Funny Story About Yuba

I had to share this funny story with my readers. If you read my last post, I talk about the volunteering I did with the DNR, gill netting down at Yuba Reservoir. I also talk about how well I got along with the warm water fisheries coordinator Drew Cushing, and how he really liked some of my ideas about how to fish Yuba Reservoir. I didn't think much about the conversations I had with Drew that day or with any of the other biologists, but I do remember thinking to myself that I felt like I knew more about the pike fishing at Yuba then they did as the managing biologists of the reservoir! With this said, you have to read this article from The Daily Herald that was sent to me from the Rocky Mountain Anglers Group that I'm a member of. Based off my last post you should get a kick out of it. It is almost word for word what I told Drew in our conversations during that day. So when you think your getting great fishing advice from our very "knowledgeable," state fisheries biologists, you now know that most of their information is nothing but word of mouth from local fisherman like me!

/ Utah News, Sports, Events - Daily Herald Newspaper / Utah Valley Sports News Daily Herald / Recreation / Water-activities / Fishing
ALLPHIN: The new Yuba offers great fishing
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Don Allphin - Herald Correspondent Posted: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 9:45 am No Comments Posted
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Yuba Reservoir, a popular impoundment located between Nephi and Scipio just off I-15, has been a hit-and-miss fishery for many years.
"It's just a big bathtub," said Drew Cushing of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. "The lack of structure has always been Yuba's problem. But now, we are developing healthy populations of three top-of-the-food-chain predator species that are doing very well."
Northern pike, walleye and yellow perch are all doing very well in Yuba, as a recent gill-netting survey is thought to prove.
"We're still analyzing the data," continued Cushing, "but early indications are that all the species in the reservoir are fat and very healthy. The northern pike are getting ready to spawn soon and the females are full of eggs and males are ripe as well. We are still not seeing quite as many walleyes as we hoped to see, but those we are catching are very healthy fish."
Although the recent gill netting survey didn't specifically target yellow perch, Cushing believes that the perch population is improving too.
"The perch spawn last year was great," he said. "In fact, all three species are prolific breeders and produce a lot of offspring. For that reason, we're taking a different approach to managing this fishery. In years past we've tried to protect the larger fish, thinking that was the best thing to do. But at this point, we're going to target the 'top end' (larger) fish which should provide for better survival rates for all three species."
Cushing is referring to the new regulations in place on Yuba that allow limits as follows: Walleyes - 10 fish with one over 24 inches; Northern pike - 10 fish of any size, and Perch - 50 fish.
It is hoped that anglers will remove some of the larger fish so that significant numbers of smaller fish will live long enough to grow up.
With water temperatures still in the low-to-mid 40s, anglers who target northern pike should slow down and fish swimbaits on or near the bottom.
"There is no question that the big northern are eating carp and so anything in a gold color will work," said Cushing. "Rattle traps, and swimbaits are my personal lures of choice."
Walleyes will take jigs, smaller swimbaits, lipped and lipless crankbaits and are right now beginning to spawn. Once again the key to catching walleyes is to slow down, watch your fish finder and put your presentation right in front of their mouths.
Perch are suckers for small tubes and small jigs. Many anglers opt to use a drop shot rig or a small jig tipped with a night crawler.
"Starting in the third week of April, fishing on Yuba should be super and will only get better and better," Cushing concluded. "The reservoir should fill up this year and that will translate into some great fishing opportunities as the flooded salt cedars will provide some much needed structure for all three sport fish species."
Take advantage of this unique opportunity to catch fish up to 40 inches in length just an hour south of Provo. Good luck, and please send me photos of your fishing success.

