Hot wheels filled a 128 qt chest in a morning at Good Hope Bay two days ago, two anglers. He may have returned there this AM, did not see him.

Topwater, the spook outfished the Storm swim bait. The swim bait that did well was the mid size wild eyes I think they are called. One angler told me to buy them with the small treble hook on the belly and cut it off. Due to the casting the plastic holds much better.

The larger one I used was white, I painted a red line down it's sides, it helped. Also had striper style, also painted the red line down it, Denn did pretty good with that. But still spooks were the best.

Spooks, You can pull the front hook off, put on a feathered oversized tail hook. Add a split ring at all hooks.

These boils are what I call finicky boils. If the fish are on top they will hit the spook quite dependable. Oh one could use a Sammy or really almost any top water bait. Once they sound it's like they have left the area at high speed! The swim baits worked also, but still best when the fury was still on top.

Get a feel for the direction the school is running, once they sound put it in gear and run the general direction, soon you get a feel for direction and when they will surface again. The Dorsets and I had a boat on each side of a boil for a mile or so. We were both very close each time they surfaced. Though we did do our share of run and gun, when get onto the mood of a group of fish, we had many times NO running at all, just kept idling in the direction, they came up right between our boats!

Sunday, Oct 30 - since we were going to be based in Blue Notch I decided to drive past Hite then in to Blue Notch to meet Joel the first afternoon. stopped at a very nice overlook to take pictures of North Wash – if you look closely you can find a road that goes several hundred yards into upper North Wash for an outstanding view. also stopped at the raft takeout – the “ramp” is very steep and I considered it unusable, then I found out it has been in use all year - more later. helped out some rafters who mistakenly parked their vehicles at the bathroom in Farley –followed the “Lake Powell Access” sign… - if not for me they in for a really long walk…

Hite – NPS bathrooms are open 24/7. the store was open 8-5 every day, but starting Nov 1 it is now open only from 11-2. gas and diesel pumps are 24 hour with a credit card. the store has only one aisle and very little on the shelves, don’t count on finding anything you might need. talked to a guy in the store. someone had launched a houseboat this summer from the raft takeout, parked it in North Wash, then launched his 19’ bass boat from the raft takeout every other weekend all year long. many others were launching from the raft takeout all year – 4WD is a very highly recommended. looked at the last ramp area at the south end of Hite – you can see the tires stuck in the mud - it’s all silted in and will not be accessible for a long time. then I went to look at the concrete ramp. bathroom at the top was open. NPS has been grading from the end of the concrete all the way to the river – guy at the store said they would lay gravel below the concrete. the ramp is now less than 5’ above the current lake level. when the lake goes up another 10’, WE WILL BE LAUNCHING AT HITE!!! I expect to be there all next year.

Blue Notch/Red Canyon – drove the road from Highway 95 to Blue Notch. I now have a very nice GPS track of the road and various access points in Blue Notch and Red Canyon. total distance to the water was 14.5 miles, total time was 65 minutes – note: I move pretty quickly on back roads. the road has been recently graded and was in excellent shape. some sections in the washes had been roughed up by recent rains, only one small section required any thought. the 4WD hill is as I remembered – steep, rough and no place for a trailer. the grading continues past the 4WD hill –the access to Red Canyon may have been gouged out by a grader. after the 4WD hill you travel on the back of a hill and over some washes. when the area opens up you find a fork – left fork goes to Red Canyon (you can see the road halfway up a hill), right fork goes to Blue Notch. both currently allow vehicle access to the water – Red Canyon side is a little better access but very exposed to wind and waves, Blue Notch side is more protected but in a shallow cove. the Red Canyon side requires 4WD to get to the water - actually 2WD to get to the water but then you’ll never get back out… there are 3 forks on the Red Canyon road – after driving a long left turn around the hill, 1) the first right fork goes to a level area far above the water, 2) the first left then the next right takes you to a high point and continuing right takes you to the water, 3) the first left then the second left takes you to a high flat rocky point with difficult climbing to the water. there are 2 forks on the Blue Notch road, 1) the right fork goes down to the current end of Blue Notch where you can get to the water, 2) the left fork may go out onto a point between Blue Notch and Red Canyon which may get near the water, I only looked and did not travel.

Tuesday, Nov 1 – BOILS! after talking to Murray decided to go look see at Striper City, White, etc. talked to some guys who came down looking for boils. they also reported massive bird activity waiting for boils near the south end of Hite. their friend had fished massive boils each afternoon on UEA weekend, Oct 21-23, which was not quite 2 weeks ago. these boils were reported at the point where the water first changes color on the way to Hite, near the first cuts on the left traveling from Hite, just downlake from where buoy 136 used to be. these boils would start at about 3:00 pm each afternoon. we motored up to the “island” just past the south end of Hite and found 19 pelicans feeding in the river on what we figured was shad. AND, we found 16 herons all along the shore. I have occasionally seen one, and rarely two, herons on Powell – they will appear just before a boil and sometimes wait for one to happen. 16 in one place is beyond belief. but, it was a bust – nothing happened all afternoon. near dark we went out to anchor for the night.

