"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." John Buchan

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Provo Harbor South 7/7

So I got an email Friday from my cousin Jeff that he was heading to Provo Harbor (South Side) with his son, father and a couple neighbors and wanted Jason and I to know we were welcome to come.  Well Alex and I took Jeff up on the offer and we headed down to meet them Saturday Morning.

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.  Well here are a few more pics to finish out the report with.









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.

Friday, July 6, 2012

July 5th @ Starvation (Alex's first Perch Jerking session)

So as an initial disclaimer, I failed to take any pictures again on this trip.  I had full intentions but both with the concerns of weather (wind and rain) and also working with Alex on his first trip to Starvation I never even got the camera out to take a pic.

Well we had planned to meet at my place at 4am so that we could be on our way and to Starvation by sun up.  However the night before we saw enough from the weather forecasts that we knew we needed to make a last minute judgement call in the morning as to where or even if we would end up going.  We ended up risking it and heading to Starvation knowing an afternoon shower was in the day's plans as well as a 9am wind spike.  Well everything happened as the forecasts said it would however it still left enough window in there to have a great day fishing.

Jason was first on the water and first to catch and basket a fish (Perch).  Perch were out in the shallower areas today (10-18' is about the depth range we found them in).  Jason, Scott, Alex and I all caught plenty of perch though most were sub 8" in size.  All of us still managed to put some in our baskets.  Alex was able to catch his first small mouth bass that was just under a foot.  Scott managed a bigger small mouth and a junior walleye in his basket.  Jason had a pair of jumbo perch in his basket as well.  They looked to me to be in the 12"+ range and very healthy looking.  I did catch a small small mouth bass that got sent back and had one short fight with what I would guess to be a good sized trout so my basket just had the basic perch offering at the end of the day.

Wind was pretty constant with only a few breaks.  Alex did pretty well, when he tried, to maintain his position even with the wind working on us.  We got a bit wet as the light showers started up and stopped a couple times before we got off the water between noon and 1pm.  Good timing as the rain faucet turned on full tilt and didn't stop for most of the ride home.

Funny that at the end of a day that you worked constantly to hold position against the wind along with a bit of rain to get everything wet and still smile that it was such a nice day to be out fishing and have no regret for making the trip in such questionable conditions.  Though I'm not delusional enough to expect them all to turn out so well. :)

Sunday, July 1, 2012

June 30th @ Utah Lake

Well Jason got us going last week on planning a trip for Saturday.  Utah Lake, more specifically Provo Harbor, became the target of our ambitions and plans were made accordingly.  So aside from an alarm slept through we got ourselves down to the harbor and on the water by about 7:30am.


We saw a few boats out working just off the SW point of the harbor where the river water and lake water mix up.  We also had one bank tangler ask us about a fish cleaning station to clean a good catch of whites.  So we had high hopes and headed out near the boats.  Not sure if the bite had already run it's course or not but as we got out there none of us had had anything to note yet on our lines and watching the boats as well as current bank tanglers we didn't see much action being had by anyone else.  After some time out with the boats and nearly nothing in the basket, I had managed one white bass in my basket, the three of us decided we should head SE a bit toward the weed line and look for whites, crappies and anything else willing to play.

Heading to the weed line didn't produce much better right away.  We did have a "first for us" round of moments where as we brought in our lure and just lift it from the water a crappie would have been following and would make a last ditch effort to get our lures and miss.  This surface "lung" was somewhat funny and frustration as our baskets were still mostly empty and like always the casts we thought to let the lure linger at the surface there was nothing chasing it and the times we didn't there was.....  After a bit of time we started to get our techniques back in tune for crappie fishing and slowed things down and "gently" applied preasure are we reeled in a few for the basket.







Jason and I were both running our second lines under a bobber as we moved around the weed clumps.  Mine went under and the line started tracking hard to the side of my tube.  I manged, after a longer then expected fight, to bring in a channel cat on my ultra light rig.  Put a smile on my face... :)


Whites never really came out to play for us.  We each did manage at least one to take home and a few small enough to get send back to get bigger...



Didn't do much in the way of summary pics at the end of the trip.  I did get this "from afar" pic of Alex holding up one of his fish he brought in for his basket.


So not the fastest of action, but the weather and wind were very pleasent to be out in.  Fun to share another trip with my son in his tube and to have him report back that he had a blast and can't wait till the next one.  Oh I guess Jason makes for some good company too if you don't set your expectations too high... (or put a fish in your mouth or have a drink explode on you for no action of your own)... ;)