Volunteering at Yuba

Three months ago I was approached by a fishing buddy who wanted me to join the Rocky Mountain Anglers Group (RMA). The RMA started about 30 years ago when a bunch of guys that didn't know how to catch walleye, got together and formed a group to help each other learn how to fish for this elusive species. Well, it worked! The RMA is known to have some of the most knowledgeable walleye fisherman in the Western United States. This being said, the fish that I have always had a very tough time consistently catching is walleye, and after only attending four meetings now, I already feel that I may be able to go out and target and catch this difficult yet rewarding species. Another great thing about the RMA is that they are very closely involved with most fishing events in the state of Utah, and also work together with the Division of Natural Resources (DNR) to help keep our fisheries as some of the best in the nation. All this being said, I had an unbelievable opportunity to volunteer and help the DNR do their annual gill netting and creel surveys on the walleye down at Yuba Reservoir. All I can say is, I missed my calling in life! Forget Geology, I should have studied Biology! I couldn't believe that these biologists could even consider this work. Seriously, I wish my boss would say to me one day, hey Chris what I want you to do is take these nets and hook the truck up to that boat and run down to Yuba Reservoir and catch as many walleye as you can in one day! Are you kidding me? Can you say dream job?!

I met the DNR at the docks at 9:00 a.m. and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! The lake was glass and the sun was shining. I met a great group of biologists that were all good guys, and I really lucked out to have Drew Cushing show up to gill net with us for the day. Drew is the Program Coordinator for all of the warmwater fish in Utah. Basically he is one of the head biologists in the state . I ended up shooting the breeze all day with Drew about my swimbait tactics and techniques I use to fish for pike at Yuba, and by the time we got to our vehicles to head for home, Drew and I stayed and talked fishing for another half hour. What a cool guy and a rarity as a biologist to be such an avid fisherman. Believe it or not, most fish biologists do not fish! Sounds crazy I know, but they truly are only biologists for the most part, and not fisherman. Anyway, after talking fishing all day and getting to know Drew, he asked me if he could go fishing with me in the near future. I was in awe that one of the top fish biologists in the state wants to ride on my boat and fish with me, so of course I told him I would love to. He gave me his contact info and said to call him in May and that we could head up to Willard Bay and fish, which is one of the reservoirs that he manages. How cool is this? Man am I excited.

As far as the netting at Yuba goes, it was a blast, but about all I learned is that I would never go to Yuba to target walleye. We caught fifteen walleye while dunking six nets and checking them each five times with an hour and a half inbetween sets. We also caught four pike, but no state record monsters like I was hoping. I took the picture above to prove there are actually walleye in Yuba, and the ones below are of the pike just because they are awesome!

On the way home from Yuba, I couldn't resist the nice weather and the fact that I already had my waders and fishing pole in the truck. I stopped by Lincoln Beach down by the "L", to see if I could land me a walleye on rod and reel instead of a 50 foot gill net. When I got there the lake was glass and I texted my buddy to tell him how nice the conditions were. Needless to say he did not believe me, so John this picture is for you. Told you, pure glass! I ended up combat fishing with all the walleye diehards, but it only took an hour of no bites and not seeing one boat or person land a fish, before my worn out body from a long day decided enough was enough. I hit the road for home dreaming about my next life as a fisheries biologist.

Coldwater Bassin at Lake Powell

Fishing Time: Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon
Weather: cool, breezy, mostly 50's with cloud cover
Moon Phase: 85% Moon
Water Temp: 49-54 degrees

Water Level: 3,619 ft amsl
Location: Lake Powell
Bait: Everything, but best was christmas colored grub with 1/8 ounce jighead
Who Went: Bobber John, Rick Everson, Me

After missing my annual Lake Powell trip in 2009, I was really excited to get down there this year. I watched the weather hourly the whole week before our trip and of course the forecast looked great all through the week until Thursday when we planned to leave. These pictures show the summit in Spanish Fork Canyon on our drive down.

Multiple cars were going off the road and here we are trudging through the snow dragging my boat behind. I’m sure people thought we were nuts! Once we got out of the canyon the snow subsided, but the wind didn't. When we reached Hanksville, the wind was whipping from the North at about 30 mph! We started making backup plans just in case the water was too rough to travel in my boat packed with all our gear. As we made our way closer to the Hite Marina, where we launched my boat, the clouds split and the lights from heaven shined down upon us. The wind was gone and we anxiously pulled down to the primitive boat ramp of the old Hite Marina that is now long been dead due to low water years.

