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.

First Starvation trip of the year.

Well this marked our first trip to Starvation this year.  Jason, Scott and myself have been planning a trip for this week for a while.  We were hopeful that the weather would offer us an opportunity to hit Starvation and things worked out in our favor.  So we got up early enough to make it to Starvation today and be there near time for the sunrise.  Specifically we hit rabbit gulch.

We had Scott worried about temps as we pass Strawberry along the way with all the mist over the lake in the pre-dawn light and temps showing in the upper 30s.  Though as we made it to Starvation air temps were much better and less worrisome.  Anyway Jason ended up being both first on the water and also taking the first fish jinx....  As the day progressed it became very clear what the 'jinx' had in store for Jason... ;)  His cell phone would not stop ringing with calls from work and the bigger fish he had on his line either gave him their middle fin as they surfaced or as they flopped out of his control before he could get them in the basket.  He did end up landing a fair basket of eater perch though nothing as big as the 'one that got away' from him today.

This was Scott's first tube trip ever.  We had a nice opportunity to adopt a caddis round tube for him with the cost of a new inner tube and along with that he had a new pole and tackle bag (with goodies) to head out on his inaugural voyage.  Scott used a second set of fins I had and some other items to round out his gear and we got him on the water without incident!

I was really lazy with the pics today so I only got a few in the first bit of time out on the water...  Anyway here they are:

So as Jason took care of the jinx as mentioned above, Scott and I started to work and see what we could produce.  We worked the area between where the old highway runs into the lake and the shallow rock wall where the buoys are lined up to get things started.  Both Scott and I managed to get a few dink perch to play with us and to get our hopes up high.  As we managed to get caught up with Jason near the rock wall and buoys all of us had managed to put at least one fish in our baskets worth taking home for table fair.

I managed a nice rainbow for my basket and Scott caught his first ever small mouth.  Jason opted to head across the bay to see what he could catch as he crossed, looking for rainbows or browns, and also to see what he might find near the far side.  Scott and I continued to work the rock wall and buoys area.  Well to speed up the story we all caught a few more fish over the next couple hours.  It was not gangbusters at any time really but never too long of a dry spell between fish.  The perch were not showing up in large groups on the bottom so we found them one here and one there, the small mouth were mostly around the rocks as one might expect, and the rainbows were active deep and shallow with many jumping around us as we fished.  The rainbows also were in full acrobatic form today for all those that we had on line.  I think every one jump for us, though many were using that jump to fling our jig back at us.  In the end I think we took home about a dozen and a half eater perch, 3 very nice rainbows, 1 walleye, and a lone small mouth bass.

At one point as all 3of us were near the far side of the bay we had a fellow on his boat, apparently with his wife, decide that he needed to vocally share with the entire population in rabbit gulch his displeasure with how his wife was participating in their fishing adventure.  The whole speech was filled with colorful adjectives for all to.... endure...  Really was poor form on his part to be so loud, profane, and derogatory in my opinion.  That really proved to be the only poor part of the day, well save the few free man made tidal waves a few boats felt they needed to make for us as they sped past our tubes on the water.

I did have one catch that made me laugh...  I was working my jig line near the bottom around some rocks where I had landed a few eater perch.  I had just re applied worms to the jig tips and right as my jig hit the bottom I got an 'odd' tug.  I set the hook and reeled in the line.  Not a fish, but a crayfish was on line.  The surprise was not that it had been interested in my worm sweetened jig but that it had grabbed on so quickly as my jig hit bottom.  I guess that and that hit hung on for the ride up.  I let it ride around in my basket most of the day but chose to set it back as taking one crawdad home just seemed more work then it would justify.

Anyway, it was not the spectacular jumbo perch day that maybe we had hoped for, but it was still an amazing day out on the water.  Scott reported that he had a lot of fun and that was part of the goal for today so a fine and successful day for sure!

Picture perfect Deer Creek day.

Jason and I headed back again to Deer Creek today.  We had the chance to head down to Utah Lake to join up with TubeDude and company but due to time constraints Deer Creek was the choice.  We arrived at the island just after 7:00am and started to setup.  Right off we noticed a good number of fish breaking the surface of the lake.  The water was also very calm and mirror like with little to no breeze present.  Temps were cooler then the other day, but we were also starting earlier too.  Anyway it was a good looking start to the day.

Once we got onto the water we headed back again toward the east side of the island to work similar areas to the trip we made on Wednesday.  Water temps were about 52 degrees to start.  I opted to pull a black bead head fly behind a full bubble and also threw some some plastics as well as we moved out of the shallow between the highway and the island.  Nothing thus far and only a few bleeps from the finders to say anything was in the area.  Though we continued to see the fish break the surface here and there in the distance.

As we made it around to the area we had marked the large groups of fish on Wednesday we again started to mark lots of fish.  I started to move through throwing silver blue foxes, some perch and white colored cranks, plastics of all sorts of colors, as well as continuing the bead head fly behind the bubble though in white now.  We did this for a while without any inquiries on our lines.  Eventually I had one hit on some smaller chartreuse curl tail grubs and then a lot of nothing again.  Still marking large numbers of fish, though as like on Wednesday, these fish seemed to be moving through the area and not really holding place.  We had a few boats trolling past us, politely keeping a fair distance, and saw them land a few fish.  I noticed pop gear in use on some of the fish caught.

