Utah Lake LB, empty and quiet

[Tin-Can]

Jim, since I was using one line with a flig and chunk of wb for Cats, and casting one line with lite line and a gulp grub with a small piece of wb (trying to get more wb), I was mostly anchored and stationary except for the slow boat swing from side to side.

I did just sit without anchoring this last trip when I was over in the south east side of the lake. The wind had gone almost dead calm, and just the slight breeze that was intermittent, kind of drifted me in a westerly direction towards the LB channel outlet.

I have done the slow drift on other occasions, and at other locations. I used that tactic the last time my son and I went out of Lindon in late August. Funny thing then, he and I using same baits, and tactics at opposite ends of my boat.............
I caught 1 Cat and 9 wb, and he got skunked [crazy]

That slow drag of baits for Catfish is something that gave me a good surprise several years ago up at Willard Bay. The prevailing tactic for targeted fish like Wiper and Walleye is to troll at various speeds with various lure presentations. I was slow trolling @ .5 to .8 mph in about 8 fow and bottom bouncing a 3 inch gold and black Rat-L-Trap about 60 yards off of the south dike wall from Freeway Bay west towards the south marina inlet. I had already caught and released several Wiper that must have been heading in our out of the spawning beds, and had 2 nice "eyes" in the live well that said they wanted to go home with me for dinner (mine, not theirs) [] when I was going out around the coffer dam wall and along the feed lot, one pole did a slow bend backwards much like a bottom snag. I put my motor in neutral, got the pole out of the holder and was expecting to have to run in reverse to un-hook out of the weeds or a rock. About the second crank of the reel, and the line went tight and the fight was on. Boated a Cat that was about 4 lbs. and she joined the eyes in the live well.

I thought that was just a weird fluke, catching a Cat on a lure. Have caught many catfish in the last 30 years, mostly from the bank along some slow moving river in south Georgia, using more different types of baits than I can remember, but never on a lure......[shocked] But it turns out, that wasn't an unusual occurrence, at least not at Willard Bay. I have caught many more cats at WB purposely slow trolling various lures, some out in the middle of what WH2 calls the "openness" .

I have not fished Utah Lake anywhere near as much as you or Ben, or Pat, or Lynn, so I'm still learning the wheres and whats of that body of water. I do know where the rock monsters of the Island are. And I'm fairly familiar with the south-west areas outside the LB channel at least to about the second spring. But thats one very large pond and it takes me from 1 to 2 hours (depending on which launch I go to) to get there from where I live here in Clearfield.
But with UL being mostly a large, fairly shallow bowl, and Catfish usually looking to find deeper waters in hot weather, unlike the Bear River where I know most of the deep holes in the river bend eddys, I am still learning UL.
Thats always the enjoyable part for me. I leave UL after every trip with some new knowledge.

We are contemplating another trip down to LB tomorrow. But today I need to do some boat maintenance I noticed while out on Willard yesterday.


[fishon]
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