07-19-2022, 07:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-19-2022, 07:06 AM by sanitarymechanic.)
Last Saturday I took my two oldest kids (23 and 20 year olds) out on my little jalopy boat from Utah Lake State Park. We launched at about 6:15 am (was shooting for 5:45 but kids slept in). We headed out from the harbor and turned south hoping to head toward the mouth of Provo bay.
About half way there we got stuck on a sandbar which took us 1/2hr to get unstuck from (looking at google maps from a desktop computer, then later from a cell phone once I knew what to look for, you can see the sandbar about 1.9 miles straight out from the south airport canal).
After getting unstuck, not knowing what else might be in front of us, and needing to get my daughter back to the marina by about 8:15 to 8:30 (she had to go to work and was just coming out for a couple of hours before work), we shut off our motors and started drifting with the north breeze. About THREE minutes before we needed to real in and head back to the marina, my daughter had a taker on her hotdog offering. At first it was just some dead weight, we thought she might have just snagged a piece of drift wood. When she reeled in to within about 30 feet of the boat, she started to feel the head shakes of a bigger fish. The pole I gave her was a cheapie Shakesphere Tiger pole (the one that costs $20 from Walmart) that is a medium heavy action. This fish had that pole bent in half. When I saw this I knew there was something nice on the line. When that fish was finally boated (a beautiful silver Channel Cat) we took a weight on it, which came to 8lb-11oz (later measured at 27 inches). After this it was time to take her back and drop her off so she could head to work in Salt Lake.
After dropping my daughter off at the marina, my son and I headed back out, but headed north into the bay next to Powell Slough. We stopped in the middle of the bay and fished for about 45 minutes when he pulled in a 25 inch, 7lb-0oz Channel Cat (his offering was a chunk of thawed out white bass from last year, fish on a drop-shot). We put that fish on the stringer, he cast back out and about THREE minutes later he got a phone call telling him he had to go to work (he was on call, he knew there was a possibility of getting pulled away from fishing, but wanted to come anyway). So we put the boat back on the trailer and called it a day.
Overall a great morning, even though I didn't catch anything myself. Seeing my daughter catch that bigger fish was almost as fun as catching one myself.
About half way there we got stuck on a sandbar which took us 1/2hr to get unstuck from (looking at google maps from a desktop computer, then later from a cell phone once I knew what to look for, you can see the sandbar about 1.9 miles straight out from the south airport canal).
After getting unstuck, not knowing what else might be in front of us, and needing to get my daughter back to the marina by about 8:15 to 8:30 (she had to go to work and was just coming out for a couple of hours before work), we shut off our motors and started drifting with the north breeze. About THREE minutes before we needed to real in and head back to the marina, my daughter had a taker on her hotdog offering. At first it was just some dead weight, we thought she might have just snagged a piece of drift wood. When she reeled in to within about 30 feet of the boat, she started to feel the head shakes of a bigger fish. The pole I gave her was a cheapie Shakesphere Tiger pole (the one that costs $20 from Walmart) that is a medium heavy action. This fish had that pole bent in half. When I saw this I knew there was something nice on the line. When that fish was finally boated (a beautiful silver Channel Cat) we took a weight on it, which came to 8lb-11oz (later measured at 27 inches). After this it was time to take her back and drop her off so she could head to work in Salt Lake.
After dropping my daughter off at the marina, my son and I headed back out, but headed north into the bay next to Powell Slough. We stopped in the middle of the bay and fished for about 45 minutes when he pulled in a 25 inch, 7lb-0oz Channel Cat (his offering was a chunk of thawed out white bass from last year, fish on a drop-shot). We put that fish on the stringer, he cast back out and about THREE minutes later he got a phone call telling him he had to go to work (he was on call, he knew there was a possibility of getting pulled away from fishing, but wanted to come anyway). So we put the boat back on the trailer and called it a day.
Overall a great morning, even though I didn't catch anything myself. Seeing my daughter catch that bigger fish was almost as fun as catching one myself.
