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Hey Guys...
Ok, well, here it is. My pops just recently bought me a handy little cheap digital camera, so I figured I'd post up those pics I promised yo'll of the rod rack I've got on my tube. I've got a round donut style tube. Rod Rack 1 is a picture of the rack unattached from my tube leaning up against a wall. As you can see, at the bottom of the rack is the smaller section, and it has a bungee cord on the bottom of it. This lower section of the rack is what sits against my tube. The upper section of the rack is where the rods lay. This section sits at about a 45 degree angle. It might seem like a pretty steep angle, but believe me, that's what you need in order to keep your reels out of the water. My first rod rack, I thought a 45 degree angle would be a bit much, so I made it less than that, and my reels were almost always getting dunked. Rod Rack 2 is a pic of the rack attached to the side of my tube with no rods on it yet. Rod Rack 3 is another angle of the rack attached to my tube, but now I've got some rods on there. In this picture, you can see where I've taken a couple of 18" heavy-duty waterproof velcro straps (circled in yellow) and used those to secure the top portion of the rack. You just attach the straps to some d-rings on your tube first, then wrap it around the pipe and then velcro it in place. You then take the bungee cord and bring each clip underneath of the tube and back up through the bottom to clip onto some d-rings...in my case they are the same d-rings in which I have the velcro straps. It's up to you to figure out how you are going to get the rods to stay in place. LoL. I know these aren't the best pictures, I can take some better ones if requested...and I know it was a pretty rough description of it all and might not much sense, but I think you all get the basic idea of my rod rack now. If anyone has got questions about anything, I'll be more than willing to share...
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[cool][#0000ff][size 1]Hey SK, looks like it will get the job done. It is the same principle as my latest "slanted rod rack". The main difference is that I mount mine in some loops hanging off D rings, for a solid anchor...to prevent slipping. [/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]The important thing is that it works and keeps your rods in the ready position for quick change.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Don't bust that one up by throwing it on the lawn.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Thanks for sharing the design. I have saved your pictures in the archives I have for different styles of rod holders.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Are you about ready for the "spring fling" up there?[/size][/#0000ff]
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Very nice! I have come to prefer the horizontal racks myself, especially when throwing flies.
What color cranks worked best when you fished Utah Lake? I remember you saying lipless, but I don't remember what color. I've started making some of my own wood lures (still experimenting with them a bit). I decided to get brave and attach a pic of the latest batch.
ES
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Hey Emu...
Well, I used to have this lipless crank that simply ROCKED out there on Utah Lake. The thing was unstoppable in the summer time. And color was definitely key with that bait. It's kind of a secret bait that I didn't show a lot of people. LoL. It was a golden shiner color. However, it wasn't gold at all. It was more of a pale yellow/white. It had a black back, dark yellow sides, and a pale yellow belly. Wow, that thing was awesome. LoL. Not sure why it worked so well in there...it's not like there are any shiners? lol. Oh well, why argue with success? There was a period of about a month during the summer where they wouldn't eat anything besides that color of lipless crank. I tried all kinds of colors, some even really close to that color, but they wouldn't even TOUCH it. That's one of the main times I ever remember in bass fishing when color made a HUGE difference. Besides the golden shiner though, red craw works purty good too in the spring and fall, and I recall getting some good ones on fire-tiger as well.
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[cool][blue][size 1]Hey, Kid, had you considered that early in the summer Utah Lake is swarming with carp minnows? They spawn in May and by the end of June there are clouds of carp fry from 2" to 4" long all over the place. I used to net them out of the lower Provo River and freeze them into small bags for fishing throughout the rest of the year. [/size][/blue]
[blue][size 1]Those carp fry are a major source of food for most of the predator species in the lake for a couple of months. Until they grow larger than about six inches or so, they are prime targets for everything smaller than big largies, wallies and kitties. In fact, it would probably be impossible to sustain the biomass there is in Utah Lake without the annual glut of carp fry. There are no shiners, shad or other forage species. [/size][/blue]
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Looks very usable, and easy to acces a new rod at a moments notice. Thanks for sharing. Something to keep in mind when I eventually pick up a tube. My toon is a little on the heavy side to be packing it over long distances! Good luck when you head out fishin'.
