January 8, 2006 - Marty Peterson
Made a quick day and a half trip to Bullfrog. Between the two of us we managed to catch six Stripers out of Halls Creek Bay about half way up in about 50' deep water. All about 5 pounds. Using anchovies deep with JP rigs fished slow with an electric motor.
 
Caught only Catfish and Crappies fishing Upper Bullfrog Bay. Tried spoons, jigs and rigs.

 
Five of the six Stripers were full of Shad. All very fat and healthy. The pictures are both of the same Striper. One angle with the fish held in front and up close to the camera. The other angle is with the fish held out to the side and behind a little. Thought it might be interesting to show how much difference that can make.
 
 
 
 
 

 

January 13, 2006 - Marty Peterson
Had the opportunity to nightfish Bullfrog Bay January 10th and 11th. Tuesday about sunset we arrived and set out our green lights. We are near the tire reef in an area 90 to 110 feet deep. Lots of plankton came to the lights. Water is somewhat murky meaning that we can see our bait, in the light, to about 5 or 10 feet or so down. Air temperature was in the upper 30’s with lightly gusting winds. Nearly full moon.

First we make a few casts toward the structure. I have one reel set up with 4 lb. test line (Yozuri Hybrid) for Crappie. It works. A 13.5 inch Crappie smacks the 1/16th ounce jig. Then Richard Snow who also made the trip catches one about the same size. Then he lands a couple of Bluegill! One big one. While waiting for full dark we catch a couple more Crappies.

Takes a good hour or so and finally a Striper bites. Not on my 8 lb. test, but on the 4 lb. with small jig tipped with anchovy. Breaks the line. I did not reset the drag after respooling with 4 lb. We laugh. Fish some more and soon another Striper. Lose this one at the surface trying to lip it in. So out comes the net ready for action. Then another hour goes by. We can see fish swim through on the graph. Perhaps Carp around 10 feet. But other marks at 30’-40’ and more near 90’. Lower the 4 lb. line again toward the 30-40. Bam! Land a 4.5 lb. Striper. With the help of a net.

Richard then picks up a couple of Stripers. 10 lb test and ¼ ounce jig with anchovy piece. One is 4.7 the other 5.1 lbs. We weighed, taped and photographed both. I will try to get him to submit to the contest. By 1:30 am when we leave, we have six Stripers to fillet, ice in the eyelets of the poles and the net is also freezing. Although the thermometer says 30 degrees on the water, the truck says 19 degrees at the top of the ramp, where a slight north breeze is coming in.

Wednesday we get done working around 4 PM and head back to the water. We set up in the same place hoping that the fish will start biting early with a little anchovy chumming and persistence. The wind is calm, temp over 40 and everything is beautiful. Except the catching. Nothing till about 6 PM after it is dark. Then one hits my lighter line again. I manage to break the line again. Should have retied I guess. It was too cold to do that last night, but no excuse now.

So many plankton come to the light that we have to keep poking our poles at the Carp that come to the light to eat the planktons. We are seeing lots of marks on the graph. Same depths. We keep getting light taps on our lines. Manage to connect with a few. I land 5 Stripers all fat and healthy, some spitting Shad. Are there shad circling the light down lower? I don’t know. All between 2 and 4 lbs. All on the 4 lb test line. Richard is having less success. Missed all his hits except one 3 lb. Catfish and one Striper. But finally starts fishing with his Crappie pole which is spooled with 4 lb. Fluro. He lands two more Stripers after changing to light line. And what a fight. Both are 90 feet deep or deeper. That was after I kept missing hits down deep.

Again we fished until 1:30 in the morning. Only got down to 35 degrees and so no ice. Hazy clouds did not really block the moon much. Great fillets on all but the Catfish which had fillets about the same size as a Crappie. Looking back, I think we should have brought smaller jigs with bigger hooks and spent more of our precious fishing time with lighter line. Perhaps we would have hooked more.

January 30, 2006 - Larry Millhouse

It was a dark and stormy night.....that ain't no lie! It was the first time I have ever been in a snowstorm at Lake Powell. Wed night Randy and I sat (hid from the weather) in a covered slip and heard thunder, then rain all around. It started around 6pm and about 8 the snow began for fall in big, wet flakes. We estimated about 3 inches on the ground. On the parking lots there was 2-inches of slush!

Oh, the fishing? Well, it was pretty decent. Fish started biting anchovies at 60 feet just before 6pm. Fat, fighting 4 pounders that really gave a battle and stripped line. The bite was different at different times. My first fish didn't pull the rod tip. I picked up the rod to jig it and there was something big on the other end! Other fish would tap-tap, some hit with a big yank. And then a few were big hits that hooked themselves. Three fourths of our fish were between 4 and 5 pounds. 

 

 
  Not a single one over 4-15. 23 Wed night in the snowstorm. Thurs night it got a lot colder and there were lots of stars. (You know how beautiful the sky is at night) The fish Thurs night were not quite as big, but seemed to fight a lot harder. We caught 14 (Thurs) under the slips. Randy trolled up a 4-8 with a Deep Thunderstick near the big rock north of the BF buoy field. That was the only one caught trolling.

 
So, 39 fish in two nights, 3 inches of snow, two coyote serenades, and no other boats on the lake. I'll send along pictures when we get back into the office Monday. Now I am off to the Marine Max/Sundance Open House to look at boats!

February 21, 2006 - Drew Cushing
This last weekend I went down to Lake Powell with a  couple of good friends from Colorado and had a great time.  We stayed at Stanton Creek and fished from Halls Creek Bay, north to Cedar Canyon.  We caught stripers pretty much everywhere we stopped to fish.  We caught some really nice stripers at night fishing with anchovies, chumming and fishing with a green light that was suspended about 8-feet down.  This was fun but the bite was very light and we (mostly me) missed lots of fish.  
We went up to Cedar Canyon the next afternoon and fished it and caught several smaller stripers (2-3 pound fish).  The fish up that way seemed really boat shy.  As a result you only got one chance to catch fish out of a school before they moved away.
We really did well at Halls Creek Bay, all the way back among the trees.  We tried to stay in the old river channel because it was just loaded up with nice stripers.  We caught about 40 fish between 10:00am-1:00pm.  We weighed a few and most of them weighed between 4-5 pounds with several that were between 6-8 pounds.  We trolled for these fish with Down Deep Husky Jerks, and deep running Bombers.  It seemed that if you got one fish to bite in a school the rest would become active and you could keep fishing that school and keep catching fish.  There were countless times that one of us would hook up and we would have several other bites or fish on other rods at the same time..

February 22, 2006 - Tim Bagley
Left Rifle Thursday for a "housebuilding, get the numbers out of my head" break/fishing trip. Looked up Hall's first thing in the same area we caught them last year at this time. Thankfully it had 30 more feet of water on it so we headed further back around the trees and found them in about 25' of water. 

 

 
Jointed mega baits worked the best but also caught them on silver shad raps. 20 in about an hour. All fat and about the same size, 5lbs. One large small mouth. This is the best time of the year to go. Warm and flat with the whole lake to yourself.

Trolling is the only way to get them to their max depth. It's hard to cast far enough to get them down. As soon as one would hook up the other bait was reeled in and usually we picked up the double. 

 I thought afterwards that we should have stopped and chummed and tried bait. It worked well years ago at Hite and might be easier around the trees.

February 23, 2006 - Tanner Peters
My name Tanner from Colorado Springs, We used to live in Blanding for about 2 yrs, mainly to go the the lake.  We visited the lake about a week ago and we found the spot for walleye.  It is to the right of the boat ramp of Halls Crossing, you know where the wall gradually gets taller and taller, it is right along that wall.  Use rubber worms or real worms and you will be getting some walleye in your cooler if the conditions are right.  We only caught them between 5 to 8:30am. 
 
We are going to make another trip in about 4 weeks and we are hoping to catch some fat stripers.  If you could tell me where stripers are going to be in about 4 weeks that would be really awsome and maybe what to use for bait.

 

 I caught a fat striper on a glowing rubber jig.

February 27, 2006 - Rich Sutterfield 

Arrived at Bullfrog Friday 2/24 at daybreak, another solo last minute trip. Launched and headed to Hansen Creek Canyon. While developing my game plan on the way out, I had decided on Hansen because it was open and sunny, it's a big canyon, and probably was holding stripers somewhere. I had planned to search the rest of the canyons up lake from there if that didn't work out.

I had just received a batch of Wallylures from Dave Wallace, so I was excited about showing those to some stripers. Although I had fished spoons before, I had always put off ordering some Wallylures. My mistake, boy have I been missing out.

So I cut back the motor to idle as I was arriving at the mouth of the canyon, and I saw the depth reading 32'. I knew it was deeper than that, did a double take on the sonar screen, and it was a school of stripers! Dropped down the wallylure, and it took about 10 seconds to catch my first fish on one. I went into the hurry-up offense, unhooked the fish and left it flopping on the floor, dropped the spoon back down, and got another. And another. And another. And then they moved on. I spent some time looking for them again, then decided to head on into the canyon and see what else I could find. But this spot, at the mouth of Hansen Creek, yielded stripers off and on for the next 3 days. There are some submerged humps and ridges right there. It's easy to find, just do a 100' circle around the Hansen Creek marker buoy and you'll see them. At times the fish were of the larger variety, 3-5 lbs, and other times it was smaller ones, 18" or so. All were real fat and healthy, even the smaller fish yielded nice filets. I caught fish from 30-60' deep, I tried to work on the shallower fish so they didn't get the benz from being dredged up from deep water, you get a better fight.

