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Utah Lake Fall Bite for Whities
#1
Had a free morning and felt good too, not a frequent combination anymore it seems. Decided to hit some of the harbors looking for a few misguided crappie or white bass. 1st stop AF boat harbor. first dock I hit i got a rattle tap on my jig and I was sure it would be a small white bass. Couple more casts same rattle tap. Varied the retrieve to a more jigging motion instead of a slow retrieve. Bingo!!! 10 1/2 white bass. Caught a few more and was surprised at the size all between 10 and 11 inches. Things slowed a bit so tied on one of Tube Dudes custom pink jig heads and a small white body. back in action. In all caught about 50-60. brought home 30. Glad I felt good and glad I talked myself into goin. Will do it again soon. BTW the water depth was probably 16-20 inches so pretty skinny water around the docks. Hope we get some snow pack this year or we will be running dune buggies instead of boats at Utah Lake.
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#2
Sounds and looks like a lot of fun. Glad you had a nice trip and thanks for sharing it with us. Later J
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#3
[#0000FF]Excellent.

Reminds me that at the end of the last big drought, it 2004, guys were catching crappie under the dock at Lindon in less than 1 foot of water.

Hey, the fish gotta try to survive somehow. If the water is not high enough for their liking they will just have to make do somehow.

Glad you were able to get out and that you got some decent sized fish...for white bass that is.
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#4
Good
Job catching the whities.
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#5
It was nice to get out. I remember you telling me to think pink, I decided to give it a go and it worked well. Will the fish be in the same place again on the next trip? Who knows. I was surprised by the number and the size considering the poor spawn water we have had for a couple years. It was fun never the less and has me looking forward to more fishing soon.
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#6
[#0000FF]From what I have been experiencing...and hearing from other UL diehards...is that finding a school of larger white bass is the exception rather than the rule. There are still some around, but not nearly what we enjoyed in past years. There has been poor spawning the past three years...after a winter dieoff three winters ago...and low water conditions. That has meant fewer spawners and fewer young. In the places we normally see thousands of baby white bass in late summer there have been few to none.

In other words, conditions now are about what they were at the end of the last big drought that ended in the winter of 2004-2005. Few white bass and the walleyes getting skinny. However, the walleyes in UL are still healthy enough this year to make it through the winter okay. That was not the case in 2004, with lots of winter kill amongst the walleyes.

The good news is that no matter how bad it gets for anglers, it only takes one year of good water and a few white bass left to spawn...and the lake will be full of them again within a couple of years. As that famous line from "Jurassic Park" goes: "Nature will find a way."
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