We only trolled and used plugs. We started early but found the best fishing in late afternoon. We found the fishing to be fabulous and the stripers to be in great shape and filled out. Fishing from 6 pm to 8:30 pm, at times we were boating 3 and 4 fish at a time. For the four days, I would estimate we caught over 300 fish (mostly stripers) and kept 10 which was all we could use. Late at night, the bigger stripers came out. Largest ones were around 5 lbs. and boy could they hit our plugs. Great trip......Jim

Date Received: May 4, 2000 Reed and Arlow Freestone, West Jordan, Utah
Just a note for those who would love to fish Lake Powell but do not have a boat to get to all the great places everyone tells about in their reports. You can still catch plenty of stripers and have a great fishing experience at Lake Powell without a boat.

My Dad and I camped at the Halls Crossing campground May 1-3. We hiked down to the lake just below the campground and fished off the point. We had our best success bait fishing with anchovies. We tried night crawlers and some lures and jigs with no success. In the past, night crawlers had worked as well as anchovies. We caught as many as 25 stripers in a day of fishing which was better than many of the boats who came trolling by to see how we where doing. Several boats stopped and bait fished with us because they where having no luck trolling. We also caught catfish and SMB as well as some huge carp, what a blast reeling those in. The fishing action came and went, but with patience we always caught more fish than we cared to carry back up the hill.

We went a little early this year and I believe the fishing will only get better later in the month. We do this several times a year and we always catch plenty of fish and have a great time. The only problem with the whole trip was none of the stripers had the Million Dollar TAG. I guess that means we will have to come back soon. Thanks for hosting such a great site.

Date Received: May 8, John Vosika
The southwest walleye anglers went fishing up by slickrock canyon and lake canyon on the northern end of the lake during the last week of April. We were out to catch and record as many walleyes as were we allowed. The week produced 130 walleyes ranging from [15"]to [25"]. Weights of the fish recorded were [1.68to2.85lbs ]. The fishing technique was whistler jigs, limegreen 3/8 ounce and the gold & chrome jigs by Cabela"s tipped with a nightcrawler. Our fishing line of choice was 6 to 8 LB mono or firerline 4lb test with this we found out we had better luck not loosing jigs and increase our fish intake. Fishing depths ranged from 27 to 50 ft. The walleyes were biting real soft like bluegill you really had to pay attention to the line other wise you would loose your nightcrawler. We had tied a stinger hook on the back but it did not increase our odds.

Walleyes were caught in the main channel of points and cliff walls that had step shelves with deep water outside. Fish could be caught until noon or 1 o'clock as long as there was shade. Walleyes were visually spotted on large boulders in 15 ft of water late in the morning we would remember the spots and go back later that evening and locate our boat out in deeper water while casting to the spot catching our tasting little friends.

Wayne, the smallmouth bass bite was shallow up by shore to 25 ft . When fish were caught they were small, all under 1 1/2 lbs. Most fish were released. The small mouth bass count 300 to 400 hundred. Fishing at lake powell can a real treat thats to all the services that make it so great. The men and woman at bullfrog medical center a very special thanks and may GODBLESS YOU!! Wayne were are always looking for new members. Help us by sending your name and 15.00 yearly dues to (SWA PO BOX 8592 MESA AZ 58214).

Date Received: May 8, 2000 Bob Smith, Paonia, Colorado
Wayne my father and i just returned from powell again. We fished for 4 days (May 3rd thrue May 7th) and had fair luck. First 2 days were great for both striper and bass. But on Friday the 5th the stripers just quit biting. We were fishing in the area of the Moki wall at the time. We tried several other locations with the same results.After talking with many other fishermen on those 2 days everbody said the same thing. During the 2 bad days we seen a total of 3 stripers caught. Still we had a great time and ended up with 98 fish. I did hear rumor of a tagged fish being caught on the first day of the contest but have not heard anymore about it. We did have the pleasure of meeting Ron Peterson and visiting with him for a short time at his new bait shop in Ticaboo, nice place. He did inform us that he would soon be selling waterdogs there, so for those of you that were wanting waterdogs thats the place to find them.

Date Received: May 11, 2000 Chet, Glenwood Springs,Co
Three of us arrived at the lake on the evening of the 6th and fished the back of Bullfrog and surrounding areas till tuesday the 9th. We caught about 100 fish in the three days mostly smallmouth but about a 10 walleyes, the stripers were scattered around and with the exception of a few times trolling for them was slow. The smb were caught on jigs, pumpkin color, just like Wayne told us. We trolled around the gravel islands with very little success. On tuesday a hot no wind day we could not find stripers anywhere. Another technique was to troll the mudline when the wind causes one. Hope to get back soon.

Date Received: May 15, 2000 Marty Peterson
Just after dark on the 11th near Moki Wall, I landed a nice 33" Striper. Guessing around 15lbs. maybe a little more. It was very windy so all I could do in my little boat was troll and then stop when I saw fish on the graph and drop anchovies. It worked.

On the 12th I fished Moki and caught a few Stripers trolling until the crowds sent me to Knowles. Just outside Knowles a shad rap also worked trolling. Caught about 20 of which several were fat and over 24". They fought very well and seemed to be slightly darker in color. Of course I had to plastic jig a few rock piles for SMB, all small.

Saturday morning trolling didn't work so I caught some LMB and went home. (Hopefully picture to follow later.)

Date Received: May 15, 2000 Tom Pettengill
My wife and I fished the Bullfrog area this last weekend. We spent most of our time in Bullfrog Bay but Saturday morning we trolled from the mouth of Hall's to Slick Rock and only caught two stripers. We fished the sloping points after that with 4" curly tailed grubs (white/silver sparkle and water melon/pepper) and caught several smallmouth bass.

We trolled mid-day in Halls and caught a couple more stripers. We were seeing scattered fish from 24 - 36 feet deep.

In Bullfrog Bay we trolled from the sandstone dome near the House Boat Mooring area back to the gravel islands. We averaged 10 stripers/hr and caught over 80 stripers in this area. The fish seemed to be biting whether it was morning, afternoon or evening. During most of the day the fish were showing up from 24 - 36 feet deep. Friday and Saturday evenings from about 2 hours before sunset until sunset the fish seemed to come up to between 12 and 24 feet. When the fish were deeper we fished deep diving Thunderstick Jr's. and the new Berkley Frenzy minnow 150 - 165 feet out. When they came up shallower we fished our lures 80 - 100 feet back. We used planer boards to get the lures away from the boat. The new blue color in the Thunderstick Jr. worked the best. We also caught lots of fish on the Frenzy Minnow in the bass and rainbow trout colors. The key seemed to be going at least 4 mph. If we dropped below 4 mph our catch rate really feel off. I'm not sure you can fish too fast for stripers but you can definitely go too slow. Most boats that saw us catching fish and tried the same area were trolling too slow. They would fish a little while and leave. We had one quad (fish on four rods at the same time), a couple of triples and lots of doubles. One time I caught two fish on the same lure at the same time. Two other times we both thought we saw two fish on the same lure but when we got it to the boat there was only one fish. It was great fishing. I also caught one walleye in open water trolling 4 mph.

Saturday evening just after we beached the boat a female Pintail duck swam up to the boat begging for a handout. She had obviously been around people before. We gave her some cookie. She hung around the area until dark. We only saw her the one time even though we were there for two nights. We were camped in Hall's.

Date Received: May 23, 2000 Marty Peterson
Ray Schelble and I fished Knowles Canyon on Fri 5/19. He started with a nice Walleye, then some SMB all on jigs just inside canyon mouth. Nothing up canyon. Then we trolled up several Stripers on the north mouth wall. Frenzy and Rapalas all trip.

Saturday we found a few nice Stripers along Tapestry Wall. But not as many as we would have thought. Also trolled up SMB and Walleyes. Big time crowd of boat traffic. Not as many people fishing though.

Sunday Moki Wall with the crowd. Less than a dozen Striper, and one each of nice LMB and Walleye, off the wall. Then we trolled with the "fishing fleet" near the top of Bullfrog Bay. Ray picked up 3 smaller Striper. At sundown several Striper out of Stanton.

Of note, the latest fishing report was very accurate. There are lots of small SMB all over. The Stripers seem to be moving a lot. Stained water all the way down to Forgotten Canyon, in the main channel.

Date Received: May 25, 2000 David Spainhower
We just returned from Bullfrog on the 24th. The fishing was tough. Threw alot of tube lures. Even tried catchings stripers on bait, but on monday night we found the stripers. What a blast. They were just south of the two gravel islands up Bullfrog bay in the WILLOWS! We were throwing top water mostly poppers and what a blast. Most were small with a few over 3 LBS. We caught a few smallies. The fishing was good from 7:00 pm to dark then in the mornings it was fantastic until the sun came up then it was over . Just wished We would have found out sooner. I think it will get better every day.

Date Received: June 6, 2000 Chiknhawker
OUR RECENT TRIP TO THE LAKE STARTED REAL SLOW WITH ONLY A COUPLE WALLEYE AND OF COURSE THE SMALL MOUTH BASS TO SHOW. ON THURSDAY, JUNE 1 OUR PERSISTENCE BEGAN TO SHOW. WE FOUND STRIPERS IN CEDAR SPRINGS ABOUT 2 P.M. CHUMMING AND JIGGING WITH ANCHOVIES BROUGHT THE SCHOOL WITHIN RANGE. MANAGED TO HOOK A DOZEN BEFORE THE SLACKED OFF. AFTER RETURNING TO OUR HOUSEBOAT TO REPLENISH SUPPLIES AND PICKUP MY FISHING PARTNER, WE RETURNED TO THE SAME SPOT AND WITHIN 5 MINUTES BEGAN TO CATCH AGAIN. MANY TIMES WE HAD 2-3 FISH ON AT THE SAME TIME. ENJOYED OUR STAY AT LAKE POWELL IMMENSELY.

Date Received: June 19, 2000 Bob Smith, Paonia, Colorado
Just made the final trip of the summer, hope to try the fall fishing this year.We fished on June 13 -14 -15 from Moqi to Hansen caught 21 the first day 70 the second and 19 the last day. During the period of the day we traveled from point to point chumming each time and waiting to see what would happen. Its alot of frustrating time doing this but when you hit the right point and the fish want to feed you can have some exciting action. The mixture of the heat, boat traffic and wave runners is sometimes tough to deal with when you are trying to fish but I guess you take the good with the bad and just enjoy it. Between fishing the points we done alot of swimming which makes the hot days a little bit more bareable. Best fishing times seemed to be between 10 a.m. and noon and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. but fish were caught at all times of the day.

Date Received: June 23, anon
my buddie who works at halls hit the stripers at lake canyon south west wall near a spire..... said he could see the boats in the main channel. boated 20 in an hour up to 4 lb

Date Received: June 26, 2000 Cody Comer
Fished Lake Powell June 11-16. Had a great time, parked the houseboat in Knowles Canyon and made daily excursions in the fishing boat. Our best success came with the smallmouth and largemouth on topwater. Fished early morning and late evenings using Zara Spooks and Spit N' Images. Tried other topwater lures, but the fish seemed to prefer the "walking-the-dog" action that those lures offered. Fished brushy bays and points in Knowles using this technique. Also picked up three stripers late in the evening on topwater.

Tried locating schools of stripers and jigging without success. However, we caught 2-3 fish per hour trolling medium to deep diving crankbaits in the blue and silver color, trolled at 4 mph. Had good success trolling deep in Knowles Canyon and also main channel walls and points. Caught 10 fish in two hours trolling the mud lines at the mouths of Forgotten Canyon and Crystal Spring Canyon.

Had moderate success jigging. Caught smallmouth sporadically jigging with smoke-colored curly tails and crawdad jigs. It was difficult to find the right type of jigging water in Knowles, due to the amount of vertical walls and steep drop-offs. Caught three Walleyes while trolling for stripers and two while vertical jigging with a smoke-colored grub in 50 feet of water.

This was our first trip to Powell and we had a great time. The warm water and moderate temperatures made for a great vacation! All the info from this site really helped in quickly determining fish locations and patterns. Thanks Wayne for the great site.

Date Received: June 27, 2000 Steve, Parachute, Co
Fished Stanton Creek this weekend. Small boils occurred every morning in the back of the east bay next to camp. Hula Poppers and floating Rapalas were the ticket since the shad were in under 1ft of water. Caught several LMB, SMB and Striper each morning from shore. The shad were pushed up to shore until sunshine. There was a blue heron munching daily and is a good locater. On a side note a fellow learned the hard way that driving to fast at night is not good as his cabin cruiser beached 25ft on shore one night. Also, trolling Stanton towards main channel produced Walleye, LMB, SMB and of course Striper just before dark in 25 - 35ft.

Date Received: June 30, 2000 Bill Hane
Just returned from our annual houseboat trip June 24. Fishing for bass, bluegill, catfish and stripers was great!! Caught catfish of the beaches opposite Bullfrog marina in the evening on worms and bass and big bluegill off the rocks and submerged ledges in Llewellyn Gulch in the evening on small dark plastic grubs. Best was the striper fishing in Moki Canyon June 23 with anchovies in the heat of the day. Found a water cave off the main channel with about 60-80 feet of shaded water. We chummed the water with anchovies as you have previosuly mentioned and then jigged anchovies off the bottom in 60-70 ft of water. Action was quick. Landed six 3-5# stripers in about 45 minutes while in the shade of the water cave. This was our first attempt at striper fishing at Lake Powell for me and my two adult sons, but won't be our last. Thanks for all the fishing tips. I read the reports on a year round basis.