I motored slowly back into the canyon, and found a school of stripers not far back. This was what turned out to be the pattern I used the whole trip. When the canyon makes a sharp bend, it creates a point, like a peninsula. Where that point extends into the deep water, and intersects the 40-50' depth, that's where the fish were, always on a hump rising up from deep water. Not always on every point but that's where they would be if they were there. I kept heading back in the canyon, and repeating this success. There is also a gravel island about 3/4 mile back in the canyon, with humps around it that shallow up from real deep water up to around 40-50', same pattern. This was a very consistent spot. I would think the same success could be duplicated in other canyons as well when you find the same conditions.

So that's what I did the whole weekend. I had a milk run from the mouth of the canyon back in for a mile or so, when the fish would move on from one spot, I did too, just kept moving from one spot to the next, and kept finding stripers. Usually you could get 4 or 5 fish one after another, then that was it. I tell ya what, they sure like those wallylures, every time I put them on a school I would get bit. I was dropping the spoon to the bottom, or the depth I saw the school at, then lifting the sharply in big sweeps up to like the 11 o-clock position, then dropping it down. Even if the school was a ways off, the jigging would bring them over for a look-see.

There is a certain signature to an active school of stripers on the sonar, which has been shown here before. I ignored single fish markings, just looked for the active schools of feeding fish. Good advice Mike B!

The last couple of hours of the evenings was really hot, the schools didn't move off, they stayed put, and it was like fishing in a barrel. Same thing happened yesterday morning, I even called out on the radio to find someone to help me catch them. Of course they moved off not long after that.

So I am sold on Wallylures, vertical jigging, and February on Lake Powell. The fishing was great, weather very nice, you have it all to yourself, what more can you ask. It does get cold sleeping on the boat at night though, but a good sleeping bag, long johns for pajamas, and you'll be fine. I didn't night fish at all, I was just too worn out by then!

Active stripers on sonar, saw a lot of this...

March 3, 2006 - Marty Peterson

Shore fished the first finger of lake north of Bullfrog slips on Monday the 27th. Nothing caught. But, to fish the back where there are stickups and cover are we had to stand on the shore 75 feet or so up. Water is currently very clear.

Then nightfished the slips. Between 8pm and 1am we landed 11 Stripers, largest 4.7 lbs. Between two of us we also caught about 15 catfish. 2 over 3 lbs, 2 over 2 lbs. The rest under 12 inches long. Used small jigs with piece of anchovy. Fish were not line shy. Green light seemed to help because another group of 3 fisherman fishing the other end had only landed 3 Stripers by the time we left, although all 3 were larger than ours.

I tried using a spoon at one point. Allowed it to touch bottom and then swing it up and fall back down. Have caught a few Stripers in years past this way at night. Snagged two carp down deep and quit. Wished we had known that spoons were working for Stripers in Hansen Creek.

March 6, 2006 - Bob and Pam Lay, Montrose, CO
 Took a trip to the lake on Feb 25-27 and had a great time.  We caught this striper while trolling in Halls with a silver shad rap.  It is 33'' long and weighed 15.5 lbs.  Can't wait to get back again !

March 8, 2006 - Dale Eichel

3/03/06

Slight wind, water temp. 50-52Ff

Fished Hall’s Creek bay without success. Back by the trees and along the channel.

Jigged on schools and jigged on trees with anchovies as well as trolling crank bait.

Tried Hansen’s Creek and saw a fair amount of fish but no action.

Jerry picked up one striper in Moki about 3 quarters of the way back on a pure white crankbait that runs about 20ft. deep.

 3/04/06

No wind while catching fish, water temp 48-49F

Fished Lake Canyon and we found fish midway back in a large open area. Picked up this stringer of fish. Smallest was 4.5 lbs. and largest 5.5 lbs. Mine was the 4.5 lb’r. We missed a few also due to the lengthy time engaged in watching football over the winter.

These fish were caught on a clear lure with some kind of holographic insert, the white lure, a natural colored thunder stick, and late in the day a blue/chartreuse deep diver running about 25 ft. deep.

The fish we found were active in calm water between 12:00 and 3:00 pm.

Ed and Jerry at Hall’s Ramp with fish.

3/05/06

No wind in afternoon, water temp. 48-49F

Tried all of the above places and nothing. We still saw the fish in Lake Canyon but could not land any. The 3 fishermen in a deck boat that we told where to fish and what with were within and 1/8 mile of us all day and were catching fish. Some lime green lure trolling. Go figure. Dale

March 9, 2006 - The Commodore, Mike and Capt. Morgan, Durango, CO (Bill Winner)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Went to Page Feb. 24-26 and spent as much time sightseeing on the lake as we did fishing.  Never having fished Powell before, we were challenged but for the advice we gleaned from Wayne's Words.  I was totally skunked but the Commodore caught two walleyes and her first striper ever (24" and I'm guessing 4 1/2 - 5lbs).  I was as excited as she was though as we'd never seen one and neither of us had ever caught a fish that large.  She caught the walleyes in a steep walled cove on the east side of Padre Bay on a 1/8 ounce chartreuse jig still on the pole from icefishing trout the weekend before.  The striper she caught trolling in Padre Bay on an orange & blue Husky Jerk.
 
   
 

 
This, of course, piqued our interest.  In telling the tale and showing the photos to a fishing friend it was decided that perhaps we should head down the following weekend and try this again as our friend and I had yet to get our stripers.  We loaded all the camping gear up and headed this time for Hall's Mar. 2nd.  After an interesting trip down the lake in strong winds we located a camp site in the back of Iceberg Canyon and settled in for a full day of fishing the following day.  We spent the bulk of that day trolling in Iceberg to no avail and did do a little sightseeing as well.  We trolled in Iceberg and along the walls in the main channel again the next day with the Commodore once again outfishing us with one striper on a black & silver Husky Jerk in Iceberg.  Mike did catch a real nice crappie with a lure just dangling over the side while he was helping the Commodore land her fish.  Most of the remainder of that day was spent getting the Commodore back to Hall's so she could get home and put bread on the table.

Before sunrise the next morning, I did finally catch a few fish (all crappie) at the campsite casting a weedless watermelon colored jig in amongst the cottonwood and oak snags.  
Started trolling once again and Mike caught a striper almost immediately on a segmented brown trout colored Rapala.  A mile or two later Mike got another on a black & silver Rapala and I finally got one on a black & silver Husky Jerk.  I finally convinced Mike that our outing might be more productive if we put to use the leadheads with white twisty tails and anchovies that I'd brought along.  He was soon in absolute agreement as we were hauling one striper after another over the side.  As often as not we both had one on the line at the same time.  I think we'd have done even better if we'd moved as soon as the fishing slowed but we tended to linger long after they quit biting in one spot.  The location where we did the best was near the back of Iceberg where the cottonwoods begin to appear in the channel.  Tuesday was considerably slower and we had to pack up and leave.  We had about exhausted the supply of anchovies and leadheads anyway (many lost on snags).  All told, this trip yielded 23 stripers with a few in the  2 -3lb range and a couple three over 6lbs and the bulk in the 4 1/2 - 5 1/5lb range.  Thanks Wayne and to all for the good advice and to the two unknown gents at the Antelope ramp the last weekend in Feb. for their baitfishing tips!    

May 29, 2006 - Bart Wilson

Hit Bullfrog Marina late Thursday night.  Friday morning  we headed to the Moki Wall, caught a fair amount of walleye and stripers. (lost count) Most were caught using yellow colored grub jigs with black pepper flake, and a some on anchovies, at about 20-30 feet.

Brett's big bluegill!
Fished near the mouth of Halls Creek Bay on Saturday morning . The stripers there were nice and healthy.  Most were 5-8lbs. Anchovies at about 30 feet, also the yellow pepper flake grub worked good here as well.
Saturday night we found a few small bays and had a real good time with smallmouth, crappie, blue gill, stripers and a few largemouth.  Color seemed to be the yellow and fluorescent green grubs.

Scotty's crappie,
   Sunday was the same, caught a few stripers at Halls Creek Bay, and the wall just south of Halls Marina.  Hit the small bays and again found the smallmouth, largemouth, crappie, stripers and bluegill. 
   

LMB jpg is a healthy largemouth, good to see them in this shape.
 The stripers in the bays were juvenile striper, but were fun to catch, found lots of them. Over all it was a great trip. Don't have any clue as to how many fish were caught, just know that it was a lot.

 

One of Doug's stripers,

May 31, 2006 - Dan Spitzer

Fishing Report:  5/25 – 5/29 

We arrived in the Rincon Thursday morning, found a camp site, set up camp etc.  We fished Thursday afternoon, Friday morning, Sunday and Monday.  We sat out the wind Friday afternoon hoping for better things on Saturday which proved to be even worse. 

SMB:  SMB were everywhere.  SMB have moved out to main channel points, rocky stickups, and steep rocky structure.  They were also found in the canyons and cuts on any rocky structure.  All sizes.  I was catching many, many SMB every time I was on the water on 4” Yamamoto single tail grubs in smoke/large silver flake, watermelon/w red and black flake, watermelon w/black flake and a Yamamoto 3 ½ “ tube in green pumpkin w/black flake.  The color didn’t seem to matter.  Gloria uses a variety of grub colors sometimes with a chartreuse colored lead head and she caught her share.  I think she was primarily using a smoke w/copper flake and a root beer. I was also able to catch SMB regularly on a Lucky Craft bevy shad.  Shaded structure was best but SMB could still be caught in full sun by fishing deeper and slower.  SMB were also caught trolling when we passed over points and humps in the main channel.  We trolled primarily with Norman Deep Li’l Ns in shad colors looking for stripers. 

LMB:  We did not target LMB but I did catch a couple and got hits from small LMB when casting a bevy shad over submerged tumbleweeds.  Gloria caught a couple on grubs.

Walleye:  We did not target walleye but did catch 3 while trolling for stripers.  The walleye were caught trolling over main channel points. 

