Each year UDWR tests various fish species to ensure they have no disease or virus that may be detrimental to humans or other fish species. Sixty fish are sampled and tested to make sure they are disease free. We collected the majority of the sample in the summer but needed 9 more fish to complete the sample. I asked for help last week and got a positive response from John (Guido) and Sue Lassandro and Ray Young (lake powell fishing) and Jim Geiger. To make sure we got the all the needed fish in one morning. Fishing has been tough lately and my average has been about 3 per trip.
We met at Wahweap Main ramp at 7:30 AM and headed for Warm Creek. Ray went to the site of his best catch last week and Jon worked closer to the mouth of Crosby Canyon. I did not catch any fish on my last trip so I just started trolling between the two.
Just a note of clarification here. We did have a good catch last week uplake where my wife ands sister were trolling hot pink lures to put a dozen fish in the boat. My wife begged me to use the pink lure and of course I refused. On second thought I reconsidered with the intention of proving that the Norman lavender shad would be a much better lure. So it was not really my intention to use a pink lure but circumstances dictated that….. Wait a minute….. I just got hit on the pink lure. One fish in the boat. We quickly retraced the route and got another “pink” fish. Then John and Sue were headed our way digging out the trolling lures.
When the second fish hit the deck I dropped the spoon and hooked up again speed reeling to find schooling followers. Two hook ups but both fish came off. Jon started trolling Norman Little N deep divers and hooked up immediately. It looked like we were going to catch our 9 fish so I quickly took off the pink lure before anyone thought that I liked the darn thing.
We caught another on the Norman and John kept hooking up before the wind quit and the sun came out. With calm water the anchovy bite improve with Ray catching fish while the trollers could only drool.
But we had our 10 fish plus more so we headed in to work up the samples and ship them to Logan. Ray stayed out and caught 14 fish with some big ones over 5 pounds.
Thanks to the good helpers who were willing to brave the 34-degree weather on an overcast breezy morning to catch fish for a good cause. I even saw some smiles while they were working.
