Catfishing Utah Lake

Saturday we fished Utah Lake for Catfish. Parker, Jim, and I launched at 6 am. The weather was supposed to get bad so we wanted to get on and off as quickly as possible. We exited the marina and the swells weren't too bad but they were indicative of the day to come. We headed south trying to get into the river channel but the water level is so bad we couldn't get within 100 yards of the river mouth. So we continued south and as we did the water laid down and became manageable. We to the mouth of Mud Lake to a point we have done well on and started fishing. We used shrimp, worm, and a hot dog for bait. The shrimp worm was the hot ticket for mud catfish and as soon as I got my bait in the water I had a catfish online. A little mud cat ugly little yellow things that we through back after a photo op just to prove we caught something in case that was the only one for the day. It proved not to be, however. The boys put their lines out and I re-baited and I had another online and while I was reeling that one in my other pole got a hit, Jimmy grab it and reeled it in both mudcats and promptly returned them. This was before I could set up the video cameras. We had a blast all day long catching quite a few catfish, mostly mud cats but we did manage a few channel catfish, one of which was decent sized at 4.5 lbs.

We had one adventure where the back camera just decided to drop off the engine cowling into the lake. The water like I mentioned was very shallow especially for the time of year we were anchored up in 2.5 feet of water. Parker being the brave soul jumped in after the camera after he reeled in a nice channel catfish. He jumped in only to jump out immediately thinking something had grabbed his foot....we were busting out laughing. He got back in and felt something but stayed in and found the camera. Good thing it is waterproof. We had quite a laugh about the whole thing. It will be on our YouTube channel as a "camera incident". The second camera only picked up the audio of the whole thing but it is still hilarious to listen to.

The bite slowed down around 9 am and the wind started to kick up. We decided to give it a half-hour longer and then make our way back to the marina. We each caught a couple more but the funniest was when I caught a white bass on a bare hook. Not lying it's on the video on our YouTube channel. I cast out and the bait went flying the hook hit the water and the fish hit it. Too funny. We readied for the return to the marina as the storm was rolling in. We docked and loaded under a slight sprinkle and filleted the catfish we kept giving about 6 lbs of fillets for tacos. I got everyone home and stowed the boat just before the heavens opened and a full downpour hit.