Stripers:  We primarily trolled for stripers looking to locate a school of bigger fish.  We only caught 4 stripers of any size.  We did manage a couple of juvenile stripers trolling, a few spooning when we located a school under the boat in a main channel cut, and some chasing boils.  The boils we found consisted of 8” juvenile stripers only.  I did confirm that they were feeding on larval shad.  The small stripers were very boat and lure shy.  We had to cast over the boil and bring a ½ oz. Wallylure (my choice) or a small Storm minnow (Gloria’s choice) into the boil.  Anything cast in close proximity to the boil only resulted in the fish sounding.  The juvenile stripers were everywhere.  I had also tried a white grub and was able to get a couple of hits, no fish, but didn’t have the casting distance I was looking for with it and switched to the Wallylure. We probably could have caught more larger stripers if we had been willing to troll for longer periods of time. 

Side note:  When the wind wasn’t blowing hard, Iceberg, Slickrock and Annies were congested with boats so we didn’t even try to get a lure in the water in those canyons.  As a consequence we primarily fished the main channel cuts, coves and points knowing we could catch SMB almost at will.

May 30, 2006 - The Gustaveson Family
After the windy weekend we finally got out on the lake on Monday. The family went striper fishing from shore in Warm Creek. 

Brett displays a typical striper caught on anchovies.
Cooper was almost impressed with his first chance to be up close with one of the finny critters.
Troy and Kasia are quite proud of her first fish which was followed quickly by a second and third.
Mark and Megan caught lots of fish working as a team.
8 adults and 4 kids wrestled in 70 stripers from one beautiful spot.  Most were caught on bait but we also used a tube and a spoon which were mangled beyond recognition by the constant unhooking of really nice striped bass.

May 30, 2006 - Marty Peterson

Had been told that small Stripers are being caught out of boils in Bullfrog Bay. So on Tuesday the 23rd we were looking as we headed south. Found boils across the channel from the Halls Ramp. Tried top water lures and spoons with no success. When we would get close with the boat the boil would vanish. But, one came up near us and I threw a crappie jig at them and bingo. From then on chasing with the electric motor I did not make a cast without at least a hit. But 35 Stripers later decided that these fish are small and not much different than catching Perch or planted Trout. So only protecting the fishery would keep me fishing these for very long. Fun for a little while but then on to larger fish.

Found more boiling fish as we headed south. Decided to throw only a spoon and see if any big ones deep. Success near Lake Canyon. A shallow 40' or so shelf sticking out from the cliff. Held lots of bigger fish. Stripers, Smallmouth, Catfish, Walleye, Sunfish, Crappie all in one spot. Mostly we hooked them with Wallylure spoons, but after snagging and losing one, found that all spoons worked at least a little. Wallylures best.

All the fish we caught during the day were healthy with good fillets. We also caught fish on jigs with anchovy or nightcrawlers and trolling shad raps deep. Nearly half the fish we caught night fishing were skinny. But to make up for it there were a lot.

Fishing nine until midnight on Tuesday between two of us we boated about 50 Stripers. This was the first time I remember having the problem of having to get past the small fish swirling around about ten to twenty feet down to get to the larger fish near the bottom. The Killerfishlight (green underwater light) brought in lots of plankton, some shad I think, but definitely attracted fish. I tended to catch smaller fish but Richard Snow landed a dozen or so fish 4 to 6 pounds and up to 26" long. Using a 3/8 glow in the dark jig head. Second night we fished till one in the exact same spot and caught more Catfish and small Stripers than the first night. Night fishing was the way to get out of the sun and away from boat wakes.

Tried fishing up Lake Canyon. Caught some fish, but, the canyon is narrow enough that the wakes from the big cruisers kept breaking over the bow of my boat. Usually the big boats would slow down off plane when close to us and I think that would make the wake even bigger. But with wakes hitting the walls and coming back plus the direct wake, the canyon is too narrow for comfortable fishing with holiday traffic.

June 6. 2006 - Brian from Idaho
Fished Lake Powell from Memorial Day (May 29th) to June 3rd. Fished from Bullfrog to just south of buoy 63. I caught a little of everything (SMB, LMB, stripers, walleye, catfish, bullhead, carp, crappie, green sunfish and bluegill) I mostly caught SMB and stripers.

We saw slurps everywhere we spent even a little time fishing. 99% of the slurps we saw had only yearling stripers (7”-11”). Most of the slurps we saw were in the evening. We saw a few slurps in the morning and afternoon but they weren’t as widespread as the evening slurps.

We had no trouble catching the yearlings on any small lure we tried. I liked burning a small silver spinner at the head of these slurps. My brother liked casting a small piece of night crawler on a hook with a split shot above it. A 1.5" white tube jig tipped with a small piece of night crawler was also productive. Night crawlers stayed on the hook better than a small piece of anchovy. We found a couple of slurps that had something larger than yearling stripers in Escalante, more specifically around the mouth of Indian Creek Canyon. None of the stripers in these boils appeared to be larger than 18”.

We saw many yearlings slurping in Bullfrog Bay (Hobie Cat Beach, houseboat buoy fields and anywhere else in BF bay we looked). There were a good number of slurps in the back of Iceberg Canyon. There were a fair number of slurps in the Rincon area, Escalante (we only fished first 3-4 miles of Escalante), Cottonwood and many places in the main channel from Bullfrog to buoy 63.

We caught stripers on anchovies anywhere in the main channel that we found a concentration of fish on the depth finder. Places that we caught at least 20 adult stripers on anchovies within a couple hours include:
#1 - West wall of main channel 50-150 yards down lake from mouth of Lost Eden Canyon (buoy 92/93)
#2 - Mouth of Browns and Long Canyons, 50-100 yards from main channel inside of Browns Canyon’s NE wall was best for us (about buoy 74)
#3 - East channel wall 200-500 yards down lake of Cottonwood Canyon (about buoy 65)
The three places listed above were fished from 8am to noon.

I fished with 1/4 oz jig heads with glow white and red eyes, my brother fished with jig heads and unweighted hook, my dad mostly fished with sinkers about 18” above the hook. We fished with half an anchovy to 1” pieces of an anchovy. My brother and dad liked to put a piece of night crawler on the hook after putting the anchovy on. They believed the night crawler helped keep the anchovy on the hook and helped produce a few extra bites. None of our baiting/rigging methods significantly out produce the other methods. We did a moderate amount of anchovy chumming (about 1 bag every 2 hours fished). Chumming seemed to help but didn’t always seem necessary. We caught adult stripers anywhere from the surface to about 70 feet down. Several times we tried soaking anchovies in 90-120 feet down where we graphed fish but weren’t able to get any bites. After the chum was out we would generally catch adult stripers from 10-40 feet below the surface with around 30 feet being the most consistent depth. Before the chum was out we picked up more fish in the 40-60 foot range.

Almost all of the adult stripers we caught appeared to be healthy but most had not had a recent meal. All of the stripers we caught put up a good fight for their size. None of the stripers we caught were the extremely skinny stripers like ones we have caught in the past. About half of the adult stripers stomachs that we checked had no food in them. The other half had chummed anchovies and/or crawfish or smaller fish. None of the stripers we checked had recently eaten shad. All of the adult stripers that we checked still had sperm or eggs. Several of the males spilled sperm and one of the females spilled a few eggs. We caught a good number of 4-5lb (23”-26”) stripers. Our largest striper was 30” long and 7lbs 8oz.

We found SMB everywhere we fish. We only caught 1 LMB for about every 50-100 SMB we caught. I think we would have caught more LMB if we fished different areas. Most of the SMB we caught were 8”-14” but we did catch a few smaller and larger SMB. I’m a top water junky, so I spent most of my mornings and evenings throwing a top water baits. I also caught a few adult stripers and many yearlings on top water baits. It was very exciting watching a 5lb striper or larger SMB smash a top water bait. Generally I could catch 2 or 3 SMB on grubs for every one I caught on top water baits. Tipping a grub with a piece of night crawler would produce more strikes. Most of the time the SMB fishing was fast enough that it was a waste of time to tip the grub with a night crawler or add other scent.

We did some night fishing but for us night fishing was no better if not slower than fishing during the day. I did catch four fat 10”-12” bullheads under the green light by the mouth of Indian Creek Canyon. I’ve only seen one other bullhead caught at Lake Powell so the bullheads were a nice bonus. I caught stripers under the green light the three nights I tried night fishing but we found better striper fishing during the morning and evening. The green light never brought in a large number of shad. A couple nights I saw more than a couple hundred very small shad (less than 1”) under the light as well as some minnows around 1” (??SMB, crappie, bluegill??). We never graphed a large number of shad or fish below the green light. If we had selected a better location than the back of the houseboat we may have had better luck night fishing. Fishing with a glo white jig head seemed to help me catch more fish while night fishing but I wouldn’t say they were significantly better than a plain jig head or hook.

Channel Cats were common everywhere we fished. All of the catfish we caught were 10”-20” long. We didn’t catch as many bluegill, green sunfish, crappie and walleye as I thought we would. I did see several schools of decent sized (8”) bluegill in the back of Iceberg Canyon.

I think that covers everything. I’ll attempt to post a few pictures later this week. I would be happy to answer any questions if any of you would like more details. Once again I would like to thank everyone that contributes to this great website. I have no doubt that this website has helped us catch more fish at Lake Powell.

June 12, 2006 - Frank Masuga
Here are a few of the fish we caught from May 29th through June 3rd in the Escalante across from the entrance to Fifty Mile Canyon. 

 

The second pic is of what we found in the stomach of a healthy 4 pounder.  It's a 1.5 by 2 inch rock.  How do you suggest we put one on the hook?  Super Glue?


 

 
Waynes Note:  When stripers start to feed on crayfish they tend to suck up everything off the bottom - including rocks. 

They are very efficient shad predators and quite inept at eating anything else.