Date Received: July 3, Valerie & Rob Simpson
We're not big fishers, but thanks to the fish report caught 2 fish in 2 canyons within 10 casts. A 3# striper past the rock fall dam in Iceberg on a chartreuse jig and a small, small mouth on a Shad Rap in Moki. Thanks for the fun Wayne. Long live the Zebco 33!!

Date Received: July 12, David Block
My Fishing Party and I arrived on June 29th and left on July 5th. We caught stripers BIG STRIPERS! every day it was the best trip we had in a long time. The first morning I woke up at 5:00 am and fished solo the rest of my party slept in. So I took it upon myself to find boils, and I found boils. There must of been a hundred yards of boils. Everything I threw at them, the stripers hit with passion, floating rapalas etc.. The rest of trip we all caught fish on anchovies some times chuming but most of the time we found them on the sonar. We camped at coyote cove and fished at moki canyon were we found the stripers along the wall in 30 to 60 feet . The boils I found the first morning were at the Halls crossing ferry launch cove. We also caught a lot of catfish at camp. As the fishing was great so are the people we met. We camped next to some of the best folks, I ever had the pleasure to camp with, and as for the people at halls crossing marina you are all the GREATEST!

Date Received: July 25, 2000 David Spainhower
We just returned from Lake Powell the 25th of July. We were down at the end of Bullfrog bay left side last camp. Every morning we would get up before sunrise and catch the morning boil that started by the last gravel island and the ended by a little cove just at the end on the right side of the island thats where the stripers surrounded them. If you go inside the cove there is a hidden cove to the right inside. Someone is usually camped there. Anyway there were some other boats but they were too far out. I went out and told them to come in closer and then they started to catch some. We used spooks, baby spooks and regular size. Clear, red and white, blue it didn't matter. I broke almost all of them hitting against the slick rock because thats where the shad and stripers were. The last day on the 24th it was cloudy in the morning and it was fantastic. The boils just kept coming.. Anyway FISH ON!!!!

Date Received: July 29, Ken Farnam, Colorodao Springs
This was our first trip to Lake Powell, Myself, my wife, son and my brother. We arrived on July 21, we walked down to the cove west of Bullfrog Marina and caught some nice small mouth bass and large mouth bass on purple worms, then in the evening my brother put a fluke on and started catching some stripers. I put on a 1 oz rattle trap and got in to them and so did my wife. The next morning we drove down to Bullfrog Marina and the stripers were boiling in the east cove so we put on large Zara Spook and we smoked them, any where from 1 to 2 lb's. Those 2 coves always produced nice large mouth bass, small mouth bass and stripers. On Wednesday July 25, we took a drive over to Hite marina, stopped at the overlook and this cove just started boiling with about 3 to 4 schools of stripers. We grabbed our poles, ran down the rocks and it was great. We couldn't get our Zara spooks in fast enough!! It seemed like they boiled forever! We smoked them! The boils lasted anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. They were all 2 to 3 lb's. We never took the large Zara Spook off the whole time we were their. We caught nice large mouth bass, small mouth bass and stripers between the two marinas. I caught a nice walleye on a 1 oz rattle trap. It was a great vacation, we loved it and are planning a trip for next year. Thanks Kenny and family

Date Received: September 12, Al Javadi
Just got back from five days of heaven on lake Powell. Launched from Wahweap and boated all the way to Hite and back on our Triton SF21. Did most of our fishing around Halls crossing and Bullfrog since we were staying in that area. Bait fishing in 50 feet of water around Bullfrog paid off for 15+ stripers and plenty of Catfish. Only saw single feeding fish on surface around both marinas which turned out no catch.

Day three of our trip we left Halls at 6:00 am headed for White Canyon. Made it there right at sunrise and no more than 10 minutes later a decent size boil erupted NEXT to our boat. Landed 8 fish from it and there were no more to be had on the surface. Moved to deeper water and got another 20+ on bait and Kastmasters. It was one of those "being at the right place at the right time" moments. It was impossible to get the smiles off our faces.

The total count of Small Mouths must have been over 20 to 30. Who can keep track of those little feisty guys. They were going for anything thrown at them. We also ended up with one Walleye that bit a large white spinner. That was our first Walleye ever and boy what a magnificent fish.

Over our 350 mile trek I got to learn the lake very well and appreciate its size and majesty more than ever. It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful places on earth and I have large gas bill to prove it.

Date Received: September 19, Mike Coca, Bremerton, WA
Just to let you know how i did on lake powell during the week 8/9-8/17. fished willow gulch on the escalante. started off with a couple of crappies and 4 catfish 3 weighed 1.5 to 2 lbs, the 4th 2 to 3 lbs. caught at night using worms and anchovies with bobber. started trolling the walls with a shad thin fin and hot N tot, caught smallmouths. alot were really small but some nice keepers. I switched to a split shot setup with gary yamatota smoke/pepper and chartrouse/pepper. on this setup i caught stripers and large mouth bass 1-3lbs. i also started getting bigger smallmouths. my largest largemouth was caught at the small boat entrance to bullfrog basin were the no wake zones begins and right on the edge for the big large rock sticking out of the water.

Date Received: September 25, Rod Stucker
Thanks to your fishing report, I just got back from a two day fishing trip at Lake Powell and filled the boat on small mouth bass and stripers by slow trolling in a light chop at sunrise with lures resembling the Zera Spooks which I got from the BullFrog Marina store. I caught 19 stripers in the 2-4 pound size and 6 small mouth bass all 2 pounds in size in a two hour period. The next morning we had to jig the trolling lures since there was no chop. Unlike the first morning, there were boils everywhere and we filled the boat with stripers again waiting for our guide to show up. We only caught one small mouth bass the second morning.

Date Received: November 28, V.B. Wilson, Salt Lake

Just returned from a fun filled Thanksgiving spent on the lake. The weather was delightful and we were able to stir up some striper interest. They were pretty much cookie-cutter look alike around 19-20 inches. We had to use controlled depth fishing to do any serious catching. We used chartreuse colored crank bait. Just for fun we tried to do some jigging and had moderate success. The best for us was controlled depth with the down riggers. We used very light tackle so even the smallest among them was fun to land. We stayed in Bull Frog Bay. We kept our lures at 6-8 feet off the bottom. The larger ones seemed to be on the very bottom with the smaller ones more at 60 feet. In 3 days we boated 60 fish.

WON bass held their second tournament of the year out of Bullfrog Marina on the third of March. The fishing was slow, as has been for the entire year. Water temperatures ranged between 46 in the morning hours to 50 degrees during the afternoons.

Out of 51 teams participating in the combined WON Bass/ Utah BASS federation Tournament, 21 teams failed to weigh a single fish. Only two teams were able to post limits. Jim and Jackie Bishop continued their rampage and were able to boat six bass, culling one, for first place honors. They reported catching their fish on jigs and tubes in clear water in Halls and Bullfrog Bay. The team of Jim Bishop Jr. and Rick Harris weighed a little over 7lbs for the second limit posted that day. They reported that they fished from warm Creek north to catch an unbelievable 15 fish during the day.

The rest of the teams didn't have such luck. Third place and fourth place weighed in 3 and four fish respectively and after that is was just one to two fish per team. Most all fish were caught pitching jigs and tubes to shallow cover in the back of cuts.

Fished out of Bullfrog March 23-24. Main Lake water temp early at 54, up to 60 in protected spots in the afternoon. Great weather, very little wind.

Started off slow on Friday, spent most of the day sightseeing and goofing off with the kids. Only caught 1-23" Striper on a spinnerbait & 1 nice Bluegill on a jig in Lake canyon. Saturday was better, went to Moki Canyon, lots of boats in the very back so fished rock slides 2/3 of the way back. I think the boat traffic helped by stirring op the mud. Caught 1-22" Striper, 4 nice Largemouth, and 2 Nice Smallmouth on Jigs in aprox. 10-20 feet of clear water. Went over to Hansen and had the whole back of the canyon to myself. Caught 1- 9" smallmouth on a jig, 2 nice Largemouth (2-3 lbs.) on spinnerbaits, and 2 more on soft jerkbaits all in the shallow murky water (60 degrees). Went back to camp in Halls Bay and my 9 year old son wanted to cast while I got dinner ready. He caught 3 11-14" Smallmouth in 3 casts on soft jerkbaits so I said dinner could wait and went over and we caught 4 more 10-13" by dark. Did not fish Sunday. Slept in, had a nice breakfast and headed for home. It wasn't my best fishing ever & I'm sure the guys in the tournament killed em but it was a great trip for us. Spent some real quality time with my kids, saw some incredible sunrises & sunsets and caught a few fish as a bonus. It just doesn't get any better than that!

Wayne, last weekend I went out on the boat at both Hite and Bullfrog. At Hite, fishing was fair at the wall next to the Colorado river we saw a nice large mouth someone caught there. South of Hite at buoy 136 on the east side. The fishermen there caught about one striper per hour trolling with anchovies at 60 feet.

In Farleys shore fishermen were catching a few stripers they were caught on anchovies off the bottom.

In White Cyn 1 nice Walleye caught with a white jig.

Both Bullfrog bay and Moqui wall were producing a few stripers not many fishermen though. The guy at the wall was jigging with anchovies.

Didn't see any smallmouth caught except for one at the Bullfrog ramp. It was caught on a smoke colored jig. I also heard that champagne colored Yamomoto has been working.

My wife and I spent the weekend of March 23rd (my birthday) down at Lake Powell. On Saturday I had several good bites, but had trouble getting the fish in the boat. The only fish landed was a 13inch crappie that was in the very back of Good Hope Bay. Sunday was a better catching day. I caught two smallmouths at the ramp at Bullfrog while loading the boat using a grey Texas rigged tube jig. While heading north up lake we stopped at several rock piles. We spotted many carp and an occasional striper in the shallows. We also saw two walleye sitting in about 8 feet of water on two of these rock piles. We got a few bites, but no fish were landed. Further uplake in the Good Hope Bay area I landed two more smallmouths and four large mouths on tubes, jigs and a Caralina rigged worm. We saw fish basking in the clear shallows as mentioned in your last report, and carefully casted past them to catch the few that I caught. I can't wait to get back down and do it again!

The tournament fishermen may not have reported their secrets from last weekend, but I will. The bass fishing in the stained water was good with some 3-4lb. largemouth and 16" small mouth. Smaller smallmouth can be caught in clear water along walls in 15-20' of water. The bonus over the weekend was the walleye are staging to spawn. We caught 10 in an hour, all ripe males in the 2 lbs class. A couple of females showed up in the 3+lb range. Walleye were especially active just before dark, but some showed in the early morning. Try crankbaits off gravel points in stained water. Stained water was 60 deg. clear water as low as 54. We also caught 30 or so crappie in the 11/2 to 2lb range fishing for bass and walleye. They all went back. Good fishing, Fred

Fished out of Bullfrog again March 30th & 31st. Weather was fantastic again. Very little wind. Water temps found were 53 at the lowest and 65 the highest. Fishing was noticeably better than the previous weekend, in fact I would call it excellent.

I forgot the catch template to record my info so I probably won't post my catch in the database since I don't have the accurate length info.

Started out Friday in Bullfrog Bay in stained water. Caught 2 Smallmouth and 3 Largemouth on Senko's, and Hula Grubs, and a 4lb Largemouth on a spinnerbait. Went to Moki canyon for the rest of the day. Caught 1 Smallmouth on a spinnerbait and several Smallmouth and another nice Largemouth with Hula Grubs on rock slides 2/3 of the way back in the canyon 10 to 20 feet deep. By mid afternoon we fished the shady rockslides with senko's and just killed them until dark. We lost track of the numbers. Most were 9 to 12 inch Smallmouth with the occasional 12 to 14 inch Largemouth. Also got a 14 inch Crappie on a senko.

We camped in Hansen canyon and fished there Saturday morning. Caught 2 Largemouth and 4 Smallmouth there on senko's then went up to Knowles canyon where we got skunked. Did better in Cedar Canyon. Caught a couple of 10 to 12 inch Smallmouth on hulagrubs in the clear water from rockslides then went in the back of the canyon and caught several Largemouth on senko's.

Had to have the boat on the trailer by 5:00 pm so we left and fished some main channel rockslides on the way back to Bullfrog. We caught another bunch of average 9 to 12 Smallmouth, and I caught my personal best Smallmouth on a Hula Grub with a 1/4 oz head aprox. 15 feet deep. It was 17.5 inches long and fat as can be. My buddy took a picture with my digital camera but when I got back and tried to get the picture it wasn't there, he had done something wrong and I was sick.

Didn't catch any Stripers. Did see a couple caught off the back of a houseboat in Moki. Another great trip to Powell.

Hite was good for stripers in the main channel. In Farleys they were jigging with anchovies at 20 feet. A few crappies taken with bait at the upper end of White Canyon. At the mouth of Red Canyon smallmouth were caught with green-brown Yamamoto soft plastic. Off and on action reported for small mouth.

