Fishing Blind at Deer Creek 8-24-23 (wITH VIDIO)

[TubeDude]

LINK TO VIDEO

I heard Deer Creek calling...and weather forecast was for calm all morning.  Headed back to Charleston, hoping water level was still high enough to launch my tube.  It was...barely.  Not much longer.  Got on the water by 7:30 am and turned on my sonar.  %@&##!  Got an error message on the screen that the transducer was not connected.  Did what I could on the water to check all the connections.  No fixee.  Fished the rest of the day without TV.


Never knew how much I rely on sonar...and how much I would miss it...especially on Deer Creek.  But I hoped that I knew the lake well enough...and had enough tricks up my float tube sleeve that I could catch at least a few fish.  Stared off by slow trolling baited whirly fligs at mid depth...trying for trout.  But no trout were showing on top and the state parks page showed water temps at 72.  So the trout would be deeper.  So I was surprised when one of my trout rigs went bendo...but with a perch and not a trout.

Motored over to the deeper water off the steep shoreline and started dragging a pair of my new whirly flig SCRs (Short Crawler Rigs).  Made some S turns to present my offerings at different depths...searching for fish without sonar.  Picked up a couple of perch and my first small-eye...a footlong.  Whoopy.  Worked in and out along the steep shore for a while and then crossed back to the "flats"...on the other side of the Provo Rivrr channel.  Finally found a zone where my S turns periodically got multiple munches...on both perch and small walleyes.   Actually was getting a lot of hits.  Went through most of a box of crawlers.  And I did get one footlong perch in this area.
   

About 11 am I was quite a ways south of the launch area and figured I would slow troll some more trout stuff in deeper water on the way back...just in case some silly trout liked warm water.  Had one good one on...right up to the tube...and then it gave me back my flig and a middle fin along with it.  But...wonder of wonders...there were some perch and slightly larger  walleyes...up to 13"...holding at middepth in the deeper water.  And they liked the trout tidbits.  Got several more of each on the way in.


In the warming water of midday the surface of the lake was turning green...with algae. And it was building up along he shoreline where I brought my tube in. 


Not my best day on Deer Creek.  But definitely not my worst either.  I figure I got about 10 perch and as many as 15 small walleyes.   Really missed having sonar but wonder if I would have done any better with it.  Couldn't have asked for nicer conditions.  Dead flat calm from launch to return.  And with school back in session there were only a handful of boats all morning.  Only one wakeboard boat that passed a respectful distance away and hardly rocked me with his leftovers.  The lack of other anglers on the lake should have been a clue.  When the bite is on...you get a lot of company.