I haven’t posted in years since my boys went off to college, but once a year my wife takes pity on me and is willing to let me take her to Bird Island. June has proven to do well for me there. (The least we’ve caught in one trip was 28, the most was over 50 cats in a day.) I’ve got a nephew that’s never caught a fish, so I thought it was worth coming out of “fish retirement” for him. Surprisingly the boy’s mom was interested too, and she was in a similar situation. Boat full.

Upon arrival at the Provo ramp there was a fellow fishing in the Marina that had a nice rig. It took me about a nanosecond to figure out why once I saw the lake… whitecaps all over. The first plan was to first troll near the mouth of the river for bass, however that changed in an instant. (Note to self, this wasn’t looking good...) Life jackets, juuuuuuust to be safe.

If I were a catfish, I’d want to get out of the waves and this meant shallow protected water. En route to Bird Island I texted some catfish friends to let me know where they’d be, and I was invited to the party. (It was B.Y.O.Bait.) 

 
I anchored up in casting range of shore and gave some instruction to my guests on party etiquette. I got a bobber rigged up 2’ over a chunk of carp meat, and cuz of the cloudy water I added some walleye beads as bling to add to the attraction. I tossed out a line and explained that we were looking for the bobber to disappear. I sat down preparing to rig the next pole and the bobber vanished as if at my command. I demonstrated reeling up until I felt tension on the line, then set the hook. I handed the pole to my nephew. About a 26 incher in under a minute. Cool. 

I don’t think we went 10 minutes without something wanting to party with our lines. We didn’t even have to move the boat for 3 hrs. I always cast one pole out deeper to the opposite side of the boat, and I caught a few that way, but most were in very shallow water, under a foot, near rocks.

I’ve seen all that many times before, but I’ve never experienced pulling one fish into the net when another pole got seriously bent and in a totally different direction from where I cast. It felt strange reeling in. A seagull had drug the line trying to get away. (There’s always someone that goes uninvited and becomes a party crasher.)

 

I’ve never seen the Island with so many birds. None of them were happy when their friend was caught, so they defended themselves the best they knew how. We found ourselves in a real live version of the movie while all his friends gave us “The Bird.” 

 

I brought the winged creature close to the boat to untangle the line from it’s wing but it was just too disagreeable (you know the type, can’t remain chill) and kept attacking me… So I cut the line as close as I could and it flew away. Then came another first, hand lining another big cat. Party on.

Excitement was to be had as Mom got turns with the action. Cheers! 

Being inexperienced anglers, my guests weren’t always sure what they were feeling on their line. A couple of snags fooled them, and they had fun until they realized that reeling wasn’t doing any good. But then there were some curious tugs and releases. They learned that after pulling in these big cats, the occasional white bass were barely noticeable. But, the diversity added to the festivities with equal opportunity.

OK, so what is the seagull limit on Utah Lake? My bride caught a second seagull... Again, with the emptying of the Island with the alarmist protesters. (I'm good with free speech). Short of cutting the line, or one person grabbing the bird’s head so he doesn’t bite us while the other deals with the line/hook, I’d be curious if there was another way... Be afraid, very afraid.

The smallest cat of the day was 22 inches. The wind even got calm. Couldn’t have asked for a better day. Almost. We went back to the Provo and tried to find a school of Bass. We caught a few. (Note to self, it’s a good idea to have people practice casting before a real trip.) Even without catching a boatload of bass, the trip well exceeded expectations. (Nice to see the water a bit higher this year. Maybe with some luck the algae bloom situation will allow another trip.)

Wow... fish breath....

Those that remember my posts of the past, I can see you rolling your eyes because you do not believe me. I get it. I'm guilty of being pretty good at Photoshop, so the truth may remain a forever mystery. If anything less than literal is irritating to you, I suggest you talk to someone with counsel that can help your soul be at ease. Absolute certainty is hard to come by, especially when fishing, and with "fish stories" as recorded in the Book of Roghet from the good ship Genuflect.

I’m curious what my nephew will tell his friends about his first fishing experience. I suspect, if I got him off on the right foot, it will be something like this: 

Congratulations young man! I'm a believer!