At Bullfrog only a few fishermen. Some action jigging with anchovies at Moqui wall. Maybe a fish per hour. Lake canyon fishermen had a few stripers on anchovies from shore.

Fished LP April 12th -15th April 12th Fished out of Farley canyon ,Water temp 52,weather very cloudy w/some rain. Fishing was slow for all species . Caught 10 SMB, 2LMB, and 5 stripers. Black Bass were caught in 2mile,and White. Trolled the mud line on the Colorado and caught 1 striper per hour on a crawfish frenzy. Bass were caught on grubs and a 4in purple craw.

April 13th. Went to Blue Notch, Red canyon, Water was Very cold and clear 51. Fishing was very slow caught 1 LMB, and 3 SMB, Looked for stripers to no avail. Went back to the Colorado and caught 1 striper per hour along the mud line.

April 14th . Moved down to Bullfrog, Fished Bullfrog and Halls Creek bays, Fishing was excellent for both LMB and SMB, I caught 5 LMB in one cove in the back of Bullfrog Bay water temp was 57 in the back of some shallow bays. The biggest LMB was 4lbs *8oz. The others were between 1.5 and 3 lbs. LMB were caught in shallow water 4 to 10 ft. Deep. Most were caught on smoke silver sparkle grubs. SMB were caught off points in 15 to 20 ft of water. Caught 30 SMB on crankbaits and grubs.

April 15th Went and fished the Rincon Caught 15 SMB along various Rocky slopes. Noticed small schools of stripers in 15 to 35 ft of water. Water temp 58 , Caught 26 stripers (about every 5 to 10 min.) trolling the Rincon on size # 9 shad raps. Called it a day.

Three of us fished April 21st out of Bullfrog in the blowing wind and cold weather casting grubs, jigs, finesse, and spinner baits with very little success on SMB and LMB. The weather made the fishing tough. We did manage to pick-up 4 smallies and miss a few other light bites. Striper fishing was spotty at moki wall and we managed to pick-up four in about three hours. We ate our catch (smallies were about 10-11") and fished again on the 22nd. Fishing was about the same. All the fish were in predictable spots sunning themselves on submerged rocks. The best weather day was the worst fishing day on the 23rd producing only a couple of smallmouth and one largemouth about 10am - noon. We had an awesome time and we will be back in three weeks.

We slid the houseboat up on the beach in the back of Slickrock Canyon at about 12:30. After getting everything settled me and a buddy headed out in the bass boat. It took awhile to get back into Powell mode, but once we did fishing was excellent. Slickrock has plenty of steep rocky slopes, perfect for smallies which is what I was targeting in general. The first fish I caught was a Walleye. Got him on a Texas rigged Power Crawler, green with purple speckles. It worked so well I went with it for the rest of the day. We picked up several more smallies, but I was mainly exploring and getting used to the area. The Texas Rigged worm worked well but I think the most successful bait was a double tailed grub, in a smoke with red speckle pattern. At first I was fishing them too fast, but when I slowed 'em down to a crawl on the bottom I started catching more fish. Best bites where in small coves protected from the wind. I found when we were in water of about 65 to 67 degrees we had the most action. We had no luck finding Stripers. I think I marked one school in the center of the channel in Slickrock but it was too busy and we couldn't find them again. Catfishing was good in the back of the canyon as well. I didn't find any Crappie or Bluegill. There were plenty of trees and brush, but the visibility was poor. All our catches I posted on the report your catch page. Thanks to everyone on the board for info, which I'm going over now because I have a million more questions.

I fished Lake Powell from April 28 to May 1. My wife Heather and I met up with another couple (Matt and Kathy Riddle) and headed to the Knowles Canyon on Saturday. Since I was the only one interested in fishing not much fishing was done, but I did get manage to get some fishing in. In the third bay bay on the right as you are going into the canyon is where we camped. I pumped up my float tube and grabbed my underwater camera and scouted out the bay. There had been several tournament anglers (Bullfrog Open) in and out of the bay while I was getting set up. All said that the fishing was slow. The Aquaview underwater camera showed very little in the way of fish. A couple of hours before dark Me and my friend Matt took one of the boats out into to bay and fished several rocky points. We caught several smallmouths on brown spider jigs. Most were about 10'' or less, but two were 12".

Sunday morning I got up and headed back out to the same spots with the same results, but a little slower action. Sunday afternoon we headed back to Bullfrog so that the our wives could return home. Sunday evening I fished the marina area and caught 1 largemouth, 2 crappie and 2 bluegills in about two hours.

Monday morning I fished the marina again and caught 3 largemouths, 2 crappie, and 1 bluegill in about the same amount of time. That afternoon Me and Matt headed down to my secret striper fishing spot near Dangling Rope in hopes of catching another tagged striper.(I caught the third tagged fish last year). We set up camp and I started fishing just before dark and boated about 25 stripers.

Tuesday morning I got up at first light and landed another 32 stripers.(none with tags ) We went to Dangling Rope Marina and got fuel and something to eat and headed back uplake. On the way I managed to catch 7 more stripers, still none with tags.

I really wanted and needed that Nitro bass-boat for catching the first tagged striper. Oh well maybe next year! I may return to try for the Million Dollar Fish next weekend.

Hey Wayne! First of all, I would like to thank you for all the helpful info on your website. I was able apply a lot of it for a decent result. Now, April 3 my friend Chris and I took a trip to Bullfrog marina. Spent most of our time fishing the Stanton Creek area. Great striper action early morning and mid day. Average striper size 24". Had best luck on anchovies and they also seamed to really like a fast moving back and tan Rapalla huskies and jerks. A couple of small mouths were caught and unfortunately I hooked, but failed to land a brilliantly bronzed sm that was approx 22". We also unfortunately bothered by 5 unwanted catfish, one of which was about 12" short, unusually fat and had a very bright yellow and green coloring!?!? What is that all about?? My understanding is that striper boils do not happen that early in the season, but on the night of April 5, approx 1 a.m. our attention was drawn to the opposite side of the bay were we heard a loud constant shredding of water. This sound that lasted 4-5 min had move from the outer edge of this bay all the way to the inside which was a good 300-400 meters. My only logical explanation in the "BOIL".

WAYNE'S NOTE: Yellow catfish was a yellow bullhead.

Boils do happen but infrequently in the springtime.

Quick report. Four of us fished Bullfrog area 4/30-5/4. Caught about 150 stripers, 50 other fish. 90% of the stripers had good fillets. Shortest 14" longest 24". 3.5 lbs. heaviest striper. 2.5 heaviest smb. Found no stripers in upper Bullfrog Bay, or Stanton Creek. Lots of stripers Moki Wall but they wanted finesse in the presentation of anchovies. We used light (4 lb) leaders and small jig heads or sliding sinkers and bobbers. Needed to retie after any deep hookings. Found a few stripers in Knowles. Lots of smb and a few walleye. Mostly skinny there but hit anything.

Used underwater camera and found that every time we chummed with anchovies carp would arrive and eat pieces on the bottom. We intentionally caught 2. Unintentionally while fishing Moki we caught 3 and also 3 catfish. Cats around 20" and 3 lbs. Carp 24-30" 4 to 7 lbs.

When we arrived at Moki Wall 6am 5/1 there was 1 other boat there. At noon there were 16 in the canyon and four main channel. Everywhere we caught fish of course we also attracted boats. But found fish elsewhere each time we moved. Something we noticed was that with motors running fishing slowed. We did find the active and inactive feeding times to apply.

The wind and weather made it tough to fish as much as we would have liked. Also noticed that the water temp went down around 5 degrees afternoon of the 1st and stayed down through the 4th.

Fishing Trip to Lake Powell April 28-30, 2001

I appreciate your fishing report for Lake Powell. I checked it out before our trip and it wasn't looking good. I know it is too early in the season to have good fishing for striped bass......BUT........we pretty much slayed em. We caught approximately 180 fish in 3 days........We didn't have to start fishing for striper until 11:00am and quit at 2:00pm.....then we would do an evening fishing excursion from 5:00pm-8:00pm. We had two boats with 6 fisherman. Each boat would catch around 30 fish per day in Moki Canyon by Bullfrog. Just simple fishing with 1/2 of an anchovy and a hook with a lead jig. Monday night was the best.....fishing was very very slow when we got there and just before dark it seemed like a frenzy. We couldn't bait the hooks fast enough......it was great. One of the best fishing trips I ever had with lots of excitement. All the fish were 21-23" long.

Wayne, just thought I would give you a report on fishing Bullfrog and Halls creek last weekend 5/11-5/12. We were down to fish the UBF buddy tournament on Saturday. We started fishing in the back of Halls Creek bay Friday morning and caught nothing but small SMB, we looked around Halls until around 10 AM and then started fishing some of the main lake points and vertical shaded walls, and caught more of the same with an occasional LMB mixed in, all fish were caught on shad imitating plastics, spinnerbaits, and grubs.

On Saturday, we fished in some of the cuts in the back of Bullfrog, and found the fish early on the vertical walls in muddy water, we caught mostly LMB between 13"-17.5", and only 2 SMB, all on the walls, and we even caught 10 walleye, 1 BIG crappie, and a 30" 7lb+ HEALTHY striper, all in the muddy water, and ALL fish were released! All while fishing for LMB. Not so good when your fishing a bass tournament, but hey, who's complaining? We then fished some other main lake points, in Bullfrog, and filled up our limit for the tournament. Total take for the day saturday, 12 LMB, (all over 13") only 3 SMB, 10 walleye, 2 stripers, and 1 crappie. ALL fish on saturday were taken on shad imitating plastics. By the way, our 5 fish limit of LMB weighed in at 8.94lbs, good enough for 3rd place in the tournament. Thanks again for the great site Wayne, keep it up.... Rob

Well, I hesitated to write this report because I was a little embarassed after reading about all the Stripers everyone was catching and the number I produced. Non the less I feel someone may benefit from it by not making the mistakes I made, and maybe some could help me out. My wife, two kids and myself arrived at Bullfrog North on Thursday the 10th, set up camp and started fishing about 3:00pm. We first headed to the cliffs just South of Hall's Crossing marina. We graphed tons of fish at 100' or more and decided to try it (should have paid more attention to Wayn's tips). We ended up getting a couple in two and half hours. On the way back we picked up a couple trolling halfway back to camp. Friday spent a lot more time looking for shallower Stripers but never found any. Went back to the same place with similar results. Saturday we tried the Southern portion on Moqui Wall with similar results. Looking back I think I should have chummed more, fished later and searched harder. Oh well, it was still great, even after the hurricane hit us Saturday night.

Just got back from Bullfrog this weekend. Stripers were selective in the times they bit but when they did watch out. Fished around the Moki wall and above it. Fished Moki canyon for bass and cats, did well for both in the very back of the canyon. Caught bluegill,catfish,lmb and smb. Went to Forgotten did fair. Caught striper, walleye, smb. Fished around Stanton creek area, caught a few smb.

There seemed to be several people doing well on stripers at the 2 rocks sticking out of the water in the bay between Bullfrog boat ramp and Stanton creek and at the mouth of Halls creek.

Here are a couple of pictures of our April fishing trip. These bass were caught in Lake Canyon and were released after the photos. If your memory serves you well you might remember the picture of my wife kissing her 1st big bass a couple of yrs ago. Well in standing tradition my 2 boys did the same.

The Annual Southwest Walleye Anglers Powell Trip came off well. The group concentrated mostly on going upstream from Halls Crossing, but did revisit some spots from last year down stream. The group of 14 men and women caught 268 Walleyes during the 7 days. Most were in the 1.5 lb range.

The red sandstone that is very crumbly seemed to be the key. When that rubble was detectable in the water, a small 1/4 jig dressed with various plastic bodies and tipped with a half or full night crawler was effective. My effective plastic was a Gary Yamamoto 5" S/T H-grub Pumpkin w/lg black (Fishermen's Choice numbers). This has many small tentacles on the front end and one or two twister tails on the back.

John Vosika and John Neisen found that color effective in the morning and a clear/silvery color for the afternoon was more effective. (Crawdads in the morning and shad in the afternoon??? Your guess is as good as anyone else's.)

Trolling fast at 3.2 mph, I caught a walleye and a smallie on the edge of a shelf in 25-40ft water where John & John were jigging. I was using 5lb/1lb mono diameter spiderwire, so the 4" plug was down a respectable distance. Dave Cunningham and Dave Daneck showed us all up with trolling their worm harnesses the first few days in the waters to the south. Almost everyone else was doing the jig trick with 1/4, 3/8 or 1/2 oz lead. Some used flashy colors, some did not. Everyone caught Walleyes. Depth of the Walleyes was usually 25 to 45 feet in up to 75 feet water. When the classic shelf was present at 12 to 20 feet along the shore and then a drop off to 40-300 feet, it was dinner time. Pitching the bait on the shallow and then very slowly jigging it back over the shelf was effective. Especially into an unfished new area.

