Mantua Utah Bass Fishing Progression Thread

[Djp622]

Although there is still ice covering Mantua at the moment I wanted to get this thread going early in order to gather any opinions/tips/previous experience information from any of you guys on here that have spent time fishing this body of water. 

 

I will be sharpening my focus on bass fishing Hyrum and Mantua once the ice clears. I'll be documenting my progress while providing my strategy and ideas behind what I'm doing. 

I still consider myself a bass fishing beginner. I'll be using this thread as a learning tool, as well as a fishing log. I hope this provokes as many helpful responses from other fisherman in the form of feedback. I know there's some great guys in my area on this forum that may tag along in this process.  

Thanks for reading! I hope this works out!! I really hope I can dial in these lakes and post some sort of success story.?

Wish me luck!!

 

 

-Dan-

[Djp622]

I was able to get out to Mantua and catch some fish the other day. 

1/4 ounce Shakey head with a 3 inch craw in black/purple. They seemed to like the darker colors best. 

Water temp was 55 during the day and around 53 when we caught on to about 4-5 bass sitting under a tree's root system in about 3.5 foot of water up tight to shore. 

Also caught one on a 3/8 ounce finesse jig in green pumpkin and chartreuse. 

Barely working it off the bottom with a few shakes here and there. 

slowly lift the rod tip to check for fish, make light shakes in semi-taut line, drop rod tip down, reel in slack. 

That seemed to be the winning ticket for about 25 minutes. Otherwise, there wasn't much else to speak of. 

 

-Dan-

[Djp622]

04/28/16

I put some time in at Mantua yesterday with a close friend that just returned from a deployment. 

We were on the water around 4pm. Water temps ranged from 54-57 degrees. Mostly around the 56 degree mark. 

Breakdown:

Hit the riprap on northwest side of the lake with a CaliCraw color 1/2oz lipless and an orange square bill with no luck.

We then decided to try the same technique that caught fish the last time I was out. (see previous post). However, we didn't have any luck doing that either. We tried this throughout the entire eastern side of the lake through the tree in 2-3 feet of water and along the point in 5-15 feet of water. 

Approaching 630-7pm we parked ourselves right off the main lake point that comes out from east of the big knoll. Worked a jerkbait but I feel like the surface was too roughed up due to the wind so I switched to a greenpumkin chatter bait with a matching craw trailer (cabelas brand). Still hadn't caught a fish. 

Right around 710pm we decided to go with some super light finesse gear. I worked a 3" Yum Dinger in green pumkpin on a 1/8 ounce shaky head and a 5 inch senko on a 1/4 ounce wacky rig jig along the boat doc. No fish were caught this way either.

We were completely stumped. At around 735pm the rain and wind completely shut off and we decided to work the riprap once again, but this time I threw a black/smoke Rapala shadow rap deep diving jerkbait. After the outflow-bridge about 40 yards up the riprap towards the north I caught 3 fish in a matter of 15 minutes. Two 11" dinks and one solid pre-spawn 2 pound chunk that was getting ready to move up for the final time once the weather let her. Unfortunately as I boat flipped her I landed her in between the pads on my removable seat and bent the hooks out trying to keep her alive and had to switch baits to something not so suitable for low-light cloudy conditions because I didn't have any trebles to replace them with. 

Also, at that point it was time to get off the water. I do believe if I kept throwing that jerkbait we could have boated a good amount of fish as the three that were caught were hooked well and were on almost consecutive casts. Once the wind died down I figured they'd be able to sight feed a little better which I believe is what you really want for a jerkbait. 

All in all it was a good time. I'm glad we ended it on some fish and didn't get skunked.

 

 

[Turkey sandwich]

Welcome to the forum!  I'm not at all familiar with bass fishing in Utah, but keeping a log is a super important part of learning.  I might suggest also searching the forum for your home lakes/rivers or similar conditions.