??? Willard's North Marina ???

[Old_Coot]

[font "Comic Sans MS"][size 2]I drove by Willard Bay today. From the freeway, I could see some heavy land moving equipment out in the channel of the north marina. Anyone know what's going on out there?[/size][/font]
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[neveronsunday]

[red][size 3]When I ran down last Thursday for the Hooked ice class I didn't see much more than a dried up marina. Wahoo on the dredging! [/size][/red]
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[PescadorUtah]

Sounds good to me. I would like to be able to fish in prime wiper time next year.
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[Theekillerbee]

That's a good sight to see Old_Coot. I'm glad they are finally getting out and cleaning out the marina. They lost a TON of money last year from draining that place. It will be much cheaper to do it on dry land, then to have a dredging barge do the work.
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[PREDATOR]

They started about a month or more ago, but there were some delays. But as of this week, theres a huge increase. However, the res is not coming up, and they are only dredging a channel from the ramp to the main lake, and not the entire marina.

Funding for the project was a big problem, so dont expect much. The ramps wont be longer, and the channel dreged is not going to be a super deep channel, we are talking a few feet below the normal marina level.

Based on the last several years, willard is looking at another bad year regardless of the dredging in the marina. In the spring the water will come up enough to launch, but theres not enough water in there now, that by the end of next summer it will make a huge difference.

I have been watching willard pretty close, and if you look, you will notice the dike ring around the outlet is still out of the water. That thing should be about 8 feet below the surface. if you look on a clear day, you can see the isalnd is still way Consider that two years ago, in the winter, the island was still under water, and you could ice fish in the marinas.

We are definitley in a cycle of drawing down, and not filling up, so dredging or not, unless we get POUNDED with a TON of snow and rain, willard is going to have a tough, tough year in 2004.

The low water, low oxygen, and high water temps are going to effect your wipers and walleye, and all that plus the fact that willard is iceing up will hurt your shad pretty good.

With the current water levels, and snow fall predictions for this year, its just not something to get your hopes up about.
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