Wednesday, Nov 2 – the next morning we went back to the island near Hite. this time the pelicans were asleep on shore. but the herons continued to amaze – at least 8 herons were perched at various points on the rocky point above the river – and several more were on the ground. again, nothing happened… so we spent the morning poking around Farley, White, Striper City. in White we met the guys who talked of the boils. while we were up by Hite, they were chasing boils for 2 hours on Tuesday afternoon! well, now we gonna have to stay for this afternoon… at 3:05 pm we’re floating across from the second notch on the left traveling from Hite and we see their boat go racing across the channel. when we joined them we found an open water boil heading uplake. this boil actually spilled into the cut where we caught several up to 4.5 lbs. after returning to the channel we ran to a boil near the middle when the whole place erupted! we had fish boiling over half the channel, so loud you had to yell to be heard, talk about boil fever!!! this went on for 15+ minutes and half a dozen fish. boils came up several more times and finally quit promptly at 5:00 pm. we anchored for the night in the channel where the fish had boiled, brought in shad top to bottom, and caught…nothing – where do stripers go at night???

Thursday, Nov 3 – returned to Red Canyon to restock and invite our friends to the festivities. on returning to boil central we found the river had come up and very dirty water almost to Farley. we checked the bird island near Hite and found all the fowl had fled, apparently their patience had run out. the wind came up in the afternoon, and combined with the dirty water, at 3:00 pm nothing happened. at 4:00 pm we all headed back south. those boils have been happening for 2 weeks and will probably continue -
if you’re in that area, be sure to take time out from 3:00 – 4:00 pm to sit in the channel and watch for boils.

Friday, Nov 4 – the wind was up, the barometer was down - the shad and stripers headed for deep water, 75’+. with the wind it was very difficult to find and spoon the stripers. got to see one of the smallies our friends had been hauling in. at 25-30’ deep, fishing very slow, they had been catching 1.5 – 2.5 lb smallies all week long. these are fine, fat, fighting fish – I can’t wait to focus on the bass next year!

I kept trolling north would get no bites until I hit more shad on the graph, So I decided to just sit on a shad ball and jig with spoons. This worked, I caught about 20 fish about 4-6lbs before 3pm. Some boils began on the west bank, but 3 other boats were on them and I didn’t want to get too close. I decided to get an early start cleaning fish at camp. Night temps got down to about 30F, the Full Moon almost blinded me when it rose over the cliffs. I sat next to the fire, drank 12, and enjoyed the solitude, slept.

Thurs was incredible! 9am I began trolling north of Farley’s on the East bank again, just put the lines out when I saw the Birds diving about 500 yards upstream. I reeled in the trollers as fast as I could, stashed them and broke out my 8wt Fly rod which has been seeing way to little use lately. The schools were incredible. On the point of the first cut upstream from Farleys the stripers were herding the shad up against the wall. The shad were landing on the rocks. My first cast with a clouser minnow produced an instant hookup. Fish went about 5lbs. My fluoro leader is 12lbs, so I just pulled them into the boat without a net.

Arrived at Farley's and started trolling upstream from Farleys on the west wall at about 3:00 pm. Quickly put some 2 lbers in the boat then got some nice ones too - up to 6 pounds. Very few other boats, saw one truck and tent trailer in Blue Notch on the way up and only 2 other boats in our area on Fri. The fish we caught we're all healthy, strong and a lot of fun to catch.

Set up for night fishing, attracted lots of phytoplankton, but no shad. Real interesting considering the bay where we anchored was full of shad. Maybe there's plenty of phytoplankton to go around. We quit and beached the boat in anticipation of the storm that was supposed to hit that night.

Sat - woke up before daybreak and got out fishing early. This time we concentrated on the east shore upstream from Farleys, spent some time in Farleys, and went north almost to the mud line. Really did well this day, nice fat fish, we ended up with about 30 - 2 coolers full. The wind came up strong, out of the north and we had a hard time trolling into it, but did well drift fishing/trolling south along the east shoreline again. Despite the cold and wind, it was a great day. I'm sure the storm shut them down some, but it was great anyway. Didn't night fish - we had a lot of filleting to do.

Sun - again got at it at daybreak, caught about 6 or 7 quick ones on the east shoreline again. It was significantly colder air temp. Had to be back home that day, so we tried Good Hope Bay on the way back. Trolled around the east side, saw very little on the graph. Buzzed down to Bullfrog to try and raise Rich Bailey or Chet Garling who were there earlier but I think we missed them. Took one trolling pass in the back of Bullfrog and came up with zip, zilch, nada there.

Water temps dropped to 56 while we were there. The kids who live there year around confirmed crappie and stripers can be caught from the houseboat slips.

The fish cleaning station is closed, so those fish we caught on Sun we filleted at Hobie Cat Beach, cleaned our mess up very carefully including putting carcasses in the dumpster just be be safe and left.

Never saw one school big enough to anchor over and try to spoon.