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Ya know, I thought about the fact that it may look like a carp minnow. I had no idea that there was a large carp spawn as you described though. The two things I thought about was maybe it looked like a carp or a baby white bass. It would make sense if there was a big carp spawn at that time though, because that is exactly when they were eating that crank. I'll bet those carp minnows are pretty good eatin' for the predators in the lake. They ought to just glide right down eh? I never thought about the carp spawn because I've never seen the clouds of carp fry. I know that I often see the dark clouds of catfish babies though. When I start seeing those, I do pretty good using a black single tail grub on a football jighead...looks just like those little cats.
That golden shiner crank rocked though. I'd tell people to throw a golden shiner colored lipless crank, so they would...but they'd throw the actual gold flashy colored ones...and they just wouldn't touch it! There was just somethin' magic about that yellow one. That bait caught several fish in the 4-6lb class and even accounted for one 6lber that should've been an 8lber. LoL. I hooked it, and it jumped only showing it's head, and I thought...there's my 8! When I lipped it and pulled it out of the water revealing the rest of its body though...it was all scrawny! lame...
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[cool][blue][size 1]Hey, my young friend, you are being too modest. You and I both know that it ain't always the color or type of lure that makes the difference. As the old saying goes, you can catch more fish fishing the wrong lure the right way than fishing the right lure the wrong way. [/size][/blue]
[#0000ff][size 1]I'm sure you have seen times when others were using exactly what you were and they were blanking while you were kickin' bass. Some novice anglers just have no clue about some of the refinements of "touch" fishing. They just "chuck and chance it".[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]About those carp minnows, they tend to disappear from around the shoreline pretty fast and look for cover if they can find it. There aren't many weed beds or other places for them to hide in Utah Lake, so their only other defense is to eat fast, grow big and try to live long enough to outgrow the size they make good food.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]As I mentioned, I used to harvest them by the thousands in the lower Provo. A lot of the spawners would go upstream and spawn. The hatchlings would gang up in huge schools when the water was shut down in the early summer from Deer Creek. There were a lot of shallow pools I could wade and herd them into a tight place and just scoop them out with a fine mesh landing net I had. I never did use a seine or cast net, but if I had one, I could have taken BILLIONS AND BILLIONS.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]I was fishing one day below the old bridge down by the Provo Harbor, on the river. A couple of groups of those carp minnows came tearing downstream with several species of fish boiling all over them. I saw largemouth, white bass and even a couple of nice browns come clear out of the water after the carplets. I was using a small gold spinner and as soon as I pitched it into the activity I got bit. [/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]I followed the activity down to the mouth of the river. I got several nice white bass and a largie about 4#, before they moved out into the lake. Continued casting eventually also got me a couple of cats and a small walleye. Once the small carp hit the lake, they dispersed and the surface activity disappeared.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]I used to row an old wooden rowboat across Utah Lake for exercise (DUMB). I usually trolled some kind of lure as I rowed fairly fast. My most productive lures were either a hammered nickle spoon (white bass) or hammered copper (carp). On some days I had a heck of a time making any progress because I had to keep reeling in one fish after another of several different species.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]I also did a lot of wading and casting...as well as float tubing. I had some 3" plastics that were clear with a lot of gold glitter. I added a dark line down the back with a permanent marker and it worked very well through the summer. Like yourself, I also did well on black plastics and marabous after the catfish fry became large enough for food items.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]A lot of good fishing and a lot of good memories came out of that scumhole they call Utah Lake.[/size][/#0000ff]
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You da man!!!! I'm all excited now for the thaw. Do you still throw firetiger stuff out there in Cali?