Almost all of the Walleyes were males 1.2-1.5lbs and 18inches long. Only 3 were larger females. The official size was 2lb, but a reported 4 lb 'er was dressed without the official weigh-in. A lot of smallies (smallmouth bass), a few catfish and blue gills were also caught. Stripers were few and skinny. A 20-25" striper might only weigh one pound. No meat. With a good supply of tools, a lot of problems were solved. This trip was run out of two trailers at Halls Crossing, so electricity, freezer, and plumbing problems were eliminated. We had too much food and a great time.

Launched from Hall's late afternoon on Thursday, 5/24, headed up lake and found a camp site in Cedar and set up camp. We did not fish Thursday evening.

Friday morning we first headed back into Cedar where I expected to fill 2 limits of SMB within an hour but found it surprisingly slow. We headed for the main channel islands and coves across from Knowles and started picking up SMB and a few greenies immediately. It took more than an hour but we each had a limit of SMB under 12" before 11:30 as well as numerous dinks and a good number of SMB 12" and over, all of which were released. Most fish were caught on BPS 4" single tail grubs in smoke w/purple flake, green with green flake, and amber with green flake. The smoke w/purple flake was the most productive. The grubs were rigged on 1/4 oz. lead heads. Some fish were caught on BPS green tender tubes rigged with a 1/4 oz. lead head inserted into the tube. It was interesting to watch numerous catfish following spawning carp in the clear water coves in this area. I assume, but don't really know, that the catfish were eating the carp roe. I graphed stripers in this area but trolling deep diving cranks produced no fish. Later that afternoon we headed for the islands just north of and across the channel from Cedar. We again caught numerous SMB, some greenies, and one nice LMB, on grubs and tubes. Since we had already caught our 6 fish limit of SMB we released all fish. That night we had a great fish fry of small SMB fillets and green sunfish fillets.

Saturday morning we headed for Warm Spring and found great SMB fishing in the shaded rock rubble slides and shelves. Since the canyon is narrow and steep sided the shade remained until late morning as did the bite. We easily had another limit each of SMB under 12' while catching numerous dinks and some quality SMB. Same baits as Friday except that we occasionally switched to a BPS magnum tube rigged with a 3/8 oz. lead head inserted into the tube to get them deeper when the bite waned. I fished a green pumpkin w/ copper flake magnum tube and Gloria opted for a bright chartreuse yellow w/ red flake magnum tube. On Sunday morning this big yellow tube was Gloria's "go to" bait as it would account for all of her fish Sunday morning. Saturday evening we went back to the same island structure we had fished the evening before and with the wind blowing and stirring things up the fishing was fast and furious for SMB on any windy side of structure - many, many SMB were caught quickly on tube and grubs in any color.

Sunday morning we went back into Warm Spring with a repeat of the fishing we had encountered on Saturday morning. Gloria caught her first walleye and her first striper on the yellow magnum tube. I also caught a striper on a grub immediately following her catch. These two stripers were very healthy - meaty fish. On both Sat. and Sun. I had graphed stripers in Warm Spring but spooning produced no fish. Since we had a limit of under 12' SMB on ice at camp we kept only the stripers and the walleye. Sunday afternoon and evening were spent lounging in the shade, swimming and visiting with friends whom had joined us Friday evening.

We broke camp early Monday morning without fishing, did some sightseeing, and headed home. Another great lake Powell experience.

Note: we found the small SMB fillets to be very good eating (get them filleted and on ice to retain the eating quality) and as long as Wayne wants SMB under 12" kept we plan on having a camp site fish fry more often.

We fished out of the Hall's Marina June 7, 8, and 9. Although we had planned to head up to the secret fishing holes up around mile 111, we found there was absolutely no reason to venture farther than about a mile from the launch ramp. By trolling goofy-looking 1-ounce dayglo jig heads with little plastic fish and sonar, we came across several large schools of smaller stripers that proved cooperative, mostly on chovie chunks at about 20 feet. Mornings and late-mornings were more productive than later in the day, possibly because of the outstanding full moon.

We found large piles of stripers on practically every wall on the east side of the channel, starting across from the entrance to Halls Bay down through the long wall before Lake Canyon. They were pretty much bunched together. We might go 300-500 yards or so without seeing anything on the scope, and then run into a glob of them.

By far and away, it is way way better to have a scope and sort of know what patterns to look for than not have one. We of course spotted globs of stripers with the scope that did not cooperate with the goofy jig-trolling technique. On the other hand, every single time we got stripers trolling, there were many other fish in the immediate neighborhood. As usual, they move sometimes, or sometimes we'd drift off of them, perhaps only by 20 yards or so, and suddenly the scope would be completely empty. Then we'd move back a bit and there they were.

June 9-14

Fished the first night on the island near the ferry crossing, and James, Elijah, and I caught 2 stripers, 2 smb, and a 4 lb cat. Beautiful sunset and great to be back on the lake. Caught 6 stripers in the dark on anchovies the second night. Spent the third night in Iceberg Canyon and caught a wide variety of fish, bluegill, greenies, smb, and cats, but no stripers. Fourth day caught some more cats and greenies. On last morning caught 5 pre-spawn cats, all 2-3 lbs, and all on anchovies. Overall fishing was good but disappointing as we couldn't locate the stripers. Catfishing was red hot! I still say Powell is the best fishing experience in the U.S.!

Just returned home from a trip June 10-16 on Powell. Started at Halls Marina. We headed North to Crystal Springs Canyon the first night. We fished out of the back of the houseboat with anchovies about ½ of the way up the canyon. We anchored on a large rock rubble slide. We caught stripers so fast that we could not keep up to the kids & wives poles. Fished from about 8:30 to 10:30 pm. Filled the cooler and called it a night. The next night we fished the same spot. Nothing but a few small stripers and a few catfish.

Moved to Forgotten Canyon. Fished in the day out of a small boat across the main channel on the large rubble slide on the high wall. Caught about 8 nice striper in a couple of hours (2-4 pm). Later, we moved the houseboat to the spot for the night action. We caught about 30 striper from 8:00 to 10:00 pm until the storm front made the fishing too rough.

The next day (Wednesday June 13) we headed up to Ticaboo Canyon to see some new country. We graphed striper schools, but they weren't very cooperative. We caught a walleye and a couple of small mouth. About 7:00 pm I noticed a funny sound across the canyon. I watched and saw a pack of surface feeding fish. My 15 year old niece, father-in-law, and myself jumped in the little boat and approached as carefully as possible. It was a striper boil! They both casted lures and missed the center of the action. I cast out and nailed a 3 lb. striper. They got a couple more casts in, but the boil ended. We had a few pop-up fish, but that was the end of the action.

We ended the day with about 15 striper off of the houseboat on anchovies. My niece caught a huge catfish (5+lbs)! We threw it back with several smaller cats. Thursday we headed up toward Hite to refuel, etc. We spent the night near the mouth of White Canyon. No fish! We caught nothing. I trolled little macs, rattletraps, etc. Nothing. Nothing on anchovies. We figured that the water was too turbid.

Headed south to meet some family at Bullfrog. Saturday night we anchored directly across the bay from Bullfrog Marina, on the rubble slide on the wall of the island. That night we caught 50+ striper on anchovies from 9:00 pm to 1:30 am.

My wife and I left on Saturday, but my in-laws fished the last night near Halls Marina on the main channel. Caught 30 striper. All in all a great trip! We never believed how successful we could be! A couple of years ago we would catch nothing on our annual trips. It pays to listen to Wayne and all of the other gurus of Lake Powell.

One more tip, we were using a submersible neon (green) light that I bought from Cabella's magazine. We would sink it about 10 feet of the back of the houseboat. I think it really helped, also, it made the landing of the fish much easier since the water was illuminated. Well worth $25.00. Hope to return in the fall! Thanks for all of the pre-trip info! We will be having striper dinners for the rest of the year.

We fished June 21-24 up just north of Seven Mile, and at least then, reports about any slowing down of striper fishing were greatly exaggerated. Again, it was a matter of trolling for a while and watching the sonar. When we found them, they were the best they've been this year, although still mostly on the small side. In two locations, it was a maximum of 6 seconds between fish on chovies, and when we ran out of chovy chunks, it was not much longer between bites on rubber fish hooked on eighth ounce jigs. No boils, but the same kind of intensity. The slowest it got in other locations was perhaps 45 seconds or so once we found them. The schools seem to be moving, as they would not be where they had been the previous day. We found them on both the west and east banks, mostly in the shade, but that was probably more of function of where we were willing to hang out at different times of day. Some were off cliffs, some off points, and some next to rubbly shores. They were hitting at 1 to 15 feet. My guess is they are concentrating in big schools, with lots of fishless water in between. At least that is what Mr. Sonar seems to be saying.

Wayne, Here are the results of my latest fishing trips from my journal. I hope they are helpful; if they need embellishing, let me know.

May 25 afternoon caught 36 fish- 1 walleye, 2 stripers, 1 largemouth, 6 bluegills, 26 smallmouth 6 of which were 11 -14" and the rest 8-11"

May 26 fished all day caught 60 fish most in the afternoon ( 2-7 PM) 14 stripers (20-24" and healthy), 11 largemouth ( 7 12-15", 4 10-12"), 1 walleye ( 16" ), 10 bluegills, 24 smallmouth ( 8 12-15", 10 10-12", 7 7-10")

May 27 Fished all day caught 106 fish (10AM-8PM) 30 largemouth ( 12 12-15", 17 10-12", 1 16"), 5 walleye 14-18",20 stripers 18-24", 15 bluegill, 36 smallmouth ( 2 15", 16 12-14", 10 10-12", 8 7-10")

May 28 fished 2 hours AM caught 6 smallmouth 8-12"

June 8 fished 12-8PM caught 60 fish with a partner 26 stripers 18-24", 4 largemouth 10-12", 9 bluegill, 1 walleye 14", 20 smallmouth ( 7 12-14", 5 10-12", 8 7-10")

June 9 fished 10-9PM caught 162 fish with a partner and it was so good that I did not write down very accurately the catch, but the percentages were similar to the day before

June 10 fished 2 hours on the way home caught 20 fish, 7 largemouth 10-12", 1 largemouth 14" , 4 stripers 20", 7 smallmouth 12-14", 1 bluegill

June 29- July 1 Family trip so I coached my 7 year old daughter and in 6 hours of total fishing we caught about 50 fish. 2 stripers ( 1-10", 1 18" ), 2 walleye 15", 2 largemouth 10-12", 4 bluegill, and the rest smallmouth with 10 10-12" and the rest smaller than in earlier trips, the nursery size fish

I have learned over the years not to tell anybody where I fish, so please suffice it to say that the first two trips were midlake and the most recent was upper lake. My experience is that there are still some nice smallmouth in the same areas that I have found them for the past 6 years when they started to appear in greater numbers. I have caught more stripers this year already than all of last year and they have all been healthy except for a few thin ones. Walleye seem to be consistent. I fish for largemouth and smallmouth, so any stripers and walleye that I catch are incidental. The guys I talk to who fish for stripers with anchovies all tell me they are having a great year. There also seem to be plenty of shad because lots of fish are regurgitating them, and more times than usual I have lucked into areas where the fish have just finished or are in the process of a shad massacre as evidenced by the pieces of shad floating in the water. My 20 year record tells me that 3675 level is a good level for fishing. I hope all this rambling is of some use. Now if we could just get rid of the jetskis.

Waynes Note: I suspect that this is a first. Jay we appreciate the report and your willingness to give us information if not the exact spots. That's fine! Just do what you can. Smallmouth are abundant but as in Ed's report above the first guy fishing every few days catches more fish. Stripers, on the other hand, need to be harvested and telling exact detail is essential to improving fishing for anglers and health of fish.

Fishing Report for July 8th through the 12th

Parked my camper at Hall's Crossing and rented a 16' Lund at the Marina. Day one and two we only caught a few fish but on day three caught 20 stripers, 2 cats and a walleye in less than 2 hours. We fished around MP 102 in a little cove with anchovies. Overall we came home with 49 fish and had a great time. I believe the fishing was slower that week because of the heavy thunderstorms in the evening and the fronts passing through. I did cast an Shad Image topwater lure at the Moki wall but broke my line with the cast. The lure easily sailed 120 to 150 feet. Before we could get to the lure it was gulped down by we assume a hungry striper. If anyone catches a fish with a lure it's yours.

We took our fourth annual trip to Lake Powell on the above dates. Our party of eight [4 kids, 4 adults] spent a week on the lake on our part ownership houseboat. Fishing was great as usual. We seem to do better each year thanks to the tips and info on your web site.

We anchored in Iceberg Canyon and fished primarily for stripers. We found them along the main channel on the Northwest side. Using anchovies, we caught 85 stripers over 4 days of fishing between 9 am and noon. We caught 28 fish on our best day with multiple double fish on and several triples. The fish ranged between 17" and 23" and were all healthy fish and great fighters. We did not need to use your chumming technique, although the bite turned on and off, it never really stopped. We caught fish on whole and part anchovies. When we were running out of anchovies the last morning one of us caught 3 fish on the sane head half of an anchovy. I caught one on a "banjo" minnow smeared with anchovy scented Smelly Jelly and am convinced I could have caught many more if I had had time as I got many strikes but only hooked up when I used a standard 3/8 oz lead head jig with the plastic minnow instead of the jig that came with the Banjo Minnow kit.

