I would be fighting in a sturdy cat on the plastics and another would try to strip my reel of line on the bait rod. I successfully landed at least 4 doubles. Takes some creativity with drag settings and manuevering the tube with your fins to keep the fish from tangling...or going off in the wrong direction.
Sadness. While fighting two large cats at the same time...one on my handheld light rod and the other on a rod in the holder...I lost my bait rod in the heat of battle. The fish on that rod was evidently larger than I thought and made a sudden flanking movement around my tube to the left. It broke the glue connection where the top rod holder part of the apparatus connects to the vertical shaft. It swung around hard to the left and the angle dropped from upward to downward...eliminating the friction hold on the rod. SPLASH.
I threw over a marker buoy to keep track of where the rod went in the water. And after landing the fish on my light rod I went back and started casting and dragging jigs over the bottom in an effort to snag the rod or the line. I covered a large area with no success. Sniff, sniff. Made that rod over 30 years ago. Goodbye old friend. But now I have an excuse to start using the heavier model I made for the catfish contest.
Kept fishing but instead of a bait rod I kept out either the weightless jigs or the flies on hangershot rigs. Caught a few more channel cats and some mudders.
About 11 the customary westerly breezes started to ripple the previously calm surface. KQ and I agreed that we had already over-funned on cats. And we both had plenty in the basket for a couple of smokers full...plus releasing at least a couple of times more than we had kept. So we started back toward the harbor.
Remembering the whities we had found earlier we tarried a while just outside the harbor and scored a few more little linesides. Kept a few for bait and few larger ones for our favorite "scampi-noodles" dish. Amazingly, a high percentage of the white bass we kept were egg-bearing females. Hope they are able to get off a good spawn this year.
At the mouth of the harbor the big cloud of midges that had swarmed around the trees were gone. In their place were a lot of yellow headed blackbirds. No fish in the channel but there were some small white bass inside the harbor...and one chunky mudder that smacked one of my pistol jigs next to a bassy looking stretch of bank. No largemouth bass but a largemouth mudder.
The Kitty Queen had the last good tugs of the day. A diehard to the last she continued to drag a chunk of bait into the harbor. And about halfway to the ramp she went bendo (with the customary sound effects) on a final chunky 23" channel cat.
It was a lovely morning weatherwise. And no noisy members of the power squadron to create wakes and megadecibel music assaults. That was a good thing. I was especially happy that TubeBabe (KQ) was able to have such a good day...without much interference (help) from me. She is a skilled lady tangler and I am proud of how well she does all by her ownself. Heck, while we were still premarital tubing she wouldn't even handle a catfish without having a towel wrapped around it. Not no more.
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[signature]
We were the only ones launching at Lindon about 6:30. A couple of other small boats launched a bit later...and of course the power squadron started showing up as we left just after noon. But, with water level in the harbor at just under 3 feet in many spots the big boats will fade away as the water drops further.
Air temp was a nice mid fifties and water temp was 67 at launch. Warmed to 72 by the time we ramped up at noonish. Prime temps for kitties...and for lusty white bass too.
Made a few casts inside the harbor on the way out. A few taps but no real takers. At the mouth of the harbor and for a ways beyond we found some white bass willing to play. Kept a few for potential bait and moved north to the flats out from the mouth of Battle Creek. We used to fish that area a lot during times of higher water but for the past couple of low water years we have been fishing mostly south and down to the Bubbleup.
With the low water we couldn't get close to the mouth of Battle Creek. I suspect there are a lot of whities up in there but are accessible only to bank tanglers or waders. Had a report from a week ago that a few guys were hammering whities there.
The Kitty Queen (KQ) didn't wanna waste her time and energy playing with anything without whiskers and attitude. So she worked two bait rods...one with carp meat and one with some "long time no sea" freezer burned Alaskan rockfish. The everlovin' kitties voted for both and the otherwise calm of the morning was disturbed often with the sounds of her whoopin' and hollerin'. She done good.
Just because I am duly registered in the cat contest I made a show of dragging around some cat offerings on one rod. On my other rod was a tandem jig setup...with one of my "Pistol Pat" airplane spinner blade jig heads on the bottom and a regular tube jig on the top. I also had rods rigged with a "hangershot" setup...one with weightless plastics and the other with a pair of "hothead" flies.
I tell ya, it really didn't seem to matter what you put in front of those fish. They were all on the chew and they voted for just about anything we put in front of them. My first cat came on one of the "pistols"...with red and chartreuse plastic (RC Killer). That was on my light action rod with 6# line...a rig meant for white bass and walleyes. That 24 inch lady fish slammed the jig, put the line over her shoulder and screamed off several yards of line on the first run. Whiskery bonefish.
From then on it was non-stop action on both rods. Sometimes on both at the same time. Several times I would be fighting in a sturdy cat on the plastics and another would try to strip my reel of line on the bait rod. I successfully landed at least 4 doubles. Takes some creativity with drag settings and manuevering the tube with your fins to keep the fish from tangling...or going off in the wrong direction.
Sadness. While fighting two large cats at the same time...one on my handheld light rod and the other on a rod in the holder...I lost my bait rod in the heat of battle. The fish on that rod was evidently larger than I thought and made a sudden flanking movement around my tube to the left. It broke the glue connection where the top rod holder part of the apparatus connects to the vertical shaft. It swung around hard to the left and the angle dropped from upward to downward...eliminating the friction hold on the rod. SPLASH.
I threw over a marker buoy to keep track of where the rod went in the water. And after landing the fish on my light rod I went back and started casting and dragging jigs over the bottom in an effort to snag the rod or the line. I covered a large area with no success. Sniff, sniff. Made that rod over 30 years ago. Goodbye old friend. But now I have an excuse to start using the heavier model I made for the catfish contest.
Kept fishing but instead of a bait rod I kept out either the weightless jigs or the flies on hangershot rigs. Caught a few more channel cats and some mudders.
About 11 the customary westerly breezes started to ripple the previously calm surface. KQ and I agreed that we had already over-funned on cats. And we both had plenty in the basket for a couple of smokers full...plus releasing at least a couple of times more than we had kept. So we started back toward the harbor.
Remembering the whities we had found earlier we tarried a while just outside the harbor and scored a few more little linesides. Kept a few for bait and few larger ones for our favorite "scampi-noodles" dish. Amazingly, a high percentage of the white bass we kept were egg-bearing females. Hope they are able to get off a good spawn this year.
At the mouth of the harbor the big cloud of midges that had swarmed around the trees were gone. In their place were a lot of yellow headed blackbirds. No fish in the channel but there were some small white bass inside the harbor...and one chunky mudder that smacked one of my pistol jigs next to a bassy looking stretch of bank. No largemouth bass but a largemouth mudder.
The Kitty Queen had the last good tugs of the day. A diehard to the last she continued to drag a chunk of bait into the harbor. And about halfway to the ramp she went bendo (with the customary sound effects) on a final chunky 23" channel cat.
It was a lovely morning weatherwise. And no noisy members of the power squadron to create wakes and megadecibel music assaults. That was a good thing. I was especially happy that TubeBabe (KQ) was able to have such a good day...without much interference (help) from me. She is a skilled lady tangler and I am proud of how well she does all by her ownself. Heck, while we were still premarital tubing she wouldn't even handle a catfish without having a towel wrapped around it. Not no more.
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[signature]
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