I ended up moving the 2nd line to a bobber with a worm about 6' under it and just about then the wife called both Jason and I on our cell phones to discuss plans for later today.  Mid conversation my bobber went dunk, dunk, dunk.....  I quickly, with minimal time spent saying goodbye and explaining why, I hung up on the wife to turn my attention to this worm thief.  Turns out that my quick goodbyes were not quick enough as the bobber had no further attention paid to my worm.  I retrieved the line and inspected the worm.  It had been abused to the point of requiring a replacement.  Out went the bobber line again, and I picked up the plastics pole and started throw it along the rocky shoreline.  Once again the bobber went dunk, dunk....  Though when I went to prepare to set a hook on the next dunk nothing further happened...  Second missed opportunity...  Though it did give us the first offering that we had been able to observe repeat interest.  Jason put out his second line in a similar setup and we both turned our tubes to point back to the vehicle.  It was after 11:00am at this point, and though it was a beautiful day and the fishing was fine, the catching was lousy and we had obligations back with the families.  So we started the slow kick back, fishing along the way of course.

Along the way back Jason had a few sharp hits on some soft plastics that nearly convinced us to keep going a bit longer.  Though with no consistency or caught fish we took the last turn into the shallow channel and headed for shore.

So nothing, at least for me, to show for the week in terms of fish.  Jason kept some skunk smell off with his one small mouth bass.  However it was a fun week up in the area and a fun few trips to the water.  Plans are already in the works for next year, though we hope the spring weather presents us with better fishing conditions.

Breezy island trip at Deer Creek

Today Jason and I enter back to the island at Deer Creek to go out on the tubes.  We took a leasurely pace at getting underway today so we did not get there until about 11am.  Wind was a warm slight breeze coming up from Provo canyon, water was near 58 degrees.

We headed out to round the east side of the island.  We started marking fish right away.  They were rarely right under us and did not stay put.  Most were mid strata in the water column.  I was guessing trout, but I really don't know. As we worked around the island we continued to mark fish between 8 an 30 feet deep. Water depth was between 14 and 45 feet. The odd thing was that so few fish were under us as solid fish on the finder. Nearly all were hollow symbols on the finder. We moved through some large groups too.

We threw plastics, jigged tubes, drifted minnows and worms on the bottom and under a bobber.  Nothing, except a couple quick bites/nibbles.  As we would mark the fish like the picture above showed we would start to fan cast around us with various color presentations of plastics as well as trying different speeds/depths looking for the magic choice.  Not sure if the fish were just in a mood today or if we just didn't try the right thing.  It was still lots of fun to see so many fish on the finder. 

The wind came up and died down a few times on us.  We got lucky with the wind.  It ended up being at our backs as we worked the side of the island.  Better at our backs vs from the side or front messing up the casts or making us work hard to maintain direction and position.  A few times we had a big gust shoot past us making a nice ripple effect on the water surface that you could see move past you and across the water.  A few times the wind was enough that we talked about just letting it push us back to the launch spot and call it a day.  Usually one of two things would happen then.  Either one of us would mark a huge group of fish, one of us would get a bite on a pole that we weren't watching close enough, or the wind would die down.  Regardless we could catch a case of "hopeful expectations" and stick it out a bit longer.  In the end it was a beautiful day and the weather, other then the wind gusts, was very nice.  The fishing was fine and the catching was lousy...  Still a great thing to be doing on a day like today.

Here are a few picks of the scenery, since we had no pics of fish.... ;)

Since I got no pics of the launch I figured I'd better get a pick at the end of the day.  Anyway here are a couple pics of the tubes just before cleanup...

Recon trip to Deer Creek and Jordanelle

Yesterday Jason, my son Alex and I headed over to check out condition at Deer Creek.  We took our poles and gear along to do a bit of shore fishing too.  We first went to the Charleston lake access point and noted the water levels were "full".  I'm no DC expert so I'm not sure what is high, but the water is at least to the high water line at the Charleston area.

We didn't spend much tome there as the shore fishing opportunities are sad at the Charleston area.  Wind and temps were fine.  We moved next to the island area.  We parked along the highway where the island is closest to the road.  The water level has water up over the shallows making the island an island.  We waked over to the east a bit and fished there along the shore for an hour or two.  I caught a shunk, Alex caught a dozen or so world class snags, and Jason managed a nice 11.5" small mouth bass. 

Part of the trip was to scope out where we might launch our tubes.  So on the way out we inspected the facilities at the state park a few yards down the highway.  The place we parked at the island looked best.  The island was our planned wind defence as the forecast shows lots of wind potential this week. 

No pics, however here is the link to Jason's report on this trip including pics of his bass. http://inforcer.poweredbyclear.com/pages/DeerCreek/may312011.html