I also caught 3 nice 17" channel catfish while fishing for stripers with anchovies [much to my surprise]. They fought every bit as well as the stripers. Also caught catfish easily with nightcrawlers fished on the bottom.

The bass fishing didn't seem as good as in previous years but I will have to admit with the striper fishing so good I did not have the motivation to get up early or go out late for the bass. We kept and cleaned every striper and brought them back home frozen for future meals. We also had our usual on the lake fish fry. We were happy to do our part to keep the Lake Powell striper fishing population healthy.

The weather was great as were the water sports. The one thunderstorm revealed all the spectacular waterfalls. Great fishing, beautiful scenery, swimming, boating, jet skiing, tubing, and family fun. What more could one ask for?

We were just at the lake from the 15th to the 22nd. Our group did fairly well at the corner of Moki wall where it enters Moki Canyon. It was very important to be within 50 to 60 yards of the corner. We were drifting anchovies about 50 feet down. Most of us used a 3/8 jighead and a 1.5 ounce snap weight 10 feet away. We had hits on every pass. Sometimes we'd have two or three fish on at once. It was exciting. One major problem though. The fish were so stressed from the depth or temp change many of them died. I am usually a strong advocate of catch and release and killing these fish didn't sit well with me. We fished the corner on Sunday and Monday but that was all. I didn't want to keep anymore. After that we just chased the little smallmouth. ( I have two young sons, as long as there is fish, they are happy) We caught most of them around the islands across from Moki Wall. We also caught fish in Hansen Creek, Forgotten, Cedar, Moki, and Lake Canyons. We used primarily 3 and 4 inch Yamamoto's on 3/16 or 1/4 ounce Gamakatsu jigheads. Watermelon and Smoke were the best.

My family and I spent 7/21-7/28 at the west end of Halls Creek Bay. Small stripers boiled every AM & PM. Bigger stripers( 18-20") were in the 40-50' water and easy to catch drifting anchovies. The small stripers did just like Wayne said they would, on top for a short time. Catfish could be caught off the back of the houseboat at almost any time. Some of the cats were in the 4-5 lb. range. We kept and filleted every striper and cat we caught.

We had a fish fry for 18 people and still had plenty of fillets to bring home. If you are looking for shad, they are at the west end of Halls Bay, and I mean lots of them.

Just returned from a trip to Bullfrog where my family and I spend July 30-August 4 camping out and fishing every day. Most of our fishing took place at Mookie Wall where we (the five of us) caught in excess of thirty stripers during this period. The largest striper we caught was 4.5lbs with the smallest weighing in at 1.4lbs. We killed three for dinner and returned the rest to the lake for someone else to enjoy. The best fishing at this wall was in cloudy, early morning weather and again in late afternoon.

Three weeks ago, we got a bunch of stripers near the Colorado-San Juan Confluence, but they were all extremely snakey. In fact, they were the snakiest stripers I've ever seen ... all of them. They seemed to be on walls near gravel beaches, mostly. Then we tried the upper Escalante, but found very few biting up there, and the few we caught were also skinny.

This weekend, we found a pretty good pile of stripers just about a mile downriver from Halls along a cliff. For some reason, they all seemed to be in about a 30-yard stretch, and nowhere else. Then, we headed upriver, trolled for miles and miles watching the sonar, and finally managed to find a dandy pile up near Forgotten Canyon. In fact, they were the healthiest, biggest, most lively fish we've found in probably two years. Once again, they were just in a particular spot, perhaps 30 yards long, and when the boat drifted off, the sonar would just go blank. All were caught on anchovy chunks on 1/8th or 1/4th ounce leadheads at about 25 feet.

Over the Labor Day weekend we were able to catch 50+ stripers in the west end of Halls. About 300 yards south of the large butte we got into a boil on Friday morning, 8/31 that lasted until almost 11 am.

Then on Tuesday, 9/4 we had a boil all around our houseboat in the cove just south of the large butte on the west side that has a lot of trees in the right arm of the Y in this cove.

This boil ended after we had caught 3 or 4 and as the sun hit the water, but we were able to graph a huge school of stripers in the area of the first boil that were down 25-40 ft. We caught a nice bunch of stripers (17) for breakfast and quit fishing when we ran out of what few anchovies we had on the last day of our trip.

Good luck and good fishing.

Five of us were camping by mile marker 68 from aug 28 - sept 4, although we read every bit of advice you had on your site, even printed it out and brought it along we didn't catch one Striper or even see one. My chick made the comment one night: "You guys have been had, I bet Striper's don't even exist here, nor does Wayne" Needless to say she slept outside of the tent that night.

We tried chumming in the Escalante around 7am with Anchovies fishing from 50 - 100 ' and got nothing, 3 mornings we tried the same approach a mile or two up the San Juan around the same hour and got nothing. The best session was a mid day session on the way to dangling rope, I forget where this rocky cove was but my gal and I both got 14 inch large mouth's which were the best fish of the week (the other guys were so jealous.)

We caught a few dozen 6-8" small mouth's by camp and other coves in the area but we let them go. Even though the fish we caught were small, by far the the best bait was a blue/smoked sparkle Yamamoto 4" double tail jig with the fringe on the head end. We nicked named it the alien.

Wish I was there now away from reality, prayers and thoughts with all the families.

Waynes Note: Thanks for reporting. There are probably more anglers that experience poor fishing than the ones that report great success. That is why I keep trying to pass on enough info in a timely manner so you can get togehter with a group of cooperative stripers. We have had no recent reports from the area you fished so we were of no help. Stripers are schooling fish and if you are not in the school it seems there is not a fish in the lake. We will keep trying if you will. Don't give up. Next time I hope we have a report that will be close to where you are fishing complete with a successful technique that you can duplicate.

After a 17 month delay, the four of us returned to fish together and found Bullfrog Bay to still be one of the best fishing areas in the USA. We fished Sept. 20 thru 23. Scott, Shubert, Tom and myself (Jim) trolled lures such as Rat-L-Trap or similar but most stripers were caught using Hopkins "Shorty" which is a stainless steel lure and jigging in the very early hours or the two hours before dark. The group caught two walleyes trolling near submerged rocks. As always, we had a great time and brought back filets from over 50 stripers. ....

We finally made our first trip to Powell on UEA weekend. We went to Bullfrog and joined the rest of Utah and Colorado in spending a few days on the pond. To say there were a lot of people would be a gross understatement. We were mostly there for the kids to play in the water but I did take the oppourtunity to fish Friday morning. We were lucky enough to spot a boat catching fish of the rocky point just south of the south Bulfrog campground. When we pulled up they were very friendly and told us what they were catching and what to use. We were able to catch a few stipers with Zara spooks, then we felt guilty and went back to take the kids skiing.

That evening we went back to the same spot with four poles and four fisherkids and chumed with some anchovies like we were taught on the board. It did not take long until we were hooked up to four fish at a time until I got worried about not finding my way back to camp in the dark. It seemed liked we could have fished all night and kept catching fish. When our little cooler was full we left. Probably had 25 stipers in less than 1 hour. Same ratio you mentioned was 60% healthy 40% skinny. The larger ones were the skinny ones. Went back the next morning and did the same thing with the same results. Total count for both short trips was approximately 60 stripers, 2 catfish, 6 smallies.

We houseboated powell from 9-24 to 10-5. Started hitting cats and smallies immediately off back of houseboat and directly off the bank in the back of HALL'S bay with worms on chartruese jigs. Got quite a large stringer there. Moved down to the RINCON and got a good number of SMB out of my canoe on worm jigs, later fished till wee hours off back of houseboat and got bunches of stripers and cats on anchovie chunks and worms. Moved down to mouth of Escalante and got skunked, no fishes there. Moved down to RIBBON and the SMB were fantastic, nailed a bunch out by large sentinal rock at mouth of RIBBON. All were in the 8 to 10" range, best fishin I've ever done out of a canoe and yes WAYNE, I did my duty as recomended in your reports,and ate em all.

I preferred to just gut those smallies and fry em whole, seemed to get more meat out them as opposed to fillet.

All in all it was a great fishin trip again, us folks from the pointy lands sure enjoy going down for that last blast of summer before the snow flies up here. Powell ROCKS!!!!

Thanks so much for your assistance, before I went out to lake Powell. We didn't catch the huge #s of fish you speak of sometimes, but still had a blast!

To start out, there were two of us (5 fishermen one day) ages 27 thru 40, including on 11 yr old...who caught her first big fish at Powell. We are all Powell virgins, (except one, who invited us) and now addicted. We are all from the Denver, CO area.

We were at Lake Powell from Sept 25 thru Oct 2, with a group of non-fishermen. This limited our access to the boat (darn people wanted to water-ski sometimes....they just don't understand). We had a houseboat, and spent our first night in Lake Canyon. We woke up to the splashing of a boil right in the middle of the canyon. We watched (mostly in awe) this, assuming it would occur another day (bad assumption). The boat wasn't unpacked yet, and so we were helpless to fish this boil. We headed out, and went into the Escalante River to anchor for a few days. We immediately unpacked the boat and went out looking for fishing spots. We headed to the main channel, and went to the shallows. We fished misc. lures, and jigs, and landed quite a few smallmouth (approx. 10). This was not my goal though. We went out the next morning, with anchovies, and brought back our first 3 stripers, caught right at the entrance to the Escalante River, along the cliffs. We were in 100-200' water, but the fish were hanging at about 60-120'. The next morning we went back out, drifting this same spot for another 9 stripers. That night, in a short trip, we caught another 5. We were then outvoted by the rest of the crew, and were forced to move. We headed back, and ended up in a small cove in the area of the Rincon. We fished that evening....no luck. The next morning, with only about 45 min before moving, we made our last attempt...taking 3 more stripers.

Hopefully this was not too drawn out for you. I had the time of my life, and look forward to coming back each year. I now know how to fish for these fighters, and am excited to try my luck again. Anchovy's were the ticket for us, fished on 8lb line, with anchovy hooks, and treble hooks when all the anchovy hooks broke (we did have a few fish shear the anchovy hooks we bought at dangling rope.) My advice to other anglers...bring a big cooler...full of ice (we started out with 30 lbs of dry ice, on blocks, to keep the anchovies frozen (they sure smell when at room temp!) We weren't optimistic of our chances, but we soon turned this to our striper cooler, and didn't have enough room!

Thanks for your advice Wayne...you have hooked me on Powell for life! I can't believe some people want to drain this "wonder of the world"

October 6th three of us arrived at Bullfrog late in the day. We tried some smallmouth fishing and found the bite to be slow in the bullfrog and main channel area north. Next morning we went to Good Hope Bay to chase stripers. I cannot remember who had been there and posted it but the stripers were in the mouth of Red Canyon just inside the islands that block the entrance. We floated through the school with jigging spooons(wallylures). We caught about 10 stripers then they stopped biting. We searched the area outside of Blue Notch for stripers and shad since there were so many grebes there. We didn't graph them and headed south. There is a "new" rockslide around the corner heading south, just past the rockslide to the left we located another school of stripers. They were cooperative for a while and we landed another 20 stripers until they also stopped biting. We did not have any chum so we left them there and continued down lake looking for smallmouth. We had a first time Powell visitor so we did some touring.

We fished the Moki Wall on evening of 10/14. W caught 2 thin stripers on piece of anchovy on 1/8 oz jig head, and several 8-12 inch stripers. Went up to mouth of Knowles Canyon on 10/15 and found a large school of small stripers just south of mouth on east wall by rock slides. This school graphed everywhere between 10 and 80 feet deep. Nearly every cast produced hits. They were good at getting the anchovy off the hook. We tried several methods, and all worked about the same. One fish hooked for several missed. The little ones only wanted bait. They did not hit spoons, but would chase them. We caught a few other fish casting to the wall. We found smallmouth in Cedar and Seven Mile and another smaller school of small stripers in main channel. This was my first experience with so many small stripers. We trolled the Tapestry Wall with no success.

Went to Lake Powell 10/20-10/30 on a houseboat. I had not been there since 1978 and was surprised at the small mouth numbers. When I was last there it was all large mouth. No stripers or small mouth. As a youth growing up in price ut. we fished Powell regularly and always caught large mouth in the 2-5lb size.

So on this trip I read all reports and tips so my kids and I could get into some stripers.The first 4 or 5 days we used anchovies.and grub jigs & spoons.We caught many small mouth and a few large mouth and a dozen or so stripers, but not what I had hoped for.We fished alot of hours in many canyons from dangling rope to near halls crossing.

Then at the sugestion of my 8yr. old son after fishing several hours in Lake canyon, we put on a white and black fishy (countdown Repala) and trolled back to the house boat. We could barely get the boat moving before we would have 1 or 2 stripers.So for the next 2 days we repeated the troll up and down the canyon catching fish at all times,and more than I could count.We had a great time until we had to return the house boat.

I would also like to say thanks to the rangers and managers at bullfrog who helped as best they could when my 14yr old son fell and broke up his arm and had to be air lifted to price.

And if anyone wants advice on fishing lake powell E-mail me at bowrider691@cs.com and I will ask my 8yr old what you should use.(He seems to be our expert now!)