Deer Creek, dear on Fri. - notes to self

I haven't been out recently, but my son and I were able to hit Deer Creek on Friday to be able to make a worthy report. The Berry seemed a little far to go, since my best intel efforts left me with tepid expectations due to the recent weather conditions. But, we really wanted to get out on the water. We arrived at the at the island ramp brisk and early. OK, I lied, it was at 11 AM, well... actually, it was more like 2 PM... But man, the extra sleep felt good!!

The thought hadn't occurred to me of just how the low water levels might affect launching. It was significant. I've never seen the lake so low and I was surprised there was still cement ramp that far down! Some fellows were launching their pontoon boat as we arrived, and the ramp leveled out and their large truck had to back 8-10 yards into the water. (They said they'd been to the Berry, but weren't catching so they thought they'd try DC. Gotta love it when my own guestimation on location has merit. Hopefully we made the right choice the first time.)

I backed my van in up to its doors and even taking in water in the back, and I still had to push my small boat off the trailer... (First note to self: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea...") Fortunately, the prop wasn't hitting bottom, but it may have if I pulled the boat up to the side of the dock. I went to park and my son had his head down hooking up the sonar and making preps in the front of the boat when I jumped in the back. The weight shifted and my feet splashed. Well... that was unexpected. The cooler, tool chest and gas tank were floating. (Second note to self: "You really should have put that plug in the boat back in the driveway when you thought of it..." Third note: "Maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea... part deux")

After some bailing we were on our way to the west of the island where we caught a grundle of perch last year in Nov. It wasn't long before the glassy conditions we arrived turned to some wind. Bearable, but more chilly. This might be a cold short trip for a guy with wet feet. (Fourth note: "It's not summer anymore, pack some extra socks and shoes in case you get wet.") The sonar showed fish like markings suspended at 22'. Too deep for our trolling rappalas perhaps, and our casting of spinners wasn't getting any action after a few passes. So I anchored up and we tried jigging with some custom jigs with crawlers. No more love there either. But as I was rigging up some deeper trolling raps, one pole bent all crazy. My son pulled in this very active bow.


We hung around for a while longer and continued jigging, but to no avail. I added some larger (black and white) deep divers raps in the tackle box that were meant for wipers... juuuust in case. "What have we got to lose?" my son said. So, we put them in action and trolled again. We headed north and got another bow about the same size as our first. As we got shallower (11-14 ft) the only action was some small trout that came near the surface and tried to smack a white spinner unsuccessfully. (A handmade panther martin, "rooster tail" type.)

Heck, we were just grateful to not catch a skunk, but there wasn't much of a congregation anywhere in the area, fishkind or other. There were a few bank tanglers on the North side of the island, but their poles stayed inactive as far as we could tell. The same with the pontoon boat (that seemed to be trolling "pop gear") in the area for a while, then headed south and out of sight. There was only one other small craft in the area that trolled around, also having no luck as far as we could tell. So, we sought out another area I've never fished. Again, the sonar was blank until we found more fish markings again suspended at 22'. The deep trolling raps worked on just about every pass. The second in the area was this brown that hit like a freight train. We waved back happily to the folks on the real train that passed by on the west.


Couldn't help but notice lots of green algae in the area, like I often see at the Berry, whem BAM! I had one bow that obviously came up from lower to hit a shallow black and gold rappalla. The silly fish ran out of water and continued 4' into the air! Fun, fun, fun. We ended up with 5 in the 18" range for the day. Too bad we didn't find this area sooner.

As much as we'd have liked to fished more, we didn't want to take any chances and be dealing with issues getting the boat on the trailer with flashlights... (Final note: "Sometimes things that don't start our well at all, end up to be a great day!)

Will someone please tell me if there have been any challenges getting your boats on the water at the Berry cuz of low water? I'd like to get up there this year, but I need to make sure I don't pull my boat up there and have to fish from the bank!

White bass redneck video in instructions

Another killer day at Utah Lake for Conner and I.  Some don’t believe what we’ve been doing at Utah Lake – so here is proof with our lessons in fishing.  In order:

http://youtu.be/DmQJqrT04oY

http://youtu.be/hH-UtKYUpSc

http://youtu.be/MpOU8sBl6Ms

http://youtu.be/mkQUw5BV9wc

This year we’re running out of ways to cook white bass.  J  We stopped counting at about 75.  We got tired of that after about an hour, so we then went for catfish and this nice 23” lady joined us in the boat.  We kissed her on the forehead then released her with commandment to multiply and replenish the lake.