July 15th trip to the Knolls of Utah Lake

I've been meaning for some time to find the right chance to take my wife and kids out on a fishing trip vs just going on on my tube with others on tubes.  Jason and Scott also wanted to get in a fishing trip so all of us had been watching for a day that would work.  Friday the 15th ended up being our day and the Knolls at Utah Lake was the location.  Our goal was to get out there and see if we could get the kids and wife onto some catfish and maybe some white bass.  Anything else would be a bonus.  BTW the bugs were out in force, though they were not mosquitoes.

Well we made it to the Knolls at sun up and got the boat and tubes setup and on the water quick enough.  I motored the boat south and east a bit to put us in the water about a cast away from the brush near the fence line at the southern most point the road gives public access to.  Put down an anchor to hold us a bit in place and started to setup poles.  Figured we could put out some cat lines as well as throw some plastics for whites.  My oldest and my wife were both casting jigs tipped with worm and I then setup my daughter with a cat line baited with carp meat.  My youngest and I shared a pole casting some plastics as well.

Well not long after starting my wife lets out a sound of excitement and her pole, an ultralight, starts to imitate an upside down 'U'.  It was clearly not a white but I was not sure if it was a cat or something else.  Well both the fish and the wife worked the drag on that little pole a while and finally a nice cookie cutter cat made it's appearance for us all.  In the net it went and fish #1 was down.

I think Jason had already landed a fish at this point so I think he caught the jinx of the day again.  Though I can't make fun of him for having his cell phone and work calling this time.

Anyway we kept at it for a bit moving every so often as things would stall out but we managed to land 3 more cats.  One for each kid.

The last fish, the one my youngest lays claim to, was the biggest of the bunch.  Either things started to shut down or we were not working the right areas as I think Scott had had a few pop'n'drops on a cat setup.  Jason had managed a couple whites and a couple cats.  I guess maybe there was in fact a jinx for Jason today now that I think of it.  He hooked into a carp on his ultralight and went to set the hook and turned his 5'6" pole into a nice short ice rod.  Happily Cabela's demonstrated good customer service as he got that replaced on the ride home.  Things stayed pretty slow and none of us were getting much as we approached noon.  So we moved around a bit looking for something to keep us there but didn't find much.

So time to call it a day.  Jason had his rope with him so we carefully tied it up to the boat and offered a tow service for him and Scott as we headed back.

As we cleaned up to head out the wife and kids did some looking around and found the usual insect life in all the brush and weeds.

So it was not the most impressive 'catching' day at the Knolls but I think my load of people had fun.  Jason did as well and though Scott didn't put anything in the basket I think he still had fun trying.  Though clearly we need to get him on some better fishing soon so he can have the awful problem of a full basket of fish to drag behind his tube.