Willard Bay Wednesday

[Tin-Can]

Been quite awhile since I posted here.  I've been hitting Willard from the south marina about once a week since late April. Total of 8 trips so far. First 5 trips were goose egg skunks. Then trip 6,7,8 have boated at least 1 Catfish. 
My son came up from Sunnyside Tuesday for a visit.  He hadn't been out in the boat with me for more than a year. So we got on Willard at 8 a.m. yesterday (Wednesday)  We dropped our trolling lines over just north-west of the south marina bouy line  heading toward the west wall at a slight agle. Running at 2.2 to 2.5 mph pulling cranks. Mine was a Fire Tiger lipped crank, think his first one was a Silver/Black rat-l-trap. Less than 20 minutes on the water  I got a hard hit and run on my line.  Medium size Wiper, released. Less than 11 minutes later a second hit, another Wiper, a bit smaller also released.  Son changed over to a Fire Tiger and we turned and trolled back thru area of first 2 hits, nada. Ran almost all the way to the west wall, nada, reversed course towards feed lot area, nada trolling.  Switched over to drifting with shrimp. Had several hard hits and bait strips till son got one Cat to stay hooked.  Also released. Good thing we released everything, south marina cleaning station was bagged up, closed for some reason.   Was a nice day on the water and at least no skunks.


             

[wiperhunter2]

Glad you were able to get out with your Son and have some success Forest. By the way, I'm not familiar with Sunnyside, is that in Utah? We too have noticed the cat numbers are down this year, hopefully, it is just that they are so well feed, they don't want anything else.

[RockyRaab2]

Good to read your reports again, Forest.

It's about that south cleaning station. That's one reason why I much prefer launching from the north. For some reason, there are fewer morons using that one. When I got there on Thursday with my four walleye, there were two guys cleaning wipers - with the grinder already running.

[wiperhunter2]

It's about that south cleaning station. That's one reason why I much prefer launching from the north. For some reason, there are fewer morons using that one. When I got there on Thursday with my four walleye, there were two guys cleaning wipers - with the grinder already running.

If you remember correctly, the North has always been the one that has almost always been clogged and the reason, from what has been reported, is the size of the pipe going down to the holding tank and of course people not turning the grinder on but in this cause, the grinder had nothing to do while why the South is clogged, it was something as simple as the holding tank being over full with fish carcasses and for whatever the reason, the parks folks, have not gotten around to calling a pumping company to have them sucked out those remains. If I remember correctly, Obi reported this last week or so. Hopefully he will confirm this, and we can all start calling the Willard state parks manager and complain about it. Not sure why it should take this long to get that holding tank pumped out.

[beerbatterbum]

New member here. Long time lurker. I’m the guy with the big hat in the orange kayak you might see sometimes. Especially on jordanelle and deer creek where I fish the most. 

Wednesday at Willard was baby wipe city for me. Caught a dozen off pelican beach down to freeway bay, all 16” and under on crawler rigs trolled fast (1.8-2). Only caught one walleye, and a 13” perch.  Surprisingly no action on #7 flicker shad in gold and white. Around 10am switched back to bottom bouncers and slowed down and caught a half dozen cats before calling it a day.

[wiperhunter2]

New member here. Long time lurker. I’m the guy with the big hat in the orange kayak you might see sometimes. Especially on jordanelle and deer creek where I fish the most. 

Wednesday at Willard was baby wipe city for me. Caught a dozen off pelican beach down to freeway bay, all 16” and under on crawler rigs trolled fast (1.8-2). Only caught one walleye, and a 13” perch.  Surprisingly no action on #7 flicker shad in gold and white. Around 10am switched back to bottom bouncers and slowed down and caught a half dozen cats before calling it a day.

Welcome to the site and thanks for the report. Anymore, there aren't a lot of those bigger wipers being caught. Not a lot of reports of cats being caught, so you did better than most for catching those fish, any size to the ones you caught?

[RockyRaab2]

Yes, I have seen the North cleaning station stuffed tight with protruding fish, so there's no moron shortage there, either. If that's true about the full holding tanks, it's one more strike against the park people.

[Tin-Can]

Glad you were able to get out with your Son and have some success Forest. By the way, I'm not familiar with Sunnyside, is that in Utah? We too have noticed the cat numbers are down this year, hopefully, it is just that they are so well feed, they don't want anything else.

Yes in Utah. Off of  Hwy 6 near Price.

[beerbatterbum]

The cats were 20-24”.

[wiperhunter2]

Yes, I have seen the North cleaning station stuffed tight with protruding fish, so there's no moron shortage there, either. If that's true about the full holding tanks, it's one more strike against the park people.

Guess they finally have the South cleaning station working again but a few years ago, they were talking about installing one of those bigger drain pipes and grinder, at the North end too, they told me they were waiting on the funds to be approved.