Our hearts began to beat fast in excitement to begin the trip we had waited through a long cold month of March to go on. Launching wasn’t easy as the boat was heavy with gear, and the launch ramp was very shallow. The boat didn’t want to release from the trailer, but with some effort and determination it finally gave, and we were on our way to find a camp spot. It didn’t take long to find a great camp spot with a nice natural boat slip, and we hurried to unpack our things and get camp set so that we could hit the water for some evening fishing.

Just as I was about to lay my tent down to set it up, I noticed there was a scorpion right next to my foot. Needless to say I found a new area to put my tent.

Once camp was set we headed out onto water that looked like glass, we were so excited because this was nothing like what we were expecting from the weather reports we had read the night before.

As I turned on the fish finder the water temp read 49 degrees and I was not too thrilled. That is very cold water for bass as they prefer 55-60 degrees at the very least! We didn’t put much thought into it and were just excited to be on Lake Powell on a beautiful evening with no wind or rain. We first headed into the back of White Canyon where we were camped. The water in White canyon was stained and muddy which helped warm the water a degree or two, but didn’t do much for the fishing. We soon figured that muddy water might not be the ticket on this trip and we were right. We headed down to two mile canyon and out of the muddy water. Here is where I landed the first bass of the trip with a decent little smallmouth. Soon after, I caught another bass but this time is was a largemouth. Rick and John were excited about me catching fish but were ready to get in on the action themselves, especially after my next cast. I casted right up against a rock island and instantly an explosion occurred. This bass came out of the water and began the tail dancing they are famous for. I didn’t realize her size until she became visible at the boat side. That’s when I started yelling, “get the net”! She was a beast, and had a big round belly on her, probably ready to spawn! She weighed in at just less than 5 pounds and made my trip the first night there!

Unfortunately for Rick and John my fishing bonanza didn’t stop there. I continued to put bass after bass into the boat and even one lone crappie. Rick did end up catching a couple that night, including this nice largemouth, but man did I have the hot hand of the evening.

We decided to invite the crappie, one largemouth and 4 smallmouth over for dinner that night and they were delicious! Of course I let big mama go to finish her spawn and keep the reservoir stocked with more of these awesome fish!

The next morning we woke up bright and early and headed south to Good Hope Bay in search of some walleye. We didn’t find the walleye, but we did find the stripers. Funny thing was, they were jumping all around us but we couldn’t find anything that they wanted. Rick finally landed the only striper of the trip while trolling with a large white curly tailed grub.

The stripers continued to frustrate us so we moved on to bass fishing and found that they were just as willing to bite as the night before! John got on the board first with a nice largemouth and continued to catch smallmouth on his favorite rig all throughout the day. John’s favorite rig was a jig tipped with worm underneath a slip-bobber, and although Rick and I gave him a little grief for using a method that we referred to as the five year old method, we all knew that its a very effective method for catching fish, but it was to much fun giving him crap about it! His nickname for the trip became Bobber John!

We fished long and hard all day Friday landing quite a few good sized smallmouth, with a good mix of largemouth as well.

The evening proved to be good for me again as I landed another nice largemouth in the 3 pound range and capped off the night with the only walleye of the trip, caught right before sundown!

It was a nice walleye and we had big plans for night fishing for some more walleye and catfish after dinner, but the wind came up and put a damper on that idea. Instead we took all the meat and vegetables we had on the trip and threw them in a big pot and boiled it all up and had some awesome stew around the campfire.

The last and final day we were there was our worst. The fishing was still decent, but the wind made for tough conditions controlling the boat. John caught a very nice largemouth that got off right at the boat, and has now grown from around 3 pounds to about 5 or 6. You know how it goes; the ones you lose are always the biggest! Rick landed a nice 3 pound bass right at the end of the trip putting him on the lunker board, and I landed a few more smallmouth.

Soon the wind just became to much and hesitantly we called the trip to an end. After we loaded our gear and got back to the Hite boat ramp, a guy informed Rick that the stripers were in the bay right across from the ramp. We toyed with the thought of unloading all our gear and going over there for a couple hours, but with the wind still blowing and all our gear already loaded, we decided against it.

What an unbelievable trip! We were some “fishin fools” down there, and well surpassed our expectations in the cold April waters of Lake Powell.

It was awesome fishing with two guys that are as crazy about the hobby as I am, and I can’t wait to do it again next year!