Sand Hollow Bass Fishing

Wednesday morning Shifty Shurtliff and I loaded up his boat and truck and headed 3 hours south to Sand Hollow Reservoir. We started the trip at 4:00 am. We made it to the lake by 7:00 am and was fishing by 7:30 am. We started out on the bank at the north dam. The wind was blowing whitecaps and Shifty didn’t feel comfortable to put the boat on the water, he wasn’t alone. Many boats were at the dock waiting for the winds to die down. We made our way along the trail to the dam and started fishing. Shifty hooked up first with a nice large mouth bass. He then moved to the dam and hooked up another nice bruiser and it dove hard and fast and buried his line and lure into the structures it was hiding in. Shifty got the line free by breaking it off. He re-tied and kept fishing. In the meantime I had landed a small large mouth bass on the rocks that surround this Southern Utah lake. The lake is a man-made lake with dikes holding water that is pumped into it from the Virgin River. It is a recreational lake for all to enjoy from fisher’s, water skiers to scuba divers. It holds large mouth bass, crappie, bluegill and catfish. Our primary target was the large mouth bass. After I got mine back in the water Shifty hooked up another fish. From the distance it looked like another bucket mouth, but it was a large Crappie. This slab was huge the biggest I had seen. Shifty was very happy to catch a bucket list fish even though he had caught them before nothing of this size. We fished until the wind laid down and the water calmed down. I had gotten my second large mouth bass before departing and putting the boat on the water.

We launched the boat and headed for areas Shifty was familiar with. This lake is his favorite bass lake in Utah. He comes down two to three times a year, this was the first chance I had to accompany him. Time was about 10:00 am in the morning. We fished numerous areas around the lake and changed lures often, changing colors and style each time. Going from crank baits to swimming jigs, spinner baits and many more. Some would be hot for a few catches and then not catch another. We moved often trying to find the hot spots of the lake and talking to the anglers on the lake, it wasn’t real hot anywhere. We fished into late afternoon, 4:00 pm, and called it a day for a minute. We ended up with six fish a piece nothing huge but fish none the less. We loaded the boat headed for the hotel, plugged in the boat to recharge the trolling battery for tomorrow and unloaded and checked into the room at the Quality Inn in Washington. Shifty says it is the only hotel that has ever let him plug in and it is easy to access from the freeway. We went to dinner at Players and relaxed for a minute and realized we were both fried from the sun. First time in the sun for both of us.

We made our way back to the hotel and loaded up our gear for an evening on the dam. Shifty threw a swim bait and immediately hooked up with another nice sized slab of a Crappie. We fished until we could no longer see the line to retie lures. The swim bait was the ticket however and we only had one with us. Meaning I didn’t catch squat that evening. Oh well it was great to be on the lake and watch the sunset. Shifty caught two big slab Crappie that evening making a total of 14 fish for the day. Not blistering hot fishing but it was a great day! Went back to the hotel and hit the hot tub to relieve some sore muscles from our first big fishing day of the summer season. 7:30 am to 10:00 pm made for a long day of casting and retrieving. We needed the jets and they felt good.

Thursday morning came fast! 6:00 am wake up and a quick breakfast at the hotel, loaded and on the road by 6:30 am getting us to the lake again at 7:00 am. The wind was blowing on the way in and we planned on being on the bank for a few, but when we came up over the dike it was calm with a small ripple on it, perfect fishing conditions. We launched and started at the island, Shifty caught the first of the day with a spinner bait and I was throwing crank baits. I prefer crank baits, but really only because I know how to fish them. We fished the shoreline of the island for about an hour. I caught a couple Large mouth before we left for the flats and reeds. We fished the flooded flats for about an hour and I caught three more bucket mouths on a swim jig, first time really doing any good with this technique, it felt good to catch a few that way. We moved to another location and Shifty caught a couple. We moved again and got nothing and ended up at the west dike where they pump water out of the reservoir. This dike proved to be good for us. We fished down about 100 yards before we got to a decent depth and I could start throwing my crank baits. It was the perfect scenario rock structure and clear water to about 12 feet. I caught three fish on a chartreuse bait and then we turned around and went back up the lane. Funny how one direction is hot for one color and the other direction is hot for another. Shifty put a bluegill pattern and the other direction was good for him, catching a couple fish. We turned around I put on a chrome blue bait and got a couple more and Shifty caught a couple more. Seeing it was almost 3:00 pm we decided to put a time limit on the finish. We put 15 minutes on the clock and needed one fish to make our mark the day of 13 fish. I was lucky enough to catch it. We had nine more minutes and we fished to end not catching another fish.