06-13-2017, 04:12 PM
This is a bit late, but here it is.
Dave and I had planned to launch at Lincoln on Friday. He said he wanted to get fish for a cat fish fry for the guys at work. The forecast was for southerly winds of 15 to 20 with possible gusts to 40 mph, so we hoped to hide on the east side of the point and still be able to fish.
We launched about 6 A.M. and the parking lot was empty. Water temps were in about 67 and didn't change much by the time we left about 2. The wind did change. It was 5-10 at the start of the day and ended up steady at about 20 with gusts I would guestimate at 30 +.
The day started quickly with Dave getting the first cat just after we left the jaws. We slow trolled over to the point and picked up one WB for bait and I had one cat on that let go.
We got over by the point, set up in 3' of water and cast cut WB off both sides of the boat. Dave had bought 2 claw anchors for his recent trip to Powell. I told him they were big enough to anchor the Queen Mary, but we might need them to hold his 24' pontoon sideways in the winds they were predicting. It was a good thing he had them.
Fishing was slow for the next hour and we noticed that all the fish came from the deep side, so we pulled the anchors, drifted out to 6' and put them back down. Once they stuck we had no more trouble, until it came time to pull them in heavy wind.
The catching gradually picked up, along with the wind. Since we were still over rocky bottom, we set bobbers at 5 to 6 feet and let the wind troll them from west to east, south to north and sometimes in circles. We caught fish in spurts and waves from 10 until 1 and much of the time it was very fast fishing. It was also somewhat comical as the wind often left slack in the lines and the hooks being 6 feet below the floats caused us to wiff a lot of hits. We would see a bobber go down, grab the rod and start reeling like crazy trying to get the line tight before the fish felt the drag of the float and spit the bait.
We had a blast! My arms were sore all weekend. We sorted through fish, keeping the ones that were smaller and brighter or that were bleeding badly when landed. Fortunately most of the fish were hooked in the corner of the mouth. Lots of them were well darkened and bulging like they were ready for the spawn. We got 2 limits for the fish fry and estimated that we kept 2 fish for every 5 we caught. It was a great trip for tugs and number and the average size was good, but we never saw a fish over 26". I would say it was in the top 2 or 3 trips I've ever had for number of cats caught.
Almost all the fish came on white bass, but we had no fresh carp and only tried shrimp for a few minutes. As for other fisherman, we saw only 3 other boats. 2 arrived about 7:30 and headed to the Island, then returned around noonish, a wise choice in the increasing wind. The third boat was a smaller Al boat the zipped out about noon and anchored inside of us near the first spring. I didn't see him catch any fish and he showed up back at the ramp as we were leaving.
Last weeks reports were that the fish were fairly shallow, but we didn't get any in less than 5 FOW. I suspect the drop in water temps slowed down the shallow water activities. I only took a few pictures since things got hectic and we didn't get any contest fish. My guess is things will change again after the cool weather early this week, but they will be hot again as the water temps return to normal.
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Dave and I had planned to launch at Lincoln on Friday. He said he wanted to get fish for a cat fish fry for the guys at work. The forecast was for southerly winds of 15 to 20 with possible gusts to 40 mph, so we hoped to hide on the east side of the point and still be able to fish.
We launched about 6 A.M. and the parking lot was empty. Water temps were in about 67 and didn't change much by the time we left about 2. The wind did change. It was 5-10 at the start of the day and ended up steady at about 20 with gusts I would guestimate at 30 +.
The day started quickly with Dave getting the first cat just after we left the jaws. We slow trolled over to the point and picked up one WB for bait and I had one cat on that let go.
We got over by the point, set up in 3' of water and cast cut WB off both sides of the boat. Dave had bought 2 claw anchors for his recent trip to Powell. I told him they were big enough to anchor the Queen Mary, but we might need them to hold his 24' pontoon sideways in the winds they were predicting. It was a good thing he had them.
Fishing was slow for the next hour and we noticed that all the fish came from the deep side, so we pulled the anchors, drifted out to 6' and put them back down. Once they stuck we had no more trouble, until it came time to pull them in heavy wind.
The catching gradually picked up, along with the wind. Since we were still over rocky bottom, we set bobbers at 5 to 6 feet and let the wind troll them from west to east, south to north and sometimes in circles. We caught fish in spurts and waves from 10 until 1 and much of the time it was very fast fishing. It was also somewhat comical as the wind often left slack in the lines and the hooks being 6 feet below the floats caused us to wiff a lot of hits. We would see a bobber go down, grab the rod and start reeling like crazy trying to get the line tight before the fish felt the drag of the float and spit the bait.
We had a blast! My arms were sore all weekend. We sorted through fish, keeping the ones that were smaller and brighter or that were bleeding badly when landed. Fortunately most of the fish were hooked in the corner of the mouth. Lots of them were well darkened and bulging like they were ready for the spawn. We got 2 limits for the fish fry and estimated that we kept 2 fish for every 5 we caught. It was a great trip for tugs and number and the average size was good, but we never saw a fish over 26". I would say it was in the top 2 or 3 trips I've ever had for number of cats caught.
Almost all the fish came on white bass, but we had no fresh carp and only tried shrimp for a few minutes. As for other fisherman, we saw only 3 other boats. 2 arrived about 7:30 and headed to the Island, then returned around noonish, a wise choice in the increasing wind. The third boat was a smaller Al boat the zipped out about noon and anchored inside of us near the first spring. I didn't see him catch any fish and he showed up back at the ramp as we were leaving.
Last weeks reports were that the fish were fairly shallow, but we didn't get any in less than 5 FOW. I suspect the drop in water temps slowed down the shallow water activities. I only took a few pictures since things got hectic and we didn't get any contest fish. My guess is things will change again after the cool weather early this week, but they will be hot again as the water temps return to normal.
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