TD, between you and SK, I'll have my work cut out for me this summer. Thanks for the info!
Nate (AKA EmuScud)
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I too have been quietly watching this thread and getting excited about getting out on Utah Lake the spring and summer. I'd love to get into some of that kind of action out there!
I wonder if carp spawning areas are prowled by bluegill or white bass or anthing like that, ready to scoop up lots of eggs off the bottom. If so, you could probably do pretty well with some sort of bait on the bottom for them.
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Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone!!!!!!! LOL. It will be fun to see what happens. My wheels are a spinning like crazy, streamer flies, hardbaits, and a patridge in a pear tree . . .
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[cool][blue][size 1]Carp spawning is nothing like the procreational activities of more genteel species. It is full contact writhing, splashing and carrying on, oblivious to all else around them. And, it often takes place right up on the banks, in water so shallow the fish are literally flopping around out of water. [/size][/blue]
[#0000ff][size 1]One of my macho things to do in the spring used to be flinging arrows at those lovestruck buglemouths. One spring when the water level was high, back up Benjamin Slough (at Lincoln Beach), I followed the sounds of amorous carpkind upstream to find acres of golden groping going on. Using a heavy fibreglass fish arrow, and 100 pound test line on my bow reel, I was able to string as many as five oblivious carp on one shot several times.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Once the main orgy has subsided, I am sure that crawdads, sunfish, perch and other predatory gluttons move in to scarf up whatever they can find of the previous passion. However, since carp eggs are about the size of a pinhead, they would not fit on a hook too well. Nor would it be easy to match the hatch with a carp egg pattern. Furthermore, the fishes in feeding on the masses of freefloating eggs would probably be glutted. Truth to tell, there will be lots of suckers and carp eating them too.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]It takes only a week or so for the eggs to hatch. That's when you might want to be ready with small "fry flies" in gold tones. Little plastics work too. Look for them in depressions near the spawning areas you identified earlier. [/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]The fast growing fry hit that 2" to 3" size fairly fast in the nutrient rich waters of Utah Lake. There is a lot of algae bloom starting in the warming waters of early summer so they suck in the soup and grow fast. That stage is when they become prime targets. That's when you break out the gold streamers, spinners and hardbaits. [/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Much of the year you hunt white bass around thermal pockets, walleyes in the deeper holes and largemouth around shoreline structure. However, when the young carp are on the menu, you first look for schools of carplets and the other fish will all be there for the buffet. [/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Obviously a good sonar helps, even in the skinny water of Utah Lake. It also pays to be observant. You will be able to detect the small fishies better on calm days, when they are sometimes rippling the surface...sometimes accompanied by splashes. On other occasions you will see birds working them over. On many trips, though, you will have to rely on a combination of good guessing and good luck to locate the little golden hordes and the entourage they bring with them.[/size][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][size 1]Ever caught a catfish on a surface bait? When they are chasing little carp, they will smack a floating golden Rapala. Reel it down and let it float back up. Works well for all the predators, but an occasional cat will get you talking to yourself.[/size][/#0000ff]
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Haha lol TD! I've also had a few adventures when the carp are spawning. One spring when I was younger (and dumber), a friend and I went out in Provo Bay (Mud Lake) during the carp spawn and chased them around for a couple of hours, smacking them with canoe paddles and netting them with our fish net. They seem to spawn in water anywhere from inches deep to up to even 4 feet. Even when they're in the deep water, however, they still end up "doing the deed" right at the surface, with their backs completely out of the water. They really do make a lot of noise, that's for sure!!!
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Hey ES...
Yes, I do still throw the fire tiger out here. Probably my best producing summer-time topwater bait on my home lake here, is a fire tiger colored bagley spittin' twitcher. However, it worked the best on rip-rap banks. I think it was because of the contrast of the fire tiger against the rocks...but who knows...fire tiger is a good color...
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