June 16, 2006 - Mike Milburn

Mike "TopH20" Milburn on this end.  Alan Green and I
just returned from a few days on the San Juan.  We
went down on Monday afternoon July 12.  On the way we
noticed the heavy smoke from the fire on Navajo
Mountain.  We stopped and took a picture just above
the confluence of the Colorado and San Juan.  We went
to Neshaki Canyon and set up camp.  We didn't fish on
Monday evening because we were late getting to Powell.

 

On Tuesday we fished many areas of Neshaki Bay and the main channel areas below the bay.  We shaded up for lunch in Deep Canyon.  I would describe the fishing as good for smallmouth and largemouth.  We were not after the stripers and didn't see any surface activity on Tuesday.  We caught the brown and green fish on tubes, grubs and small white spinnerbaits.  Wednesday was about the same with good fishing for bass on rocky structure in water 5 to 20 feet deep.  I used topwater lures in the brush and caught several nice LMB up to four pounds.
 
Here's a picture of Alan Green with a 3 1/2 pound LMB he got on a spinnerbait. Camping was good inspite of the wind which blew fairly consistent most of the time we were on the lake.  We could see the fire from our camp and we watched a large helicopter make several trips to the bay to suck up water for the aerial battle on the fire.

On Thursday morning we did see several small groups of stripers feeding on the larval shad just up lake from Neshaki Bay.  We caught a few to take home and they seemed to be two year classes.  The smaller ones were about 1 3/4 pounds and the larger ones about 3 1/2

pounds.  We got the stripers on 1/4 oz. white curly tail grubs thrown ahead of the quickly moving fish.  They were spooky because they had their backs and eyes out of the water slurping up those little shad.  We had to get ahead of the school and wait for just the right time to cast in order not to send them down.
Keep up the good work and take care.

July 4, 2006 - Bob Hryniewich and tj
Launched out of BF Sat. Morn. No slurps or boils all the way down to the SJ. Headed up to the big bay (Neskahi) before the great bend. Caught about 25 in the bay all day on top water. Small slurps.

Sunday started fishing about 8:30 am and ran into a boil at the north end of the bay where it gets small and heads to the great bend. Mile marker 22 on my old map. There were fish everywhere. Caught around 100 fish with 5 people fishing. That was about it though. No good slurps or boils at night. .

 
Stripers were all different sizes. Most were 14-20 inches. The largest was 25 inches and 7.5 lbs. Big and fat.

July 10, 2006 - Great Auk - Durango, CO

Over the July 4th weekend, from Lake to Hansen, we could not keep large
stripers off the hook.  This weekend, on the exact same walls, we hardly
could get a decent striper due to the zillions of 8" to 10" babies hitting
everything we threw, including at least a few dozen that grabbed bare jig
heads.  The only bigger ones were caught by using ridiculously heavy jig
heads and chovies at 40-60 feet because occasionally those would make it
through the little guys feeding in the top 30 feet.  I'd guess we got one
good striper for every 25 little guys.  It's hard to imagine that there's
enough of anything in the lake to feed so many little fish, let alone their
parents.  I've fished the Big Pond since it began filling and have never seen anything like this.
 

July 13, 2006 - Rhonda Bellar
Teaching my 2 1/2 yr old grandaughter how to fish........fun!
 
 
 

July 17, 2006 - Bruce Norton   

Our group went down to the Escalante this past week.  We tried night fishing and caught a small striper.  I pulled out your fishing report I obtained at the lodge.  We found a small alcove near the entrance to the Escalante and managed to pull a total of 16 additional stripers.  We caught them about 35-40 feet deep, and the alcove we were in was about 65 feet deep.  The fish would show up late afternoon (from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM).  The fish ranged from 22 inches long to the largest being 27 inches.  All the fish were big and fat. 
 
This year we didn't see a slurp or boil while we were down there.  Last year in the same area we would see boils starting in the early evening, but nothing this year.
 
I would like to thank you for your information you post on fishing and the fishing report I obtained at the lodge.  The information was very helpful and made the fishing portion of our trip successful.  The one day we hauled in 11 large stripers in just over an hour.  I tried to pick up the stringer of fish and I could barely lift it.
 
Thanks again...

July 19, 2006 - The Solomon's  Bullfrog July 12-17 Water temp 79 - 86.5
Fish caught at buoy 99.
 

 

We left home at 3:00 after installing a new pressure switch on my washdown pump that I failed to drain before winter. It was already hot. Made it to Hanksville and fueled up. Diesel was $3.15 at the Chevron and it was hot. Pulled into Bullfrog at 9:10 pm. The pay station was still open. Launched in the dark and idled up into the bay and camped on the first sandy spot we found. Note: watch out for stray buoys. Had I not had the spotlight scanning out ahead I could have it a few. These are the ones without the reflective tape on them also.

 

Woke up the next morning (Thursday) and trolled for a little bit in BF bay. No luck. I was antsy to get up to Knowles where reports of success earlier in the week had me excited. Stopped by Halls for ice and chovies and headed uplake. Did a couple of beach stops along the way for play and stuff.

 

Fished that evening along the cliff at the mouth of Knowles. There were a lot of wake boarders and skiers and it was quite rough until after dusk. We did pick up a few and it was encouraging for the morning. We were using chovies with a ¼ oz jig head. Fished the same spot in the morning (Friday) with not much success. It was hard getting past the small fish. Played and tubed some more in the area and tried the same spot again that night with the same results. Camped in a little cut just down from Knowles.

 

On a side note. The lake gets a lot smoother and less crowded at about Knowles. Most day skiers head in at about 5:00 for the trip back downstream. If it hadn’t been for the people camped in Knowles it would have been deserted.
Madison fishing at the beach. Big cats.

 

 Woke up Saturday morning and trolled the wall downstream from Knowles and picked up a couple of small ones. Graphed some shad balls with Stripers hanging around, but couldn’t find them on the turnaround. Tried to jig them with no luck. We gradually made our way down to Hansen creek to check out the humps. Passed back and forth over the humps and didn’t mark any fish. Rich, are these the humps right at the mouth or in a ways?? Did some more trolling and played in the water the rest of the day. The kids got new snorkel outfits and they had a good time with those. Of course I brought mine also so I wouldn’t miss out J. Saturday evening we hit buoy 99 and anchored in about 60 feet of water straight west of the buoy. We got there around 7:30 – 8:00 I think. About this time Kevin showed up (didn’t realize it was you Kevin), put out the green light and started fishing. Sounds like he did real well. I threw out the chum and we immediately picked up two nice fish. I gave Rich B. a call on the radio and he came over with his boy and friend and started catching some as well. After a while the smaller fish arrived and it was tough to hook a big one. We did get some nice fillets though. Something big did hit my son’s pole and the knot that I tied the leader to the Pro-Line failed L. Oops my fault.  At this spot an anchovy on a hook with no weight seemed to get more hits. I took a lot of chum to keep the fish interested. Another note. The reel with the Pro-Line on it got less hits until I put the mono leader on it. Everyone knows this; I just forgot and thought I would remind everyone. It was nice fishing and chatting with Rich. I hope to do it again sometime. Headed back to our camp spot around the corner at dark. We were scheduled to come home Sunday morning, but Powellitis set in and we decided to stay another day.
Into Knowles from wall at entrance.
 

 

 We did meet some nice folks from Durango that pulled into our camp spot to have lunch before heading off of the lake. I took a group photo for them and they were off. It’s funny how situation can turn out. I saw them pull into our spot and was a little defensive as we had left several chairs and other bright articles on the beach. As I approached a gentlemen came out in his boat and indicated that they were only staying for lunch and would be on their way. I said cool and went on tubing. A couple of hours later we decided that we wanted to stay closer to the ramp for the mornings load up so I went back to the beach. I saw them loading up and wanted to reach them to tell them that they were welcome to stay there if they liked. I beached the boat and the gentlemen introduced himself (sorry I’m terrible with names) and asked if I would take a picture. Very nice group of people. What I’m saying here is that situation will turn out differently of how they are approached. If I would have pulled up yelling and screaming to get off my beach I would not have met these nice people.

Cliff we picked up a few on down from Knowles

 Sunday morning we headed back to 99 and picked up a few more nice ones. I was running on fumes so we did another marina stop and took on a little fuel for safety factor. 87 octane at Halls is $4.09 as I recall. Pulled the kids around on the tube most of the day. I saw Mike B. headed in to Halls marina and tried to hail him wit no response. Must have had his radio off. After fueling I got a call from Mike and he said they were going to try and jig some up in the deep cuts by the Haystacks. I don’t know how he did. I was off the boat a lot and pulling on a tube so I probably missed his calls.

 

 

Bullfrog Tamarisk Back of canyon

In the afternoon we did some exploring up in the back of Bullfrog bay. It is very calm up in bullfrog even with all of the traffic. Way in the back as far as you can go there are huge areas of flooded Tamarisk 6 or 7 feet deep. I can only imagine what’s flourishing in there. The water visibility is nil so you can’t tell what’s in there. Didn’t find any spots to hole up for the night in the back so we headed out. On the way out a large cruiser was just leaving a spot so we pulled in and had our camp for the night. It is just up and east of the second buoy field. This is the spot I mentioned in an earlier post that had a toilet area the size of a football field. Toilet paper was strewn from he11 to breakfast. Really made me mad. Looks as though it was a houseboat with a large group trying to save on filling up their holding tank. Complete pigs!! Woke up before sunrise and had the boat loaded by 5:45. Man it’s nice loading in the morning.

 

Another thing worth noting on this trip is the Keel Kradle that Todd Lahey of Keel Kradle sent me to try out. If you beach your boat this thing is sweet. Very easy to put together and once you have it set it keeps your boat off of the rocks and sand. The nice thing is you don’t have to get your boat unstuck the next morning. Once it’s on the Kradle and tied off it keeps the boat nice and straight. Go to www.keelkradle.com and check it out or give Todd a call @ 303-980-1474.

