Willard 7-13-20...TDH and NBC

[TubeDude]

Not sure whether Monday the 13th is luckier than Friday the 13th.  But it was TDH and NBC…too %$#@ hot and nothing but cats.
 
Met up with fellow tuber Lee at the south marina of Willard Bay.  Launched by 6:30 am.  Air temp 66 and water temp 76.  Fairly good clarity in the water.  A bit of a chop on the water from a lingering NW breeze until late morning.  Got a little bouncy at times and we even had one brief session of rain drops.
 
I was rigged with some small cranks and started with those…using the electric motor to cruise around looking for schools of young shad and accompanying predators.  Found neither and my washed lures went unmolested.  Also trolled them all the way back in about 11:00 and had a couple of light bumps…probably silly crappies or something.
 
About 7:30 I switched rigs and started dragging some snarl flig rigs baited with Gulp minnows, real minnows or crawlers.  Promptly got my first kitty on a white snarl with a white gulp minnow.  Then got two more cats on “perple purch” color snarl rigs with small chub minnows for bait. 
 
Between 8:00 and 10:30 I covered a lot of water from 10’ deep out to 21’ deep.  Saw very few fish on sonar but did pick up several more cats…mostly in water from 13 – 15 feet deep.  Kept 6 for a two family fish fry coming up.  Only caught one cat on a crawler harness rig.  The rest were mostly on minnow tipped snarl rigs…of several different colors.  The bait seemed to be more important than the color.
 
Lee had his best day of the last several trips to Willard.  As I recall he released a half dozen standard Willard cookie cutter kitties.  But he also brought to net his first ever Willard Bay wiper.  Wasn’t big by Willard standards…but it would have been a whopper white bass at Utah Lake.  See the picture.

[fishinfool]

Not sure whether Monday the 13th is luckier than Friday the 13th.  But it was TDH and NBC…too %$#@ hot and nothing but cats.
 
Met up with fellow tuber Lee at the south marina of Willard Bay.  Launched by 6:30 am.  Air temp 66 and water temp 76.  Fairly good clarity in the water.  A bit of a chop on the water from a lingering NW breeze until late morning.  Got a little bouncy at times and we even had one brief session of rain drops.
 
I was rigged with some small cranks and started with those…using the electric motor to cruise around looking for schools of young shad and accompanying predators.  Found neither and my washed lures went unmolested.  Also trolled them all the way back in about 11:00 and had a couple of light bumps…probably silly crappies or something.
 
About 7:30 I switched rigs and started dragging some snarl flig rigs baited with Gulp minnows, real minnows or crawlers.  Promptly got my first kitty on a white snarl with a white gulp minnow.  Then got two more cats on “perple purch” color snarl rigs with small chub minnows for bait. 
 
Between 8:00 and 10:30 I covered a lot of water from 10’ deep out to 21’ deep.  Saw very few fish on sonar but did pick up several more cats…mostly in water from 13 – 15 feet deep.  Kept 6 for a two family fish fry coming up.  Only caught one cat on a crawler harness rig.  The rest were mostly on minnow tipped snarl rigs…of several different colors.  The bait seemed to be more important than the color.
 
Lee had his best day of the last several trips to Willard.  As I recall he released a half dozen standard Willard cookie cutter kitties.  But he also brought to net his first ever Willard Bay wiper.  Wasn’t big by Willard standards…but it would have been a whopper white bass at Utah Lake.  See the picture.

Those wipers are hard to find these days. The kitties are thick out there and not surprised you worked them over. 

Thanks for the update. 
fnf

[wiperhunter2]

Glad to hear you got out there and found some willing kitties, too bad nothing else wanted play. I think it's that time of the year.

[TubeDude]

Glad to hear you got out there and found some willing kitties, too bad nothing else wanted play. I think it's that time of the year.

The combination of higher water temps and a lotta food (shadlets) has definitely tilted things in favor of the fish and not fishermen.  On any given day now it takes a combination of skill, the right lures, the right area, the right timing and a lotta luck to score very much.

Can't wait until the first fall storm cools off the water and puts the fish on notice that winter might be coming...and to put on the feed bag again.  Also, the shad will be thinned a bit so the predators will respond more to the silly stuff anglers show them.

Time to point my float tube toward other waters and let Willard reestablish some kind of normal again...whatever that might be.  But if there is no school and nobody is going back to work there will still be 7 day weekends.  That sure messes it up for us retired geezers that like a bit of solitude through the week.