My brother and I were at lake powell from Oct 29-Nov 4. We camped at the north primitive camp site of bullfrog basin. Fishing was pretty slow, some small stripers off of Moki wall caught on anchovies and even a spinner with a mister twister on it. We fished for smallmouth in one of the side canyons of moki canyon, but even though we saw some very nice fish they weren't interested in any lures I had. Also tried slickrock canyon, and again saw some terrific large fish but only caught one small smallmouth on a spinner and purple fake worm.

The last two mornings things picked up as the stripers moved into the campground area at sunrise. Nov 4 I caught 10 from shore on a floating rapala, I coudn't take them off the hook fast enough to catch more. Then they moved out into deeper water and we already had the boat out of the water and packed. Nothing very large and a couple very skinny fish. But the rest filleted out nicely.

We beat the water a while on February 9, but never even saw a fish blip on our sonar around Halls Bay. This weekend (Feb 23), we looked harder still, but only found perhaps a dozen fish blips and maybe four or five fish rings on the surface. We did find water up in the low 50s, at least toward the surface, but for now, the elusive little buggers are somewhere else. It must be crowded wherever that is.

Just returned from 3 days of fishing Halls Creek. We found that trolling Shad Raps and Rock Walkers would fill a cooler in short order. Just trying to help out the shad population, we kept about 70 nice fat stripers. Not a skinny one in the bunch. They all ran about 2-3 pounds and made some nice thick fillets. Also a couple of healthy largemouth and two crappie (which were released).

If you troll from the main group of trees out to the main portion of Halls Creek, hang on and enjoy the catch! Blue worked for two days, then switched to shad color the third. We were flat line trolling. The water depth started at 13' and where we ended the run it was 27'. Sometimes I could feel the lure touching bottom at the 13' depth, but when we got into deeper water, I let out a little more line.

We arrived late the 3rd and fished the back of Bullfrog Bay till dark. We found a school of stripers and landed a few till they shut off.

The morning of the 4th headed to Red Canyon and found fish toward the back of the canyon in 60ft of water. Dropped wallylures and did very well for about an hour. The fish turned off and we went looking for other schools-fish were scattered and we would catch one here and there. Left Red heading south to another canyon and found a school that was good for a few more stripers and walleye. Used wallylures and wallydivers and one rod with chovies for those fish. A terrible thing happened in that canyon- We lost three wallylures in just a few minutes -( We cried)

Went to the back of Bullfrog Bay to look up the stripers from the day before-they did not cooperate. In the morning of the 5th went to the back of Bullfrog again-(no fish) went to that other canyon and caught just one striper.

Went to Red midday and looked for our big school. Could not find it so went farther back almost to the end. Chet picked up a striper on a wallydiver while we trolled. That was the start we needed and the fish turned on. I threw chovies in the water and we drifted that school with wallylures and chovies, caught a bunch of them. We went through that school many times and got fish each time-20ft deep and fish from bottom to 10ft. Totals for the trip 64 stripers(4 skinny ones) 4 smallmouth and 2 walleye. We had 2 triples back to back in Red Canyon and One of us had two fish at once-one on chovies and the other on wallylure.

After much trolling on Saturday, without success, we finally located a gigantic school of stripers near the back of Lake Canyon. It's a 10 mile run from Bullfrog marina. We fished near the first set of submerged trees, now sticking up, near the back of the canyon. Water was semi-clear, temp unknown. We jigged anchovies from 12 to 24 feet deep. Seems like the larger fish were 3 cranks up from the bottom, if you could get through the school on the drop. The bite was strong from 3pm until sunset. The healthiest fish were 16 to 18 inches. Anything longer than that was terribly skinny. All eggs observed were golden brown. Catch rate was about 10 per hour per person. (Bite rate was 50/hr., lots of bait stealers). Chumming reactivated the school whenever the bite slowed. Then we'd catch 5 more. We landed 75 stripers from that school. The graph was always full. Weather was breezy and it was partly sunny Saturday, sunny on Sunday.

Well, my fish'n partners and I hit the lake about 0800 on Sunday 4/28 to set up camp at Hansen Creek. With the water so low, it was more difficult to find just the right camp spot. Got to fishing that afternoon in Spring Creek Canyon (I think), the canyon across Hansen. Did okay. Caught several SMB up to 12" and kept all from 9-12 as suggested. Another boat went into Forgotten Canyon and had about the same luck. Sunday the bait of choice we found was a tube bait in a green color, but we seemed to catch SMB on about any color. We concentrated on the rock rubble that we could find. Caught most in about 10 to 15 feet of water but we did catch a few right at shoreline. Monday, went back to the same canyon with about the same success, the days color was a smoke w/ red flake tube. Also caught some on green tubes and a smoke w/ red flake jig. The other boat went into Cedar Canyon and Warm Springs Canyon. While fishing the rubble again, we also caught 3 walleye and and three stripers that day. Caught a few catfish that night at camp also.

Tuesday, we went into Forgotten and concentrated on the rubble in there. Caught more SMB, no big ones, just "keeper sizes". We got blown off the lake about noon or so.

Wednesday, we heard the weather was also calling for more wind so we packed up camp and headed into Hall's and got us a trailer. Went out that afternoon and caught more SMB on the same color of tubes fishing the rubble areas again. Had a great fish fry that evening also. Thursday, The front must have moved through as the lake was calm. This was our best day of catching, we landed a few 14 to 16 inch SMB and several in the 9-12 keeper size in Hall's Bay and also on the main channel. Peaked into Bullfrog Bay but not much success toward the mouth end.

Friday, we headed back home with fond memories. All in all, we caught 3 walleye, 3 stripers, 3 catfish, and a bunch of SMB using mainly tubes and 3" jigs. Sorry for not recording my catch but I was unable to download the data sheet on my PC. We'll be back!

Trolled a few hours around the back of halls creek and caught stripers, a walleye and a crappie. Speed was about 4 mph and almost all the fish were caught on a white hot-n-tot, the crappie was taken on a med-small white spoon plug. Most fish were caught using a led core line setup at about 25-35 feet down.

I recently Rented a House Boat at Bullfrog Marina and headed north. We stayed a few days at Smith Fork canyon. The 8th was probably the coldest, a cold front had just come through, but it warmed up quickly. By the 9th the water was great. Me & the kids went swimming, exploring, and even a bit of fishing off the back of the house boat. We caught quite a few Channel cats and stripers using anchovies. I'm sending a picture of my youngest and the Channel Cat he caught. We all had a ball & wished we could have stayed longer. Fishing was best in early morning and late evening. Fished off the bottom in the bay in approx. 20' to 30' of water

Just returned from Bullfrog. We fished the Mokai wall 3 mornings, no luck. We found the stripers in the middle of Bullfrog Bay. We headed toward the back of the bay and started fishing when the left bank was all sand, in 60' of water drifting anchovies down 20 to 30 ft. I caught several walleyes with crank baits suspended at 35' in 60 foot deep water. The camp ground at Bullfrog is closed until June 1st.

We spent 6 days (May 9-15) working waters between Tapestry Wall and Good Hope. Initially the water was about 62 degrees, but it warmed to 68 or higher by the end of the trip. Got a few walleye and zillions of smallmouths. Those little guys were hitting virtually every cast on tube worms, and even on missed strikes, they'd hit again and again until hooked. They were everywhere in the rocks, in the shadows, next to the shore and down to about 15 feet. We scoped really hard for stripers everywhere, along channel cliffs, at points, in the backs of canyons, along rockslides, under overhangs, checking all of our old secret spots, but only found two piles of them, yielding about 25 fish. All were healthy, save one skinny little guy. Our guess is that they haven't come back to this area yet from wherever they hide during the winter, but another week or two of warm weather should fix that situation.

May 6 - May 13th

We beached our houseboat in the west fork of Moki Canyon for 3 days. We fished Moki Wall and main channel around the islands. On the second day we finally got the wall to payoff with stripers on anchovies. All stripers were healthy and 2-3 lbs. One 5 lb catfish had to be happy we stopped it from eating... it was stuffed with anchovy’s... biggest belly I ever saw. We caught mostly feisty little smallmouth in the stickups at the end of the west fork. There was a lot of fish being caught at the entrance to Hall’s Creek Bay on the west wall right next to the main channel. They seemed to be smaller than Moki.

The wind blew hard for about 36 hours (30-40 kts max) which made sleeping and fishing kind of difficult, even though we had 5 anchors out.

On the 10th we cruised all the way to Ribbon Canyon. We caught mostly smallmouth in the canyon. Fished the west wall of the Escalante River, right at the mouth of the river. There was a huge school of stripers there. When the sun hit the wall we went to the very end of Indian Creek Canyon and found a school of willing striper. I am sure that I caught the biggest one, but I will never know for sure as my knot tying ability was not equal to the task.

Then the wind came back. It seemed to be 90 degrees to the houseboat (that seems to be the way it always is) with gusts close to 50 knots. We again had 5 anchors out (3 on the upwind side) and one slipped right under a huge boulder. We played lots of dominos and cards and I managed to get to know my daughter’s long haired boyfriend. The wind finally died down for a day and we put one of the upwind anchors on the bow. That night the wind kicked up out of the other direction and a thunderstorm went over us. I slept through it, Dave didn't.

We used 3/16th or 1/4 oz lead head jigs with about an inch of frozen anchovy and chummed with 1/4 to 1 inch anchovy chunks. Many thanks to the person who suggested the cut in the stripers gills to bleed the fish. That made for a nice clean filet.

Wayne this is the results of an afternoon at the mouth of the Escalante and Indian Creek Canyon. Caught on anchovys. Biggest was 2 lbs 12 oz. Your website is great. It taught a Speckled Trout / Redfish maniac how to catch striper. Many thanks.

My 10 year old son and I spent 4 fantastic days in the upper San Juan over the weekend. I usually avoid the holiday weekends due to the crowds but I finally have a boat with the range to get me to the San Juan and back.

Drove through SNOW up Spanish Fork canyon Thursday night on the way down. Launched from Bullfrog at 5:00 am Friday. Believe it or not, we did not see even one other boat underway for 80 miles from Bullfrog to Zahn Bay. That run alone made the whole trip worthwhile. The water was like glass for 2+ hours. Weather was great. Water temp 62-64 in the main channel and up to near 70 in protected coves in the afternoons. Stained water starts just south of Zahn Bay.

Friday: SMB are everywhere along the main channel with a few LMB. Caught around 30 smb and 10lmb mostly on senko's and grubs. Decided to troll crankbaits in Zahn bay and hit the motherload. Many times had 2 on at a time. Most stripers were very healthy around 20 inches with a few smaller around 12-14". Also caught 4 nice walleye. Deep Thunderstick, Wallydivers, and Shad Raps all worked flat line with no extra weight.

Saturday: SMB and LMB again in the am in the main channel. Caught one nice 17" smb on a topwater Sammy. Best LMB only 16", most on senko's and 4" grubs on 1/8 oz. heads. Largemouth were very predictable on cracks in the steep cliff walls. You could throw an unweighted senko to nearly every good crack and get a fish. Most were 10-14", with a few nicer ones. Went back to troll in Zahn bay in the afternoon. The stripers were still there, especially on the north shore just south of Donkey Island where the depth was around 25 to 35 feet and there was a pretty good algae bloom. We caught 5 more nice walleye and a huge crappie also on the same crankbaits.

Saturday afternoon the two Wildlife officers from Bullfrog stopped to check us. I must say they were true gentlemen. I know better but I had left my wallet with my license in the tent when I had changed clothes and they let me go back and get it instead of giving me a ticket on the spot. I could not have asked to be treated any better, They were very professional and respectful and I can not begin to tell you how much I appreciate it.

Sunday: Same as Saturday. Main channel in the morning and evening for smb and lmb. Trolling for stripers and walleye mid day.

Monday: Didn't fish.Got up early, packed up, went to Dangling Rope and Rainbow Bridge with the crowds and headed back to Bullfrog and home.

I didn't keep track of the numbers but I'm sure we caught at least 100 smb, maybe 50 lmb, 20 walleye, 1 crappie, 20 bluegill, and 100+ stripers in three days of fishing. Kept a limit of walleye and a limit of smb, no stripers, no room in the coolers and not enough ice.

Hite

Smallmouth action excellent. Walleye being caught north of Good Hope in Main channel trolling early mornings. Stripers in White Canyon with lots being caught around Island just into right fork. Also the sand bars and Island near Castle Butte north of Red Canyon

Bullfrog

Stripers being caught at the mouth of Lake Canyon and just across the bay from the Bullfrog ramp. Smallmouth fishing excellent.

Launched out of Bullfrog Saturday afternoon and headed up lake to Good Hope area. Found smallmouths on main lake points and inside turns. Most of them were less than 11 inches. Caught them on smoke pepper tube and Foxee jig. Wind pick up late in the afternoon, so I fished the windy side of the points for walleye. Caught 3 average size walleyes on the Foxee jig tipped with a piece of worm. Also caught a nice size catfish while walleye fishing. I tried night fishing for stripers, but the action was very slow. Sunday morning I found stripers and smallmouths herding shad up and down the bank. Rigged with a Zara Puppy I managed to catch 4 stripers and 3 smallies. Stripers were 18-19 inches and healthy. After that action died I resumed my search for walleyes. Sticking with main lake points and inside turns I landed 5 more walleyes. I also stumbled across sunfish preparing beds. I caught 3 and kept 2 for eating. All other fish were released with the exception of 4 walleyes and 2 stripers.