 

I also installed a KeelShield that I got on clearance for cheap and thought I would give it a try. Well after one trip it has a 3” cut on the bottom. I pulled up on one beach that was rock 2 or 3 inches under is all. Here’s a plug for Hamby’s. TC I have started a Hamby’s fund and still kick myself for not coming down last spring. 

Wow, that was a ramble. Sorry.

July 27, 2006 - Rich Sutterfield

I don't have much to report you don't know already. Rich Bailey and I got there Sunday evening, came back yesterday. Night fished a lot, and caught scads of small stripers. Started off with anchovies and got tired of rebaiting every 30 seconds so I went to a small 3/4 oz. Wallylure and that worked real well, just flipping it out to the edge of the light and letting it fall back, they were hammering it. Or just jigging it worked too. Tried all different depths but couldn't get away from the little stripers. Fished around MM 99 with success, did manage some big stripers there. Bass fishing is pretty good but it was so hot it was hard to do anything sitting still in the sun very long. I think Monday was the hottest day and night I have ever spent at Powell, at 2 am it was really hot wind and lightning, felt like about 108. Not much sleeping going on. But it's always fun, we swam a lot to ward off spontaneous combustion.

Yesterday morning we saw something that might give some of you some action this week. Saw boils up lake from Stanton to MM 99. Mixed small and larger fish. We had to head back so they are there unmolested for you. Early morning deal though, if I was going to do that over again I would be out at first light looking for those boils.

July 26, 2006 - Rob Clausing

First, I would like to thank you for all the effort you put into wayneswords.com. I use it religiously and rely on the bulletin board for last minute tips.

I took my family and a co-worker's family to Good Hope Bay over the extended weekend. We arrived in Good Hope Thursday 7/20 and departed for Bullfrog Monday afternoon 7/24. We saw a handful of violent boils lasting around 30 seconds. The stripers never surfaced multiple times. Catfish, bass, sunfish and carp could be caught in great numbers everywhere in Good Hope Bay.

We decided to try night fishing Sunday night 7/23. We fished at buoy 119 starting about 9:00 pm. It took about 20 minutes to set up our fish finder, green light and poles. We chummed about 10 anchovies and within 15 minutes of dropping a line in baited with 1/3 of an anchovy, we had our first striper. From there, the fishing got better and better by the hour. We witnessed schools of 10" long gizzard shad circling our light along with thousands of threadfin shad and many 20" stripers cruising the surface about 15' from the boat. The bait fish schools were so thick, the fish finder was rendered useless. The anchovies were working so good, we did not even try to net any shad. The real challenge was to drop the bait to 50' before it got eaten by the seemingly endless supply of yearling through 3 lb. stripers to get to the bigger fish. I scooped up a shad that had fallen out of the mouth of one the victims, put it on a hook, dropped it in the water and watched it get devoured by a yearling striper after only falling about 8' in the water - no chance of getting a shad down 50'. All in all between two people, we harvested about 100 stripers. Thirty of which were in the 4 lb. to 7 lb. range. I found myself wishing I had some very large hooks and a bucket of bluegill to drop down to 50' and see what happened. I think that the smaller fish would have left bait that size alone.

Our tackle consisted of a swivel with a hook tied about 8" off the swivel and a 3/8 oz. sinker tied 3' to 4' off the swivel. We used 10 lb. line on the reels and 8 lb. leader on the hooks and sinker. This setup offered direct control of the bait due to the weight below the hook and enough stealth to fool the stripers. It also helped to drop the bait quickly in an effort to bypass the smaller fish. Hook size and bait size did not seem to matter, the important thing was to get the offering down to the 40' to 60' range.

I am curious about the gizzard shad. I believe I read that they first started showing up in the lower lake, I seem to think in the San Juan arm. Have there been any  significant numbers of gizzard shad previously discovered up north? We sure seemed to see a lot hanging around our green light.

July 23, 2006, Kelly
Just back from a week on the Escalante. We stayed at Davis Gulch. Striper fishing with anchovies was fast a furious at the mouth of Davis. We only fished in the evenings for stripers and we filled the coolers every night. Fillet fish every night till the wee hours. Most fish were healthy and in the three to five and a half pound range. Thursday night the small YOY stripers were so thick we had a hard time getting our bait down to the bigger fish. But even the small ones were the nicest I've seen this year, 13-15 inches. Threw all the young fish back, didn't have the heart to kill such healthy looking YOY. Probably 25% of the adult fish were showing signs of "shrinkage." Larger fish were stacked up in water from 30 to 120 feet. Started every night chumming and within 10 minutes or so we had constant hookups till well after dark.

Saw many "slurps" happening and caught a few YOY out of them. Leaving The Escalante Canyon on Saturday morning we counted as many as 6 slurps happening at the same time. (First right hand turn after you enter the canyon, just before Indian Creek)

Great trip, great fishing. Kelly

July 31, 2006 - Marty Peterson

Striper fishing was good to us around the Lake Canyon area on Friday 7/28. In the morning, Wallylures worked as good as anchovies. We used 8 and 10 pound line with equal success. Fireline with no leader did not work as well. Small fish were always present. Larger fish up into the 5 pound range appeared in groups. We found fish biting only near structure 25 to 50 feet under. Landed some Catfish also. The weather was, to our bodies, hot. So we stayed in the shade. Other boats were having success also in the shade of the wall, main channel.

 

We went in to fillet fish and rest until afternoon as we lost shade. Went back to Lake Canyon and found more fish biting just inside the Canyon a few hundred yards up and again in the shade. We were landing around 10-20 fish each per hour. With a bite on nearly every cast. Soon a large boat full of anglers came trolling past. They attempted to fish with us but the wind was against them without an electric motor. They did take a few Stripers off our hands before they left though. 

We tried to night fish the spot but there was more wind than we could deal with well. Ended up fishing from shore but only caught small fish. Our green light brought in thousands of Shad and small Stripers slashed through the school continually.

 

Saturday morning 7/29 we started fishing early. Catching was still pretty good. We noticed that our thawing anchovies did not stay on the hook well and we hooked fewer of the bites than with good frozen ones. But the action was still faster than with spoons there. We did see small boils of small Stripers along the shore. We caught some as they passed by where we were fishing.

 

I tried different weight and styles of jigs just to experiment. Smaller jigs with a body would usually get hit by small Stripers as the line was reeled in even after the bait was gone. But taking the small fish off the hook was a pain after a while. The little ones fight like heck after getting them out of the water. We would hold them with a tool to keep from getting stabbed. 3/8 oz. jigs with no body tended to catch fewer small fish.  ½ oz. jigs tended again to attract the small fish while being reeled in after the bait was knocked off. But this was just one trip worth of sampling.   

August 4, 2006 - Frank Masuga
Sammy Goon 14
 
Calvin Goon 10
 
Natalie Knottnerus 12   
 
Blair Thiesse 15
The kids with their catch.  Blair not pictured.  Riley Knottnerus in his place



 
These fish were taken across from the entrance of 50 Mile in the Escalante on July 25th.  We caught these on anchovies.  Unfortunately, my scale was on the fritz. So I don't have an official entry into the kids contest.   Most of the fish were between 24 to 28 inches long, fat and healthy.  
Later in the week I decided to try Wallylures, with no disappointment.  We fished for five days, average 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the evening and ended up with 158 stripers.  All from the same honey hole.

 Thought this would go nicely with Gold Cup's post "SHAD call to Order???" Post 6340
Wayne, here are a couple more pics of our trip.  I ran out of cooler space. 57 in two and a half hours on Wallylures.  I love to see the fish finder screen like this. 
 

August 3, 2006 - Kelly Brooks
Hi Wayne, Lots of 8-10" Crappie in the very back of Davis Gulch, in the shade of LaGorce arch. Water temp was 84 and the depth was 15-18' Light hooks with nightcrawlers.
We were not fishing but watched another boat bring in lots of fish in a short amount of time. Not sure if this was just a fluke or a repeatable fishing method.
 

Thanks for all you do with the Wordlings. After attending your fishing clinic this spring my fishing success has really taken off.

August 2, 2006 - Jack Herrin(Hotwheels)
Fishing report for week of July 22- 30th.
We went to the San Juan on first day and found Mike Bevelhimer cleaning some nice fish that he had been catching on wallylures. We started using anchovies in the area on ½ oz jig heads and starting catching nice stripers. Bill caught a 6 ½ lb, the rest of the 30 we put in the boat were 3 to 6 lbs.
We did not see any boils in the main channel or in the San Juan that day.

Next day we heard that Bassman and Goldcup were catching em up north. So we ran up to Striper City and found Bassman, he reported that boils did not start until around 4 pm. We did not want to wait that long, because fishing buddies wanted to night fish on 99a buoy that night. So we head back early, looking for boils, did not see any boils in the main channel from Halls Crossing to White Canyon. We night fished on 99a and after catching about 30 dinks, 8 inch Stripers, the big ones came in around 10:30pm so we took in around 25 of those and called it a night.
 

We went back to the San Juan next day, could not find any boils, but were able to catch them on chovies along the rock wall in the bend of the river before Deep Canyon.

 
The next day fishing buddies had to leave, so Wayne Dorsett went fishing with me, and we headed back to Striper City. We hung out all day, and just as Bassman had said around 3:30 we started seeing boils in front of White. Then boils pop up everywhere from White Canyon around over to 2 mile. It was fantastic. There was no wind, not another boat in site no where. We had it all to ourselves. Wayne had 6 poles with top water and I had 3. Together we chased boils until our arms about fell off. Most of the Stripers were the smaller ones, but we would get ones in the 3 + range about every 10th one in the boat.


The boils were so close to the boat we could see the larger Stripers trying to out run the smaller ones to our lures, but the smaller ones were faster in the very warm water. The more we saw this; we wondered if the larger fish were getting enough to eat? Some of them were skinny and appeared the smaller Stripers were able to beat them to the shad. Why would the large fish be skinny with a million shad in the water?? Need to ask Wayne G that question. 

