06-07-2013, 03:55 PM
[#0000ff]My first trip to Starvation Reservoir in Utah is usually about the first week of June each year. And it is usually not as productive as successive trips. Oops...I did it again.
Had made plans to meet up with TopH20 and another member of the Price Perch Posse at Knight Hollow. Me in my tube and them in a boat. For me, it was a tale of 2 launches. Apologies to Mr. Dickens, it was neither the best of times or the worst of times.
Launched first at Knight Hollow...about 7:30 am. Air temp just over 50 and water temp only 59. Was hoping for early 60's. Didn't look good...and wasn't. Water levels are down a couple of feet from previous high water mark.
They still don't have a buoy on the far end of the long underwater point going west. That was my first planned spot and I had to waste time looking for it. Wasn't worth the effort. Didn't see much on sonar and every time I saw fish I dropped down and only got small smallies. No walleyes, no perch, no trout.
The PPP boys cruised up after I had released a few smallettes. They opted to run back up to a spot near the dam where they had reports of a few walleyes being caught the previous day.
I moved around to several other previously productive spots...watching the sonar and occasionally dropping down some jigs to see what I could tempt. Saw a couple of small groups of fish on the bottom in over 40 feet of water that looked kinda perchy. But they did nothing to verify my conclusions. Lockjaw and middle fin. Saw a few trout slurping cottonwood fluff from the surface but didn't try to get any of them to play.
Plan B was to go try Rabbit Gulch if Knight Hollow was not productive. Got out and packed the vehicle for relocation about 10ish. Relaunched at Bunny Gulch just after 11. Still calm and water temps were even a bit cooler there...at only 58.5. TDC
Launched at the end of old Hwy 40 and put out a couple of spinners to troll over to the far side of the channel. Have had a couple of reports of action in that area so thought I would try to hit it first...just in case it might get "airy". It usually does on Starvy.
Fished a couple of my old fave spots without any interruption of my solitude...by other boats or by fish. Not even a smallie. I finally found one area that had some fishy blips on my sonar screen. Had two sets of tandem jigs dragging behind the tube. One wiggled and I set the hook on a hefty battler. Hoping for walleye but not disappointed when I saw the size of the rainbow.
While I was still trying to coax the wild and crazy "Starvation steelhead" to crawl in my net the other rod wiggled. I did a quick hookset and went back to netting the trout. After depositing the bow in the basket I reeled up a footlong wallie. Yee hawwww. Things was alookin' up.
The slight breeze had moved me off the area where I had seen and hooked the fish so I moved back to that spot and promptly went bendo again. Another hefty rainbow. Man, those dudes really put on a good battle. If you have to settle for them instead of walleyes you could do a lot worse.
About that time the PPP boys cruised up. They had seen me pack up and leave Knight Hollow so they figgered I might hit Bunny Gulch. They had scored a couple of nice walleyes on bottom bouncers in a another area but it had died off so they thought they would come give me some immoral support.
While we were chit chatting I got molested by still another battlin' bow. TopH20 took a couple of pics and promised to send them. I'll post them when I get them. That was probably my biggest for the day.
Those two guys let their boat drift in the perfect breeze and dragged bottom bouncers and plastics. They bagged a nice over 20 inch walleye and played with a couple of rainbows before I headed back to my vehicle to depart.
I had a fine finale. I was going to keep one more trout for a limit. But I released the next two I hooked. Not by design. One came off right after I hooked it. The other came straight up from the bottom, jumped into my lap, bounce up and dove down between my wader-clad legs, wrapped the line around my ankles and pulled free. Happened in less time than it takes to tell about it. I was left with my line tangled around my fins and two hooky jigs hanging there below. I had to use my fin tool to reach down and pull up the jigs...then pop my line to get released. Whatta fish. It deserved its freedom.
No more bites for awhile so I motored back across the channel and got out of the water. Still nice conditions...with only a mere whisper of a breeze. Off the lake about 2:30. Final water temp just nosing up to 60.
With the current warm temps the fishing for all species should improve in the next couple of weeks.
[/#0000ff]
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[signature]
Had made plans to meet up with TopH20 and another member of the Price Perch Posse at Knight Hollow. Me in my tube and them in a boat. For me, it was a tale of 2 launches. Apologies to Mr. Dickens, it was neither the best of times or the worst of times.