We spent six days up around Tapestry Wall, fishing everywhere from Knowles Canyon up to Red Canyon. Having fished up in that area for many years, usually catching loads of stripers, I was surprised to find practically no stripers anywhere in that region. We had two boats, both with tried and trusty sonars, and worked probably 40 secret spots plus most everything in between. We hit points, flats, backs of canyons, coves, cliffs on the main channel, rockslides, and everything else, in both mornings and evenings. In all, we could only find three little bunches. This is the second time in the last few weeks this has happened in that area. Since we pretty much have the hang of striper slaying, I'm sure wondering where those rascals are. For some reason, it looks like they have not returned to the mid-lake region in the numbers we've seen in the past. In fact, it looks like maybe they haven't returned at all. I'm curious if you have any theory about this. Or, maybe it was just us. I can understanding maybe not catching them, but I can't figure out why we couldn't even find them.

Beyond that, we caught and released several hundred smallmouths, none of which exceeded 10 inches. Those little buggers seemed to be absolutely everywhere. I'm wondering if they somehow might be affecting the striper situation.

Just got back from the Hall's area. Striper fishing remained slow for us there, but we did find a couple of small piles, more or less across from Hansen against the walls. On Sunday morning, in the fingers just before Moki, there was actually an adult-sized boil for about an hour, well out into the lake probably 200 yards or more offshore. That was the first good one I have seen in that neighborhood in years. Aside from that, we scoped all kinds of likely and unlikely places but rarely got even a single return. The area we checked was from Tapestry down to Lake Canyon. There seemed to be more north of Halls, but not anything like it has been in previous years. Unlike previous years, we have yet to hook a snaky-striper. The ones we are getting are plump and healthy. We did catch and release lots of channel csmallmouth, no largemouth.

We just got back from Halls Crossing, and two of our friends caught a few stripers at night at the Halls marina breakwater. We also had pretty good luck at the point and canyon right across the lake from Moki. We also saw a few small boils in the same location. Trolling later in the evening a smaller Olive Green plug produced 8 really nice stripers all in the same location along the North canyon wall across from Moki. We let out about 150’ of line and no weight, just the diving action of the plugs.

Thanks to you we had an OK trip. Keep up the good work, and thanks.

Hello Wayne, here is my post for Angler's Corner. This is the first time I have contributed so I hope I am doing it right.

Waynes note: Not bad for a first report.

We arrived at Bullfrog about noon Sunday 7/28 and stayed until Thursday afternoon 8/1. This was our yearly 'family trip' to LP, so the first priority was family fun (swimming, tubing, snorkeling, etc.) and fishing was right behind that. I make several trips a year without them on serious fishing missions so I can live with those priorities once a year. Although my family likes to fish, they aren't obsessed with it like I am.

We stayed at the Defiance House Lodge, as we always do. It's a nice place, a little pricey for me, but it's the only game in town at Bullfrog so take it or leave it. My family are city folks, they need creature comforts like air conditioning, TV, restaurant, shower, etc. so it's the best way to go for us. It was a great trip as always, if you have already seen my posts on the bulletin board you know about the striper fishing. I will try to describe the patterns I found to be effective in the Bullfrog area. I don't keep track of how many fish I catch, I work with numbers a lot with my job so I don't take that out in the boat with me. I have three fish tally measurements: skunked, a fish every now and then, or lots of fish. The area I frequent is from Bullfrog, down to Lake Canyon, up to Forgotten Canyon, and everything in between. I can usually find what I'm looking for somewhere in there.

Stripers: I didn't see any boils anywhere in the area until the morning of Tuesday 7/30, but we'll get to that in a minute. I graphed many fish along the shaded main channel walls, fish were 45 - 90 feet deep with the bottom depth at 100 - 200+ feet. They were mildly interested in anchovies, very close to the shady walls with lots of chumming produced fish now and then but it was hard to get them really fired up. The first morning, I was fishing anchovies on the wall just north of the Moqui canyon entrance, and a funny thing happened. I would hear an occasional slap on the water, and a slurping, kissing sound. But I looked all around and could see no disturbance on the water. It was dead calm so I should have been able to see them, I thought. It was driving me nuts. I heard it again several times, and finally I saw the situation: stripers were cramming shad up against the wall and eating them right off the wall, like carp eating moss. It is very subtle, you would drive right by it and never see it. You have to just stop and listen for it. I tossed a super spook jr. at them and they would boil under it but wouldn't take it as well as they should. I then tried a 3 inch sassy shad on a silver jighead and they hit that just fine. Just use the trolling motor to follow them up and down the wall, pitch the jig against the wall, and hang on. I called these guys 'wallbangers'. This lasted from sunup until 10:00 am or so. Caught LOTS of fish doing this. It was really fun fishing because it was new to me.

Then, on Wednesday and Thursday morning, I hit the striper jackpot. Starting at mile marker buoy 95A, all the way up to marker 99, all along the Moqui wall stretch, it was solid striper boils from one side of the lake to the other. I would arrive at marker 95A at 5:30, just light enough to see, and there would be single fish working the surface here and there in the little coves. Throw a spook jr. at the most recent boil and it was good for a fish. Then after 6:00 or so, the whole main channel just exploded as far as I could see uplake to mile marker 99. I used super spook jr's, with the hook barbs mashed down so I could get them unhooked and back out quickly. Usually I could just wiggle the lure around without even landing the fish and it would pop out. A 3-inch sassy shad with a silver jighead worked very well also, if you don't like casting plugs with treble hooks. This lasted until 9:00 am or whenever boat traffic got excessive. But hang around a while if they quit, they might start back up again. I have no idea how many we caught on the boils, probably would have swamped the boat if we kept them all.

Smallmouth: My favorite smallmouth places are all on dry land now so I had to start over on that. Found some good structure here and there and caught smallmouth readily on smoke/black flake Kalin grubs with silver jigheads. I first tried watermelon/black flake Yamamoto grubs which usually are the hot ticket for me but didn't get many fish. Little guys kept eating the tails off them so I went to the sturdier Kalin smoke color grubs after seeing a lot of shad and that worked well. Found a very consistent pattern which isn't easy to find because it isn't that common: look for rockpiles along the vertical main channel walls where a large section of solid rock broke off and fell into a pile of broken rocks. Add a little shade, east-facing walls in the evening and west-facing walls in the mornings, and you have great smallmouth fishing and beat the heat at the same time. These rockpiles aren't very common so when you find one it is usually loaded up with a lot of bass. Work the rockpile all the way from shallow to 30 feet deep or so and you can milk it for a couple of hours. Green Sunfish like these spots too, clear them out first and then you will get into the bass. One of these rockpiles can be found about a mile or two south of Halls Creek Bay on the east-facing main channel wall. It's pretty obvious. Once you get the picture you can find more channel rockpiles and they all had fish on them.

Catfish: we spend the heat of the day swimming, tubing, snorkeling, playing with the dog in the water, etc. The key here is to stay wet and cool. I just motor around looking for a little sand beach with some rocks around it so we have something interesting to look at besides just a sandy bottom. Many of these spots back in Halls Creek bay. Whenever we take a break from swimming, we usually see catfish prowling around for anything we might have stirred up on the bottom. Our bait might make you laugh but it really works. Just break out some Oscar Meyer hot dogs, pinch off a little piece, and toss it out on a slip sinker rig. If the catfish are aggressively feeding they will be on it like white on rice. We had a lot of fun with them, and caught lots of them even in the heat of the day IF we were on a beach that sloped off quickly into deep water. We like those beaches because we jump off the end of the pontoon boat into the water for fun. For night time cats the gentle sloping beaches are better. But go swimming just before you fish, and stir the bottom silt up real good, that seems to fire up the cats.

I hope this helps others find the fishing they like, and I thank Wayne and all the Wayne's Words regulars for all the great information on this website. I wouldn't be half the Lake Powell fisherman that I am without the information he and the visitors to the site provided over the years.

Arrived August 9th at Bullfrog and motored up to 4 Mile canyon and set camp just on shore from a huge striper school that was being fished heavily with anchovies and spoons to great success, it was on the left(as entering) of the island, we fished that night with my new Hydroglow, it attracted many shad(we drifted) and produced a 1/2 dozen stripers. My friend Ken was with me and he used his 6 weight fly rod off of the bow for smallmouth and it was a successful trip for him. Gary Foell was with me and had three other fisherman in his boat.

I searched for boils throughout Striper City that evening and never saw one(missed the one in the mouth of Farley by about a 1/4 mile). Total for Friday 14 stripers, 5 smallmouth. Saturday the 10th fished smb and lmb first 2-3 hrs and searched for boils to no avail. School in fourmile still being fished.

At noon we went to the biggest gathering of a SHAD RALLY that I was fortunate enough to attend, it was great to meet some new Lake Powell friends and see some old ones. At one point I counted 26 people there and know there were others. Continued to search for boils and went back and fished school in fourmile. Total 20 smb 5 bluegill 2 lmb 15 stripers.

Sunday fished for smb first 3-4 hrs and had a blast. Packed up headed back to Bullfrog area, camped across from Moki and proceeded to search for stripers between mm95 and mm99 to no avail, many historic striper boiling and school areas were barren. Early evening Total 30 smb 5 bluegill.

Monday on water at daylight searching and topwater for smb no success, went to Halls Crossing marina, at 9:30 A.M. on the way back up lake I spotted a small boil and managed to get one out of it, while there a small boil started in the buoy field. The boils were very boat shy and I tried a couple of different ways with coasting as far as you can with no engine noise producing the best results. As the day grew on so did the stripers boils, they kept getting bigger and moving more. At one time the water around our boat erupted. Total 4 smb 1 bluegill 16 stripers. The boils lasted in the area of 1-2 minutes, hard to reach and grew in size and intensity as the day grew, the last and biggest of the day occured around 2:30 P.M., sorry we had to leave.

Bullfrog,

Stripers boiling in the following locations: Hay Stacks near Stanton Creek

The buoy field at Halls just across from Stanton

The mouth of Lake Canyon

Bullfrog marina just inside tires early morning

Crappie cove large boils consistent in the morning until nine

We just returned from a trip to Hite and Bullfrog. Got to Hite late Sunday evening around 9:30 P. M. Caught 17 catfish from our campsite before going to bed at 11:30. Up early Monday morning could not find the stipers boiling anywhere. Caught 1 striper 1 smallie and 1 largemouth all in four mile canyon. Did not graph any large numbers of fish in Farley - White - Trachyte or around striper city (now that I know where it is). Did find lots of fish on the graph in the back of Two Mile and to the east and south of the island in Four Mile, from forty to sixty feet. Chummed and jigged till our arms hurt, no fish? That night chased small boils around the island in Four Mile canyon - caught 13 stripers - and a few small mouth. The stripers were taking the same baits as last time. My youngest son was catching his on a 4 inch pearl fliptail with black pepper flakes attached to a 3/8 ounce jig head. My oldest son was using his Yozuri 5" banana shaped flourescent white lure with the bright orange head. He has caught close to a hundred fish on this single lure in the last three trips, and I can not find another one exactly like it? I prefer a skitter pop or popping image in a shad shade with a tint of red. I don't catch as many, but they sure are fun to watch hit the top water baits.

Tuesday morning checked out all the spots heading down the lake ended up in Four mile again - caught 30 stripers - 7 smallies - 3 largemouth. All in and under boils. The fish were rising for brief boils and moving around quickly. It was hard to predict were they would move to next, and hard to keep up with. We would watch the birds and look for shad movement near the bank. Once we were sitting there wondering which way to move when the ravens that were circling landed on the bank within casting distance of us. Shortly afterwards the shad started erupting and jumping onto the bank, and right on que here came the stripers with a vengence. Tuesday morning was the best outing we had. Went back that evening to Four mile again, hit one small boil in the very end of what water you can get to. Caught a few off the boil and the rest casting jigs to the bank they had surfaced on, 13 stripers - a couple smallies. In the back of Four mile the canyon necks down to only about four feet wide and about one and a half feet deep and then widens back out and goes on for about another mile. Where it necks down it actually has a current that is flowing back into the canyon?

Wednesday morning looked everywhere again - ended back up in Four mile. Caught 13 stripers - 3 nice largemouth - 7 smallies. My oldest son had a 3 - 4 pound largemouth right at the boat when it jumped and flipped off. We released all the largemouth. After the morning topwater activity stopped we chummed and jigged again on the south side of the island after two hours of jigging I snagged a three pound cat that had about a pound of chum in him, and caught the trolling motor once. The trolling motor put up the better fight of the two, till it cut my line. I am going to have to go with someone sometime that is up on this jigging. On the way back to camp we stopped and fished in a shady wall south of the islands. I hooked onto a 12 pound carp that put up a heck of a fight, on my lightweight smallie rig using a small jig and 6 pound test line. That afternoon it was too windy to go out, so we fished for cats out of the back of the beached boat. It was so windy that you could barely get a line tossed out even with 1 ounce wieghts. I used the red meat that I cut out of the stripers fillets as bait. I do not no if this is legal or not, but it makes for great catfish bait. We caught over thirty in around two hours. Kept 17 - had 4 that would go three to four pounds each - all were over a pound. For some reason we were catching much larger cats than the average you catch from the bank? That evening when we were loading in the boat my oldest son hit his knee on a rod holder and poked a substantial hole in his knee that ended up requiring 11 stitches at the Bullfrog clinic. We decided to move to Bullfrog for our last night of camping and day of fishing.