Waynes Note: You answered it already.  Yes the little fish are quicker and tuned for feeding in warm water.  The bigger ones lose the race in this contest. They are disadvantaged by the small fish who get first crack at the forage.  There are so many young that the big ones can only survive by eating the 8 inch stripers, if they can catch them.  It is not happening often enough.

 
We got back to fish cleaning station at Halls Crossing around 7:30 pm and cleaned 103 Stripers, most of them 8 to 12 inches, but very fat. Some of the larger fish were not so fat.


Next day headed back to Striper City and seen Kurt Jensen and met his wife and grand children. It was great to see them all there and they were looking for boils. I told Kurt what we had seen the day before. Kevin then showed up and it was great seeing him too. It was a little windy that day, so boils were not as great as the day before. I don’t know how they did after I had to leave to get back to Halls Crossing before dark.

 
Next day headed up to Escalante. Found a small boil just past Fifty Mile Canyon, but again it was smaller fish. I then dropped a wallylure below the smaller ones, immediately got hooked up. My fishing buddy also was doing the same. We caught 27 very nice fat 4 to 6lb within about an hours time. That sure was drag ripping fun. Did not catch a single skinny fish, all were very healthy. Then we used anchovies and caught a bunch of the little ones.
Next day went back to the same spot and could not catch a single fish. Go figure that one out. I tried.

 
So about noon we gave it up. Ran all the way back up lake to Striper City, and found that Kurt and Kevin had already left that morning. Well the wind blew again, so we did not catch very many boiling. We did not have any chovies, so headed on back to Halls.

 
Last day we headed back to the San Juan, all the way to the great bend. We found Stripers boiling, even in the wind. All these fish were an older school in the 2 lb range. They took our sammy’s on every cast. But since it was late morning, it did not last long. So we took about 20 before they stopped.
We had a great time. But what happened to all the boils in the main channel.  Nothing like it was last year.

There are less shad in the channel this year, therefore, less boils.

August 1, 2006 - Great Auk - Durango, CO
As was the case a couple weeks ago, along the walls from Moki down to Lake, the larger stripers we caught were few and far between the endless scads of healthy little stripers.  With the exception of a fabulous and rotund 9-pounder, the larger fish we got were skinny with white meat and nothing in their stomachs.  Like others are reporting, at least in some midlake areas, there seems to be lots more stripers than the pond can support at the moment.  I've been angling the Big Pond since it was filling and have never seen so many little fish in so many different areas.

August 20, 2006 - Dave and Lisa Hansen/Howard and Pam Irion
No luck looking for boils so we just decided to bait fish. Good Idea!!!

The mouth of Lake Canyon starting at about 7AM is perfect. You are in the shade until about 12 at which time you have caught more fish than you can believe.3-4 lbs at about 50-60 feet. You need to drop fast through all the little guys but it's lots of fun. I beat the pants off my brother, for a change. We also found a great spot first cove in on the right at Forgotten Canyon. Fish the second point. You won't believe it but you need to be down 80-100 feet.

The big fish seem hit in 20 minute cycles. Well worth the wait because they are very meaty. Anchovies very always the hot ticket. We had a delicious fish fry thanks to my sister-in-laws great battered fish recipe. As for the motor home and boat they are still in Grand Junction, CO at Cummins. Had to rent a car to drive home to LA and we will have to fly over to get it when it's done. BUT so what we caught a lot of fish and had a great time with the family.

September 6, 2006 - Great Auk - Durango, CO

Fishing conditions may change often and dramatically at the Big Pond. We had spectacular fishing seven weeks ago with loads of large stripers, followed by two trips in which we could only catch zillions of yearlings. Then this last week there were once again piles of 3-6 pound, mostly healthy adults and virtually no yearlings.


All this occurred in about the same place on a wall across and a little downstream from Hansen. Chovie chunks suspended in deep water at about 40-50 feet next to a shaded cliff seem to be the ticket at the moment.

September 17, 2006 - Grant and Kyle Hansen
First of all, thanks for your informative updates. My son and I have used your site to learn how to fish Lake Powell We’re getting better. Last week we had an unbelievable trip.  We only had a couple of days, but made the trip anyway.

We arrived at Bullfrog on Labor Day evening.  We had just enough time to run downlake to a camping spot we like to use up Halls Creek.  From your website, it sounded like the most action was uplake so our plans were to take off that direction Tuesday morning.  We never made it.

 

While we were making a quick breakfast, we saw fish start to boil.  We tossed our breakfast aside and jumped in the boat.  The fishing was incredible.  We fished all day in one little bay and must have caught 200 fish; most of which we caught on a Sugoi Splash top water lure.  (We had bought a few of those after reading about them on your site last summer.)  What an awesome experience.  The early fish were yearling stripers with an occasional older striper.  During the rest of the day we mostly caught smallmouth bass.  We also caught a few largemouth bass.  The largest smallmouth was about 18 inches long and weighed over 2 pounds.  The largest largemouth was about the same size.
Wednesday morning, September 6, we were fishing the same spots and having some luck when the whole bay erupted.  A school of large stripers moved in and all of a sudden an area of 5 or 6 acres was alive with fish chasing shad.  As fast as we could cast and reel fish in we would catch a fish.  For an hour, we didn’t have a cast without having at least one bite.  Between 7:30 and 11:30 we caught 81 fish.

 

For first time top water fishers, the strikes were simply amazing.  One of the largest smallmouth we caught arced a couple of feet across the water and hit the lure on the way down.  Several times the fish hit the lure so hard from the bottom that the lure flew two or three feet up in the air.  My son actually caught 2 fish at the same time on a single lure.  I have attached his picture with this email. 

Thanks again!! You’ve really helped us be successful on our LakePowell fishing expeditions.

September 26. 2006 - Mark and Sue Rudie
Here is a fishing report as promised from the North Rally from Mark and Sue Rudie. 

We arrived at Bullfrog early Friday afternoon and immediately set out for Lake Canyon, south of Bullfrog.  Two weeks ago we were fishing this canyon and decided to try again because of good results last time.  The second wall in on the right side on the corner where there is a crack in the wall was the spot.  The fish were on the graph again, but after 2 hours of dipping anchovies and only 1 yearling and 1 nice one, we headed back farther into the canyon.  We met up with Dale Eichel (in charge of the Lake Powell Striper Fishing Contest) and his cohorts in a couple boats who were trolling deep diving crank baits of chartreuse, blue and black – white bottoms, and other types not known and were putting the strpers in the boats.  We were back past the split on the right that goes back to the trees.  By the way, don’t try trolling back there in that one… Anyway, we tried a Thunderstick and a Wally Diver with little success.  Sue put on a Walleye Assassin and got hooked up right away. These are rubber tailed lures available at our Walmart store. Richard Sutterfield turned us on to these on WaynesWords fishing post. The color was sparkle black back and green tail.  Got a few more on these and then parked on a wall they were stacked up on, anchored, chummed, and the bite was on.  We only had a couple hours left and caught around 25 stripers and 2 smallmouth.  They were mostly yearlings but managed 10 fish from 2 ½ - 4 ½ pds.  Most of these fish had weight to them and decent shoulders.  We had a hard time keeping the boat over the chum hole because of the wind, but every time we crossed over it, there was a fish on.
Lake Canyon is a beautiful canyon with very limited camping spots.  We were blessed with this one, and after cleaning a day’s catch, we came back and fished for catfish right behind the boat and caught as many as we wanted.  Saturday was the Rally dinner and party, so we fished all day up until about 3:00 pm.  The wind was very strong and hard to fish in, but we decided to anchor again and caught another 25 – 30 stripers on anchovies about 50 feet down parked next to a back wall on the left which makes a slow turn to the right.  Fish on this wall were everywhere.  You have to stay fairly close to the wall.  Drift out to far and there were no fish.  We headed to the Rally at Stanton Creek to get fishing reports, dinner, a visit from Wayne, and to say hi to all and meet new friends.
Thanks for all the updates, Wayne, and to all who put on the Rally.  Great times and memories were made.

 

Back to fishing on Sunday morning.  We heard Bullfrog Bay kicked out 200 + stripers just past the Haystack, (big rock past all the houseboats on right) which were mainly yearlings. We hit it early with a handful of boats drifting chovies. We couldn’t find them.  I motored to the right side of the bay in about 50 ft. of water, 150 yards in from the Haystack and Sue yelled “BOIL”!!!  Sure enough, we had a boil right in front of the boat.  Now I always have a topwater ready, but we heard that boils this year were few and far between.  This time I didn’t.  Serves me right.  It will never happen again… By the time I had 2 Zara spooks hooked up, it was about over.  We had 3 hits and no fish.  AARGHHH!  I slapped on a Wallylure and started jigging.  I’ve yet to catch a striper on one of these…  Five jerks off the bottom and WHAM!  We put about 8 stripers in the cooler, all yearlings except 1 25 incher that Sue caught. He was so skinny, when I filleted him, they went for fish food.  The yearlings had more meat on them than he did.  About mid-morning there were so many boats out there, we decided to leave.  We never did see anyone doing very good.  The catch from the day before turned off I guess….or we just couldn’t find them along with everyone else.  We went back to Lake Canyon and tried jigging with the Wallylure at the wall.  Every drop was a fish for about 30 minutes!  Big and small…what a blast!  Most of the big were healthy too.  Sue nailed the biggest of the trip, a 4 ½ pounder.  I caught more, so we decided we were even or at least I thought we were.
The bite lasted a couple hours and we filled the cooler.  We went to find a camp for the night that was close and then went back out for the last hour of light.  We started trolling Walleye Assasins again and on every point we caught fish!. They couldn’t stay off this lure.  We had 2 double hook-ups and in only one hour boated another 17 fish.  7 were good size.  These 2 came on a double and made the trip! 