Launched first at Knight Hollow...about 7:30 am. Air temp just over 50 and water temp only 59. Was hoping for early 60's. Didn't look good...and wasn't. Water levels are down a couple of feet from previous high water mark.
They still don't have a buoy on the far end of the long underwater point going west. That was my first planned spot and I had to waste time looking for it. Wasn't worth the effort. Didn't see much on sonar and every time I saw fish I dropped down and only got small smallies. No walleyes, no perch, no trout.
The PPP boys cruised up after I had released a few smallettes. They opted to run back up to a spot near the dam where they had reports of a few walleyes being caught the previous day.
I moved around to several other previously productive spots...watching the sonar and occasionally dropping down some jigs to see what I could tempt. Saw a couple of small groups of fish on the bottom in over 40 feet of water that looked kinda perchy. But they did nothing to verify my conclusions. Lockjaw and middle fin. Saw a few trout slurping cottonwood fluff from the surface but didn't try to get any of them to play.
Plan B was to go try Rabbit Gulch if Knight Hollow was not productive. Got out and packed the vehicle for relocation about 10ish. Relaunched at Bunny Gulch just after 11. Still calm and water temps were even a bit cooler there...at only 58.5. TDC
Launched at the end of old Hwy 40 and put out a couple of spinners to troll over to the far side of the channel. Have had a couple of reports of action in that area so thought I would try to hit it first...just in case it might get "airy". It usually does on Starvy.
Fished a couple of my old fave spots without any interruption of my solitude...by other boats or by fish. Not even a smallie. I finally found one area that had some fishy blips on my sonar screen. Had two sets of tandem jigs dragging behind the tube. One wiggled and I set the hook on a hefty battler. Hoping for walleye but not disappointed when I saw the size of the rainbow.
While I was still trying to coax the wild and crazy "Starvation steelhead" to crawl in my net the other rod wiggled. I did a quick hookset and went back to netting the trout. After depositing the bow in the basket I reeled up a footlong wallie. Yee hawwww. Things was alookin' up.
The slight breeze had moved me off the area where I had seen and hooked the fish so I moved back to that spot and promptly went bendo again. Another hefty rainbow. Man, those dudes really put on a good battle. If you have to settle for them instead of walleyes you could do a lot worse.
About that time the PPP boys cruised up. They had seen me pack up and leave Knight Hollow so they figgered I might hit Bunny Gulch. They had scored a couple of nice walleyes on bottom bouncers in a another area but it had died off so they thought they would come give me some immoral support.
While we were chit chatting I got molested by still another battlin' bow. TopH20 took a couple of pics and promised to send them. I'll post them when I get them. That was probably my biggest for the day.
Those two guys let their boat drift in the perfect breeze and dragged bottom bouncers and plastics. They bagged a nice over 20 inch walleye and played with a couple of rainbows before I headed back to my vehicle to depart.
I had a fine finale. I was going to keep one more trout for a limit. But I released the next two I hooked. Not by design. One came off right after I hooked it. The other came straight up from the bottom, jumped into my lap, bounce up and dove down between my wader-clad legs, wrapped the line around my ankles and pulled free. Happened in less time than it takes to tell about it. I was left with my line tangled around my fins and two hooky jigs hanging there below. I had to use my fin tool to reach down and pull up the jigs...then pop my line to get released. Whatta fish. It deserved its freedom.
No more bites for awhile so I motored back across the channel and got out of the water. Still nice conditions...with only a mere whisper of a breeze. Off the lake about 2:30. Final water temp just nosing up to 60.
With the current warm temps the fishing for all species should improve in the next couple of weeks.
[/#0000ff]
[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96823"]KNIGHT HOLLOW LAUNCH.jpg[/url] (414 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96824"]SMALL SMALLIE.jpg[/url] (310 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96825"]RABBIT GULCH LAUNCH.jpg[/url] (302 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96826"]PRICE PERCH POSSE.jpg[/url] (232 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96827"]JERK.jpg[/url] (353 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96828"]STARVATION STEELIE.jpg[/url] (367 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96829"]WEE WALLIE.jpg[/url] (274 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96830"]AFTERNOON CALM.jpg[/url] (309 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96831"]SURVIVED NICELY.jpg[/url] (394 KB) [url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=96832"]DINNER GUESTS.jpg[/url] (378 KB)[signature]
