April 18, 2006
By Wayne Gustaveson
Lake Elevation: 3589
Water Temp: 55-64 F

BASS SPAWN BEGINS!

The report is early so you can take advantage of ideal fishing conditions this week.  A few bass began spawning April 14^th before a cold front chased them off the nest.  Most bass will spawn during calm weather from April 18-22.  Expect bass fishing to be at its peak from April 18-28.  Lake Powell is still very clear so nesting bass can be easily seen with polarized sun glasses. Find a bass nest and toss a slowly sinking plastic jerk bait (Senko or fluke) or small suspending crankbait over the nest.  Aggressive male bass attack everything near the nest for the first two days after spawning.   Catching male bass is easy.  Please return nesting male bass so they can protect the eggs and young.  Keep the females caught near the nest if a fish dinner is desired. Long casts are preferred since fish can see boaters just as clearly as they are seen. 

Crappie fishing is peaking and will be better than it has been for a decade. Find a brushy cove with sunken tumbleweeds, tamarisk and cattails.  Crappie will make their nests right in the middle of the thickest brush. Drop a soft plastic grub straight down into openings between bushes. Jig it a few times to attract hiding crappie.  Retrieve the lure slowly near brush to find females not on the nest. An alternate method is to use a bobber to suspend the jig about 3-4 feet below the surface.  The jig then moves in a slow horizontal plane just above the brushy crappie lair. Return jet-black male crappie to protect the nest and young.  

Walleye have started to bite again following a successful spawn. They will be caught while fishing for bass and crappie.  If targeting walleye, add a live worm to the bass lure or troll wallydivers or hot-n-tots across points at 8-15 feet.  Walleye are light sensitive and are most readily caught at dawn and dusk.  Troll mud lines during daylight to find bonus walleye.

Striped bass are ever-present in the southern lake. The main channel from the dam to Navajo Canyon has a seemingly endless supply of 2-5 pound stripers.  The best spot is the wall from Antelope Point marina upstream to the mouth of Navajo Canyon.  The Power Plant intake current keeps attracting more stripers daily. Drift along the wall, chumming at each point, where stripers seem to stop.  Catch as many fish as possible and then drift to the next point and repeat as often as necessary.  Harvest all stripers caught in the southern lake as there are many more than the forage base can support.

Stripers are feeding with bass in the shallow brushy pockets in the backs of coves and cuts. Find tumbleweeds and stickups dense enough to hide forage fish and stripers will be close by. Use suspending crankbaits with a stop and go retrieve for best results.

The same patterns will work lakewide. Use fishing techniques that have worked successfully for you in the past.  Fishing with confidence will work anywhere on the lake this week.  If fish are not caught at the first spot, just keep moving until they are found.