 

Monday morning we slept in, caught some cats off the back, and didn’t start trolling till 10:30.  We missed the bite.  We put 4 stripers in the cooler and gave up.  We went to Halls Creek Bay for our last hour of the trip and trolled up a few yearlings and then backed it in.  Another great weekend on the most beautiful lake in the West.  We filleted about 100 fish including stripers, smallmouth, and catfish.

September 26, 2006 - Kelly Brooks

Another great fishing trip. Started late on Saturday, we didn’t start fishing until 12 pm. Started graphing for fish at the up-stream entrance to Lake Canyon, found hundreds of stripers stacked up from 30'to 70' in 90 feet of water. Chummed with anchovies and most of us in the boat started caching small stripers, changed the jig color to for those that were not catching much and we all joined in the catching. Most of the fish we caught were at the 30 foot level. We used Orange colored lead jigs and one half or one third of an anchovy. The fish were still biting well but we had to leave at 4:30 or so for the Shad Rally. We ended the day with 49 Stripers. Had to tow a broke down boat back to Bullfrog so we were late to the Rally but that’s another story. 
Sunday morning we fished further back in Lake Canyon trying for some larger fish. We found a large school of fish in the first left fork , chummed and fished without much success, we caught a few more small fish but not the big ones we had hoped for. The school was on the move and hard to stay over. We continued into the canyon picking up small stripers trolling, didn’t seem to mater what we trolled with, Kastmasters, Rapalas but we caught a few more trolling with “Pink Clown” Rapalas.

 

 
orange We went down lake to Iceberg and found some nice stripers at the upstream side of the mouth again.  Fishing was slow, we left Iceberg at 4 pm so we would have time to gas up the boat Decided to stop one last time at  “Dink Point” that’s what we had named Lake Canyon. We found the fish in the main channel this time and proceed to catch nice sized stripers for a change, with the biggest at 4 ½ pounds.  We ended the day with 64 nice stripers, and stayed to long to get gas at Halls.
Only had a little time to fish on Monday morning. ( had to wait for the marina to open for gas)
Fished “Dink Point” for 1½ hours and boated 27 stripers and one catfish.  Spooned with a orange and silver kastmaster with good success.


 

Side note; The bigger stripers were not healthy, we only fillet about one in three.  We kept all fish and deep-sixed the unhealthy or very small.


 

Thanks again Wayne for a great fishery, sorry I missed you at the Rally.

 

September 27, 2006 - Maynard Sorensen - Ivins, UT
Took the long trip up from Wahweap to Halls crossing to meet my Kids. We had great fishing just off the channel on the wall in Lost Eden Canyon. Three hours of fishing produced more than 16 nice Stripers caught off the bottom using a half frozen minnow hooked to one half oz. lead heads. They wanted nothing else at the time. We sank them rapidly past the smaller fish to the bottom, about 60 feet and caught the larger stripers.

Fillets were rolled in flour seasoned with Old Bay and cooked in a frying pan using heart healthy olive and cocoanut oil. Absolutely delicious this way.

The  photo is from left to right, grandson Rob Sorensen, Grandpa Maynard age 80 and owner operator of the boat, and one of many great sons, Howard.

I have been fishing and playing on Lake Powell since it began to back up at Wahweap. We put one of the first boats on the water at Halls and used to fly into the dirt strip then be towed down long dugways to the bottom of the canyon after the Lake reached that point. We have seen every phase of Powell, and the river before that with our family. What a great place. For sheer family fun, Striper fishing has never been better. Going over for more soon. Took the long trip up from Wahweap to Halls Crossing. It was beautiful all the way with the exception of the rough Wahweap channel.

September 7, 2006 - Rich and Val Hymas
We drove down from Salt Lake City Thursday Sept 7, arriving at the off shore marina about 3am.  We got a little sleep in the boat, and launched around 7am.  My goal for the trip was to catch 7 species of fish (LM bass, SM bass, Walleye, Crappie, bluegill, catfish, and striper).  While my dad was loading the boat I fished from the main bullfrog dock using a smoke sparkle tube jig.  First fish was a LM bass, second fish was a SM bass and third fish was an 18 inch walleye.  By then we were off to find some stripers.  Headed across the bay and fished for a while.  We got a few hits but no hookups using various lures.  Anchovies yielded 1 unhealthy striper that was basically dead by the time it got to the boat.  We then dropped our gear off at a campsite near Stanton creek and went looking for stripers.  We were in a new (to us) boat and the previous owner claimed the fish finder worked but despite our best efforts we couldn’t even get the screen to come on.  We felt like a blind squirrel looking for acorns, but we managed to pick up a few healthy stripers and catfish.  About 4pm the weather started to turn so we headed back to camp to try to finish setting up camp before the rain hit but we we re too late.  We got the tent almost set up when the wind and rain hit.  After about an hour things calmed down and we finished setting up camp.  Lesson here, set up and secure camp while the weather is good.  Just because it is a beautiful morning doesn’t mean it won’t change in a hurry. 

MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">             After dinner we headed out for some night fishing at the halls pump out station.  No large stripers but numerous small ones.  I was also able to catch a few crappie and bluegill around the docks using 1/16 oz.  I also saw numerous carp and decided to catch one on a worm just to say I landed 8 species of fish in one day.  I don’t know of any other lake where this is realistic. 

Saturday we tried trolling along the south wall. Heading upstream about a mile past Moki we passed a boat that was bait fishing near the wall and had a double hookup.  We found out that they had been chumming for several hours with good success. So we decided to give it a try about 100 yards upstream from them.  Our anchovies were thawed and we had a hard time keeping the bait on.  They seemed to get pretty good at knocking off the bait without getting the hook. We ended up with about 30 fish in 3 hours but would have had many more if our bait was still frozen.  Next time we will bring some dry ice to keep the bait frozen.  The average fish was 3-5 pounds, but most were very skinny and should have been 6-8 pounds if they were healthy.  Only about half of the fish yielded decent fillets.  Overall it was a pretty good trip, but a fish finder would have made it much better.  We will definitely return.

My apologies to Val and Rich - Just found this going through my old messages.

October 1, 2006 - Marty Peterson
Arrived at the mouth of Lake Canyon around 9am Friday the 29th. Started setting up to fish. Another boat pulled up right on the corner so we moved up canyon a little ways. Weather was calm and beautiful. Started fishing with anchovy pieces. Nothing. Spoons. Nothing. Tried another spot. Nothing.
 
Moved again toward mid canyon. Bingo! Mostly small or skinny but plenty. Both speed reeling and with bait. By noon or so the canyon here has been discovered. Boat after boat cruising in enjoying the day. But, the waves are more than just uncomfortable. They are causing mild sea sickness. So we head to a beach to get off the water and do some fillet work.
 
After filleting the few best ones and sending another 20 to the bottom we notice some boiling going on out in the water. No boats have passed by for a bit and the water had calmed enough to see the shad flying and small Stripers following.
 
So after them we proceed. And casting a Wallylure in works! The larger fish are underneath and many follow the hooked one in. But being in too big of a hurry I fail to see that the line is around the end of my pole and the third cast sends poor Wally out to sea unattached to the line. But the Wife is catching them with her quarter ounce jig with body now. So we proceed to catch a few more. Then the boat parade starts anew with a negative influence on the fish. Soon gone for good.
 
Catching remains slow through evening but we find a spot to anchor in to nightfish. 70 feet deep with a slope up to 20. Soon after dark, shad come in followed by Stripers. Near every cast produces  mostly smaller ones with just a couple 3-4 pounds and our bucket full with skinny ones. By 9:30 we call it a night.
 
Saturday morning the 30th we catch a few small ones here and there. Several boats are trolling around also catching a few. We are back out near the mouth of the Canyon. We can see 3 boats near the uplake corner and decide to fish the other side up a few hundred yards in the shade. It is about 10 am when my fishing buddy (wife) hooks a healthy 4 pounder. So we continue to fish there. 85 to 30 feet deep and a Striper on nearly every anchovy tipped jig cast till noon when it is time to leave. Mostly small but a couple of better ones. A couple even snapped my poorly tied knots. This in spite of reels with drags. So there are some fighters left out there.

September 30, 2006 -Rhonda and Striper Steve

 
This is  12 yr old Garrett from Mancos, CO. He caught this striper using anchovies in the back of Bullfrog bay. Thanks Kent for teaching Garrett how to catch stripers. He had a great time!

 

 
Steve and I caught  these on anchovies in the back of Bullfrog bay. The yearlings were fun to catch and had better fillets than the big ones. We had to catch a lot of these to fill our cooler but it was worth it.

 

October 3, 2006 - Marvin James - Sedona, AZ

 
Hi Wayne, attached is a photo of a 3 lb 6 oz small mouth that I caught and released on 9-28-06. I also caught and released a 2 lb 12 oz large mouth that same morning near Halls Crossing Marina. Both fish were caught on shad colored tube jigs.

My name is Marvin James, I'm from Sedona, AZ, I have been fishing Lake Powell since 1970. For the last 17 years I have been going to Halls Crossing, I prefer the less hectic atmosphere on that part of the lake.

I enjoy your work and read it throughout the year. Thanks for all the good you do for the lake.

October 10. 2006 - Sherm Mcdonell
We fished the docks at bullfrog for three nights in a row until 1:00 am. There were a total of five people every night. We used lots of green lights and did not draw a single shad. There  were 489 stripers taken 85% smaller fish 15% larger and very thin.

We also caught 8 really nice catfish. Shelley and I managed to capture 4 really great crappie. Three of them are headed to the taxidermist. All were 14 to 17 inches long - great fish.

