Willard B North 1-04-2023

[SkunkedAgain]

I fished Willard today, was able to launch very easily.... Fishing was slow, but I did miss the skunk by pulling in a 10.5" perch... Ice was opening up with a lot of ice flows breaking off and floating around... Water was open over to the north dike and out in the pond a half mile or further towards the west.. Starting to open into the north end of freeway bay... Side finder showed lots of fish around, however I don't have my eye calibrated well enough to identify species yet... Was fun to fish Willard in the boat in January... Guess I've fished Bear Lake in the winter, but first time at willard for me in January... Wind blew me off about 12:30 and I didn't get there until 9:00... Pat's fligs were the winning combination for me today... Later J

I've been really debating and waiting for the right opportunity to get the boat out at Willard. Think it's called an itch.. lol Thanks for the report.

I sure like an outboard motor, so I can keep the boat available through the winter.... Just wish I had a better place to store my boat out of the weather, but my cover does a great job of keeping things dry and protected... Not sure the fishing was worth pulling a boat out of storage to go and do, but if it's easy to get at, then it's a fun change when ice fishing hasn't been very good for me this winter..  But glad to contribute to scratching that itch... Good luck.. J

---

I fished Willard today, was able to launch very easily.... Fishing was slow, but I did miss the skunk by pulling in a 10.5" perch... Ice was opening up with a lot of ice flows breaking off and floating around... Water was open over to the north dike and out in the pond a half mile or further towards the west.. Starting to open into the north end of freeway bay... Side finder showed lots of fish around, however I don't have my eye calibrated well enough to identify species yet... Was fun to fish Willard in the boat in January... Guess I've fished Bear Lake in the winter, but first time at willard for me in January... Wind blew me off about 12:30 and I didn't get there until 9:00... Pat's fligs were the winning combination for me today... Later J

I've been really debating and waiting for the right opportunity to get the boat out at Willard. Think it's called an itch.. lol Thanks for the report.

I'm not surprised it was you out there. Thanks for reporting.  How deep was the water out in front of the mouth channel?

I was the second boat out there, Kent Davis was there the day before me, talked to him at the ramp and he tried to discourage me from going so I assumed that must mean the fish were really biting good... Well not really, but I wanted to go try it anyway...

As far as depths in the channel mouth, I don't remember exactly, but I did notice it got down into the 3' range as I was exiting the marina for the main lake... I was watching fish on the sidefinder and trying to keep my trolling lures from snagging so I didn't pay close attention to the exact number, but I did notice the 3 and was a little surprised it was that shallow there... One thing I was surprised at, was a big bunch of fish in the channel as I was going out.. wish I could identify if they were good fish or bait fish, but I didn't expect that many in the shallow marina area... I cast a flig at them and dragged it past them, but nothing seemed to grab ahold, but I was hoping they might... Could have been I was under main motor propulsion at the time and probably moving at 2 mph or better, so I was probably too fast for winter fish to catch up to it... Hope that info helped, I know it's not very exact, but at least it wasn't in to the 2' range.. Later Jeff