Took a sight seeing tour into Lost Eden canyon. It was well worth the trip. There are some really spectacular alcoves and water caves at this water level. One must be over 200 feet back in. While cleaning the days catch I noticed that the largest striper which was 24 inches and around 4 1/2 pounds had 3 large crawfish - 3 small shad - and one shad that was 6 1/2 inches long. My son was amazed that the fish could eat another fish that size. I was amazed at the size of the shad. It was partially digested so I could not tell about colors or fins, but it was a big shad. Had a great time as always. Thanks for all the information.

Just got back from a weeklong houseboat trip. Smallmouth bass all over the place mostly caught on single tail grubs but caught a number on topwater stuff early in the morning. Found stripers in Reflection Canyon. Smaller ones on Zara Spooks, larger ones deeper on chovies. Top water action only lasted a half hour or so very early each morning.

Bullfrog

Stripers boiling just outside marina and in Crappie cove early morning. The back of Lake Canyon boils until afternoon. All of the boils seen were small with only a few fish caught, stripers on the move. Fish holding at the back of Lake canyon at 60 feet. Slow fishing with anchovies but they work.

San Juan

Boils at the back of San Juan before Spencer Camp. Boils and fish holding at the mouth of Neskani Wash. Smallmouth being caught at the tail end of boils with some to three pounds.

We (two boats, four fishermen and a nine-year-old girl)fished out of Bullfrog.

On the afternoon of 9/9 (5 stripers trolling in front of Haystacks, 38 catfish, 5 SMB, and 3 stripers on anchovies on back side of second haystack (headed south from Bullfrog boat ramp), 5 stripers in evening using anchovies and Walley Lures from large school located about 1/2 mile north of covered houseboat storage on the opposite (west) side of Bullfrog Bay.

9/10 started trolling the upper end of Bullfrog Bay north of the northern-most houseboat buoy field. Found lots of stripers and shad, but only a few takers until 9:00, then WHAM we hooked up all three rods in our boat on stripers. As we stopped the boat to retrieve our fish, a boil started all around us, but it stopped by the time we were able to reel in our fish and switch to topwaters. Our friends caught 2 stripers on topwaters during the boil, then it ended as abruptly as it had started.

We spent the rest of the day with little success finding or catching anything, even the catfish had gone dead. At 4:00, our boats separated and the others ended up catching 16 good sized stripers trolling in about 30 feet of water in front of the haystacks.

At 6:00, our boat went back to the site of the morning boil and by 6:10 we and 3 other boats (unfortunately not our friends) were in the middle of a monster, moveable boil that lasted about an hour, and continued even as the water got rough and thunder and lightning and rain threatened. the three of us in my boat caught 43 stripers (from 2-6 pounds with the average running 3+).

This was my first "real" boil and without a doubt it was the second most exciting thing I have ever experienced, and the first was on my wedding night!!

The stripers were very healthy and fought like they were hopped up on meth or speed or steroids. What a blast!!

9/11 the fishing was lousy (1 striper trolling, no sign of any boils) with threatening weather, so we bagged it about 11:00 and headed home. Total for the trip was 46 catfish, 5 smb, 1 lmb, and 78 stripers.

None of the other fishermen we talked to had any striper success anywhere except Bullfrog Bay. Sorry I can't contribute any information up or down lake from Bullfrog.

Thanks so much to all on the Wayne's Words BB for your advice and location pointers. Thanks to Dave Wallace for his Walley Lures--they really work and have a short learning curve. Thanks to Wayne for his suggestion to try Bullfrog over Hite, and for his tip to try a Lucky Craft Sammy (it really works well and is easier to walk than a Zara Spook).

We set up the 9-year old with a closed face reel, a 6-foot graphite pistol grip rod, 10# line and a new "Wildeye" jig by Storm in "Blue Shad" color. She caught 8 stripers by herself during the boil with this setup. but the soft bodied jig was totally trashed--small price to pay for a happy 9-year old. She is my friend's youngest and I think she is hooked for life. She also caught 8 catfish and a striper on her 9th birthday which was 9/9. What a way to become a striper fisher "person"?

Sorry for being so wordy, but I am still on a boiling striper high!!

My partner and I fished the 13th and 14th out of Bullfrog. Friday (13th) started slow, we hadn't been down since June and some of our spots for LMB were out of the water. We headed back towards the green water near the launch ramp and as we stopped to check a few spots on the west side of the houseboats a boil stared. We managed to catch 4 stripers on Sammy's and spinnerbaits before the boil quickly ended. The whole thing only lasted about 3 minutes but even though we have been to the lake over a dozen times this was our first boil. A totally unforgettable experience!!

The SMB and LMB fishing however was slow, the lake had a ton of stained water from the rains and we just had trouble getting bit in the off-colored water. Saturday we ran to Moki and fished some trees in the back where we've seen LMB before. There were shad seen near the banks and despite over an hour of working Sammy's, spinnerbaits, and poppers, we couldn't get a bite. We made the long run up to Good Hope and found more of the same: a few shad, some fish breaking the surface but I only had one little SMB hit my Sammy without getting hooked. We moved further up Good Hope to Red Canyon, my partner hooked a striper on a spinner bait and as we unhooked it the cove around up started to boil and swirl. We were treated to another, longer boil. This time we managed 20-30 fish before it subsided.

We decided to fish around the edges of the small bay as you enter Red Canyon and started catching a few SMB. It seemed they were a little more active after the boil and any shad imitating jerkbait or soft plastic would produce the occasional SMB. I did catch a 15" Smallie, which is one the better SMB I've caught this year at Powell. Overall we had a blast fishing the boils and can't wait until the 24th when we are headed back.

Arrived Fri the 18th to mudslides that filled parking lots(Utah t.v. stations reported 1.15" in 30 min, at Bullfrog)and deposited more trash and logs and cactus and etc. into the lake then I have ever seen since 1988 when I first started going to the lake. Did catch a smallmouth on topwater right off the back of the houseboat in small canyon directly across from sevenmile, the lake was as crowded as we have ever seen in September. Did not fish till Sunday morning and it took me an hour to find the stripers in Sevenmile just into the first canyon to the right as you enter, from the point back to about 50' of water. Most were holding in 80' but moved frequently, went back and got my late sleeping daughter, roused Gary and returned to fishing. We pulled out about 15 that morning. That evening we witnessed a boil and pulled out about another ten in the same place. Next day marked some more stripers in the back of Warm Springs while eating lunch between wakeboarding,skiing and kneeboarding. went back and drifted through school for a couple.

Tuesday we managed to get into the stripers for a while in sevenmile and had a small sunrise boil around the boat. The last morning I took my son,his friend and my daughter and went back to sevenmile and pulled out another 15. Total for trip on my boat 54 stripers, 8 smallmouth and one sunfish. The debris was tremendous so be careful boating or pulling someone behind your boat. Jigs used were wallylures and a special jig from Howard. Topwater success was on a rebel pop'r. Thanks again for the tip on the sevenmile area.

Arrived at Bullfrog and launched at about 4:00 PM. on the 17th. Wind started picking up and no boils seen in the upper portion of BF Bay. Winds increased and T-Storms hit around Dusk and continued well into the night. Next morning I headed up lake to Red Canyon. Winds picked up again. Set up camp in a cove on the north shore at the mouth of Red Canyon. This was my first time fishing in this area, and I spent most of the afternoon exploring the area and graphing for shad and Stripers. Winds and clouds continued off and on for the rest of the day, no boils spotted. Wed. morning wind still up and Cloudy. No boils observed in Red, Blue Notch or Ticaboo. Fished from 7:00am till 11:00am without success.

Wed. afternoon around 4:00 pm. I saw what appeared to be 2 stripers jump in the cove where I was camped. I caught 2 on a Sammy, and then all top water action ended. While I was reeling in the second striper and it was about 6 feet from the boat, another striper came up next to it and hooked itself on the front hook. I had both on for a few seconds then one twisted itself off. I switched to Wally lures and caught 12 more. At 5:30 the wind got worse and I quit for the day.

Weather finally started improving Thurs. morning. At 6:50 am. I spotted scattered fish jumping but no organized boils. I caught 23 Stripers on Wally lures and 4 SMB on a modified Spook. Fishing was slow but steady. The bite finally shut down at about 11:00am. That evening still no boils to be found. I caught 9 Stripers on Wally lures but the fishing was very slow.

The next morning, I brought in 5 more Stripers, but again it was very slow fishing and no boils. The moon was full now and the water temp. Varied from a high of 73.2 to a low of 70.9. Fri. afternoon was the nicest weather so far this week, the wind and clouds were gone and the sky was finally clear. I caught 4 more Stripers and then left for Bullfrog.

All the Stripers were caught in the same area. As you enter Red Canyon, there is an island in the middle of the channel that runs perpendicular to the entrance. It vaguely looks like a smaller version of Battleship rock in White Canyon. The Island does not appear on the Lake map found in Lake Powell Magazine because it is completely underwater at full pool. The stripers were all caught in an area between what would be the bow of the ship shaped Island and the cove that the bow points to.

In all the total was 55 Stripers and 4 SMB. I think the combination of the bad weather and full moon made for the slow fishing.

Halls Creek 10/3-7

My partner and I left Farmington early Thursday morning for Hite to head off for a 5 day camp and fish in Red Canyon trip. We had been working on this trip for about 7 months, planning, asking questions on the BB, gathering info, getting vacation time, etc. Well, after fighting the white stuff coming out of the sky, we made it to Hite about 11:00. It was raining off and on, we got to looking at the mud, the clouds, etc., we decided to head to Halls to see what the weather might be like a little farther south. We had flurries from about Fry Canyon over to the county road turnoff into Red Canyon and the weather started breaking. Being the true die hards we are, we got a trailer rental that night at Halls.

Thursday pm we fished in Halls and the mouth of Bullfrog and found us a good camp site. We caught 2 LMB and 6 SMB that afternoon. Both LMB and 3 of the 6 SMB were about 14". The other 3 SMB were about 10" and we kept them for a future fish fry. We used 4" tubes, smoke, white, puke, were the most successful.

Friday we were off early to set up camp. Checked a few places around Halls and Bullfrog but no luck in the morning. About 2 in the afternoon, we got tired of fighting the chop in the main channel from the boating traffic and headed for the shoreline south of the houseboats at Halls. Fishing got good for about 3 hours. We caught the largest bass of the trip that day and ended up catching 4 LMB and 18 SMB. It was hard but we turned back all the bass over 12 inches. We only kept 4 SMB that were 9-11 size class. Again we used tubes, same colors as before. We caught about a 1/3rd right next to the bank, but the rest we caught as we dragged them behind the boat as we reeled in slowly. This was deeper water and held more bass.

Saturday was fish early morning and go check out new country. Went into Iceberg Canyon. Caught 4 small SMB for the frying pan dragging tubes, this time in watermelon with red/green flake. Saturday night dinner was interrupted by catfish. We ended up with 6 during dinner. Sunday we caught 2 LMB and 9 SMB. It was slower fishing for us that day. We did not come across any striper boils, did see some shad boils but only caught a couple of bass from them. From the fish we cleaned and those we could tell that we released, it looks like they we all eating crawdads pretty heavy. Green in color with a little orange. The crawdads were small also, maybe about 2 inches in size. Maybe next year we'll make Red Canyon. Weather was great Friday to Sunday. I think the storm that came through on Thursday slowed 'em down for a few days.

I just returned from four days on the lake. Figured Knowles would be great with a lot of stupid fish after being closed so I tried first but found it extremely slow, lots of algae streaks in the water.

Moved to Forgotten and saw a lot of shad schools but no boils. Middle of the day was non-productive. On warm mornings we caught a lot of smallies on rapala's top water, some to 13". Topwater action quit at 9-9:30. Found Smallies and Stripers at dusk by trolling mid canyon especially off smooth deep points. Hardly caught a fish on broken rock banks or points? No fish caught in the back canyons where water turned green. Largest Striper about 5 pounds. Plenty of three-four pounders. These were the healthiest Stripers I've seen in years. Strong and fat with bellies like a largemouth. Shad Raps worked well, but a deep diving Bagley that got a little deeper seemed to be the trick. We had four fish on at once, lost one and ended up landing a triple header of smallies. Needless to say my guests from Indiana and Virginia had a great time.

This was a last-minute low-budget trip, work has been tough lately and I haven't been able to get away for any length of time. Then on Friday morning 10/18, the planets all lined up right and suddenly I had a few days free to go fishing. I called my buddies but no one could get away on that short notice, so I decided to go by myself. I was so stressed out I just wanted to get out of the big city and enjoy what was forecast to be some great weather. So I gathered up basic camping stuff, hitched up the boat and blew out of Denver at 2:00 pm 10/18. On the way, I reconciled that the full moon probably would not help the fishing any but I would not let that deter me. This was going to be primarily a smallmouth mission, I have had a great 2002 season with str