04-24-2024, 03:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-24-2024, 03:19 PM by Piscophilic.)
Jon and I did another Friday "evening" trip to Utah Lake on the 19th. Water temp varied between 52 and 55 degrees and the air only a little warmer. Launched at Lincoln about 2 P.M. and got back to the ramp about 10:40 P.M.
We dragged small offerings around the harbor because there were decent numbers of marks down 2-4 feet, but they were not having anything we offered them. Headed over to the mouth of the slough and got a white casting the same offerings. Spot locked for 30 minutes or so and still had only one white plus a bullhead that discovered that a chunk of white bass under a bobber had a hook in it.
![[Image: Bullhead-12.avif]](https://i.postimg.cc/F1h89v5W/Bullhead-12.avif)
Headed out by the Island with fresh bait and optimism. The wind was steady at about 10 MPH out of the NW and there were decent sized waves, but no blowing spray. The water was REALLY churned up, like proverbial chocolate milk. Must have been some bigger winds a day or two before.
In honor of the dark water, we changed a couple of rods to bigger than springtime baits and attractors and went to work. An hour of dragging them in 11 FOW at around 0.5 mph had produced nothing and I was just starting to talk about looking elsewhere when one of the bigger bait rods went down. Hooray, a kittie! It fought like a 10 pounder and when I saw it I was surprised. It looked about 27 or 28 in the murky water. It was both, a little shy of 28 with a huge gut and the scale said 9.7 pounds. Most surprisingly in the cold water, it had completely inhaled the bait.
![[Image: 27-5.avif]](https://i.postimg.cc/vDSzpwQ6/27-5.avif)
I went to work trying to get the hook out since Jon has a medical boot on one foot and wasn't able to get down on the floor. While I was still working on that, Jon's back rod went bendo with another good fish (and on the other big bait). I need to remember to put one of those on each side of the boat
This cat turned out to be 29" and a solid 10 pounds. We thought we had found them, but an hour later we had not had another twitch other than a couple of white bass like rattles on the small offerings I was still dragging. They all got off.
![[Image: Jons-29.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/DmZVrhjW/Jons-29.jpg)
Next we headed about halfway to the airport hoping that the fish were just relating to anywhere far from shore, an hour later we still had only the 2 nice cats.
Last, just before dark, we headed south to the same transition we got fish on back in March. It was a better choice, I got two smaller cats (26 and 28 ish) and lost 2 others before we got tired and called it a night.
![[Image: IMG-2493.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/jLpGY7sN/IMG-2493.jpg)
![[Image: Not-So-Peaceful-Surrender-2.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/bZb04GJZ/Not-So-Peaceful-Surrender-2.jpg)
The wind had continued to build a little through the evening and the larger waves were making the Garmin screen look like a bright yellow sawtooth. I should have taken a picture of that.
No catfish were harmed on this outing. It was great to get a few cats in what I would call "marginal at best" conditions. They are feeding, but we can't seem to get a good weather day on the weekends. The most interesting thing was that 3 of the 4 cats had completely inhaled the baits. Apparently they were aggressively feeding but with all the waves and turbidity they were struggling to find food. It will get better and more stable as we move from April into May.
We dragged small offerings around the harbor because there were decent numbers of marks down 2-4 feet, but they were not having anything we offered them. Headed over to the mouth of the slough and got a white casting the same offerings. Spot locked for 30 minutes or so and still had only one white plus a bullhead that discovered that a chunk of white bass under a bobber had a hook in it.
Headed out by the Island with fresh bait and optimism. The wind was steady at about 10 MPH out of the NW and there were decent sized waves, but no blowing spray. The water was REALLY churned up, like proverbial chocolate milk. Must have been some bigger winds a day or two before.
In honor of the dark water, we changed a couple of rods to bigger than springtime baits and attractors and went to work. An hour of dragging them in 11 FOW at around 0.5 mph had produced nothing and I was just starting to talk about looking elsewhere when one of the bigger bait rods went down. Hooray, a kittie! It fought like a 10 pounder and when I saw it I was surprised. It looked about 27 or 28 in the murky water. It was both, a little shy of 28 with a huge gut and the scale said 9.7 pounds. Most surprisingly in the cold water, it had completely inhaled the bait.
I went to work trying to get the hook out since Jon has a medical boot on one foot and wasn't able to get down on the floor. While I was still working on that, Jon's back rod went bendo with another good fish (and on the other big bait). I need to remember to put one of those on each side of the boat
This cat turned out to be 29" and a solid 10 pounds. We thought we had found them, but an hour later we had not had another twitch other than a couple of white bass like rattles on the small offerings I was still dragging. They all got off.
Next we headed about halfway to the airport hoping that the fish were just relating to anywhere far from shore, an hour later we still had only the 2 nice cats.
Last, just before dark, we headed south to the same transition we got fish on back in March. It was a better choice, I got two smaller cats (26 and 28 ish) and lost 2 others before we got tired and called it a night.
The wind had continued to build a little through the evening and the larger waves were making the Garmin screen look like a bright yellow sawtooth. I should have taken a picture of that.
No catfish were harmed on this outing. It was great to get a few cats in what I would call "marginal at best" conditions. They are feeding, but we can't seem to get a good weather day on the weekends. The most interesting thing was that 3 of the 4 cats had completely inhaled the baits. Apparently they were aggressively feeding but with all the waves and turbidity they were struggling to find food. It will get better and more stable as we move from April into May.