October 14, 2006 - Wildcard, Red Cat, Debo

After a long hard thought, (approximately 10 minutes)...Wildcard, Red Cat, Debo (the newest member H&J Fishing), and I, decide to embark on another thrill filled night at Powell. Weather was great for about 4 hours. Red Cat and I had decided to fish the Marina, not the covered slips, and were asked to leave the marina as we had arrived. "No fishing", didn't know that, thought you could fish it in the late evenings.
 After about 30 minutes of looking around, we decided to fish the shallow areas around the marina and executive docks. Fish were hitting at almost everything we'd cast out. Wildcard, being the frantic fisherman immediately threw his favorite crank bait and landed a great 8lb fighter. We followed right behind, all pulling in anywhere from 4lb - 10lb stripers.
In short these fish are ferocious when they feed. From surface bait to jigs to bottom spoons, everything I had in my backpack was working. After about an hour of exercising our casting arms, we pulled in about 50 or so stripers and a few Crappies. The evening ended early with the rain moving in fast cutting our time down to 3.5 hours. Our final count was 213 stripers caught. We decided to head back home early. What a trip! The picture below is when Debo and I went to cleaning station with the first 2 coolers...got tired and didn't want to lay them all out. The lineup is Wildcard from the left, Red Cat, and Debo.

October 15, 2006 - Powellman
Just got back early yesterday morning. Had another very nice week again. We got down to Stanton in the middle of the nite a week ago and set up camp with the full moon, it was great. This did not affect the fishing all week long. Sunday was just a goof off day and blue bird weather, went out about 3PM over to the mouth of Moki picked up a dink right away and then nothing, so we went up stream to the first bay after you leave the mouth of Moki. We picked up about 15 dinks and larger ones (recycled 2). Called it quits.

Woke up Monday morning with rain and strong winds and just waited it out. After a few hours the wind died down and the sun came out it was awesome after the big blow and wind. As I was just sitting around saw fish chasing shad so I got out a top water, a lucky 13 and bang- picked up some nice small mouth and large mouth. This went on for a few hours, what a blast.

Other than Mondays storms it was awesome weather all week long. Not to drag out the week report for ever we went to that bay twice a day picked up 25 to 35 stripers every time we went out. Fished the upstream point along the wall the first 100 yards. We fished about 10 to 30 ft with anchovies with a quarter oz jig head. We spooned some too. Ended up the week with over 200 fish.

October 16, 2006 - Paul Furse
Very frustrating weekend around Bullfrog!  Arrived Wednesday night, did not fish, just set up camp in Stanton.  Thursday, trolled Moki wall with Wallylures, lipless cranks, and anchovy imitating soft plastics.  Trolled shallow and deep, fast and slow, graphed schools all over the area, had one bite - a 12 inch striper.   Tried spooning, speed reeling, etc.  No luck.  Gave up after several hours.  Spoke to several other boats, some trolling, some jigging, some anchovies, some with imitators.  All had the same story, fish all over the graphs, painfully slow action.  In particular, I spoke to an older couple jigging 'chovies on the wall, same story -more on them later. 

That evening fish were jumping all over Stanton so hard they were easily identifiable (smallies mostly with the occasional largemouth).  Took grubs and topwaters (popper, zara spook, lipless cranks, floating jerks, you name it...) and hit the water.  Nothing worked.  Caught one 7 inch largemouth way back in the weeds on a lipless crank.  Fish still jumping all around - no bites.  Later that night we tied to a buoy in the mouth of Stanton, suspended a green fishing light before the moon came up.  Left the boat for about an hour.  Came back to a graph blackened with activity.  Spooned with Wallylures & grubs.  Snagged another 12 inch striper.  Stayed two more hours - nothing.

Friday, fished rock piles in Moki with grubs and cranks.  Several nibbles, no strikes.  Tried trolling again, nothing.  Talked with several other boats - same story.    Friday night, floated over deeper water with fishing light and 'chovies.  Lots of activity on the graph, wind kept blowing us into shallow water.  Gave up after about two hours and tangling our lines in the positioning motor several times.  Fish count to this point - 3, no keepers.

Saturday it rained.  Not cold though, so decided to test the old myth that fish bite in the rain.  Donned our slickers and off we went.  Graphed and trolled Moki wall.  No luck.  Went clear to the back of Moki - into the weeds and trees.  Again fish jumping all over the place!  Fired the spook, the popper, the sticks, and several different grubs - caught another 7 inch largemouth, which came loose right at the boat (I'd have thrown him back anyway).  The rain was really pretty - I've never seen Powell in anything but blazing sunshine...

Packed up Sunday morning.  Met a guy at the dock who had arrived on Friday.  Basically the same story from the top of Bullfrog bay.  Claimed he met a party of three at the restaurant though, who had caught "hundreds" in the last three days using spoons and 'chovies.  They, however were uplake around the Knowles. 

Finally, met another party of three on our way home, at Blondie's diner in Hanksville, who claimed to have caught over 1,000 stripers in three days.  They showed me a portable freezer FULL of fillets that lent credence to their tale.  They too were uplake in the Striper City area. 

What can I say.  The Lake was beautiful, as always, but my luck (and the luck of most that I spoke to) was dismal.  By the way, that older couple - I saw them Friday evening at the Halls Crossing Marina.  They had two good sized stripers in a bucket.  That's all they caught all day jigging 'chovies at Moki wall...

October 17, 2006 - PBjet
Based at Bullfrog and fished both up and down. Arrived Thur.4pm after semi-eventful pull from Salt Lake. (Tire problem, replaced both w/new) Checked in at lodge, checked in w/executive services for my slip and met the wife to launch the boat, took a short tour.


Friday Morn we hit the main channel at the Moki wall up to Knowles, best action closer to Knowles.  Some fiesty 16-20" fish, healthy fat fillet fish.  Caught on 3/8 gold kastmasters speed reeling and anchovies after chumming.  Jig casts that did not hook up often brought a chaser or two to the surface where they would snag some chum or my sons free floating anchovy chunk.


Friday night, under the lights off the Executive docks we fished with smallish cut chunks of anchovy under 1/8 to 1/2 oz pinch ons for stripers from 10" and scrappy fat fighters to lethargic 24" fish that were all head.  Best fillets came from 16 to 18" fish.  We set our goal at 100 fish, reached it at 1am and had 20 really nice fish to fillet, the same amount of skinneys to sink in the main channel the next morning and the rest pan sized.


Sunday, Downstream almost to Iceberg, fished wall same pattern, same results as Friday.  Fish over deep water mark fish at 50 to 60 feet, drop kastmaster down to 10' below fish. (watch on sounder) speed reel up through them.  Another striper for the cooler.

October 26, 2006 - Tim Bresser

 
We went to Powell 10/21 thru 10/24 and had a ball, at first we went out trying to find them and then found out that they came in to feed at night so we started fishing at night under dock lights after sun down till we got tired. We rented a slip spot at Bullfrog and dropped a light as well and killed them in about 70 feet of water.
 Had to use extra weight to get down under the little ones but it was fast and furious all night 3 nights running. We used heavy jig heads with anchovies and got hits almost every time. We would just let it free spool down to bottom then bring it back up a few feet to get it away from the cats. If it took too long to get a hit then start working it up a few feet at a time and all ways get a hit.  What a blast!
We caught at least 200 fish in 3 day period of which 80 were over 18 ".  All though the big ones where very skinny the little ones really put up a big fight and like i told my friend "it's all fun" and it was. Looking forward to going back next spring.  Tim Bresser left,  Duane Long right.   We love you reports and will keep watching for next time.

October 26, 2006 - Gary Bryson

Spent Oct 19-21 fishing Iceburg, Escalante, and San Juan. Bass action was good with pearl colored grubs and tubes fished to the bank and slowly working them down the bank. An occasional striper would hit that presentation as well. Spent the 21st at Moki wall and Moki Canyon where the striper and largemouth were caught.

.

 

Gary Bryson with bass.

 

 
Newell Bryson with striper.

Graphed for stripers on the wall and chummed with anchovies. Shortly after had steady success with stripers using anchovies.

Thanks for the reports, Wayne. They helped to plan our trip

 

November 27, 2006 - Drew Cushing
I just wanted to give you a report about the Bullfrog fishing as well as north up to Good Hope. The weather was great over the holiday weekend with air temps in the low 60's and water temps in the mid 50's. The kids even went swimming one afternoon but I think they did that just to prove they could. We fished our way up to Good Hope Bay the first day and graphed lots of fish in each canyon near the main channel along the points suspended at 40-80 feet in deep water. We were able to entice these fish to bite in Red Canyon and Smith Canyon but not anywhere else we tried. We caught these fish by using the electric trolling motor and slowly moving through these schools while jigging spoons tipped with anchovies. The majority of the fish were 11-15 inch stripers that were in great condition. We caught some larger fish that were in good condition but we could not find very many large fish.

Each night I would take the seven kids down to the slips at Bullfrog and fish in 75 feet of water under a green light using anchovies. We didn't even have to chum. The kids caught fish all night. I would start threatening to leave about 10:00 pm and left by 10:30 they would catch 30-70 fish each night. I would then drop them off and go fillet fish. Every night they would catch several larger fish, up to 26 inches but all of the larger fish were in terrible condition and could not be salvaged.

The best fish for size, numbers, and condition was in Halls Creek Bay. We fished the old river channel from 40-22 feet deep water. We trolled 2.5-3.0 miles per hour and caught fish on any crankbait that was fire-tiger pattern. What model, size depth didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the color. I had on 2 fire-tiger down deep husky jerks and one that was shad colored and caught fish like crazy on the fire-tiger but nothing on the shad colored. I used frenzy minnows, frenzy divers, hot & Tots, wally divers, rapala's, rattle traps and bombers. I caught fish on every model as long as it was fire tiger. We caught 50 fish each of the last two days and 25% of them were large healthy fish and 75% of them were 14 inches. I lost several crankbaits in the trees but it was worth it.

We brought home one large cooler of fillets and many great memories. I took some pictures but they are scattered in 4 cameras in 3 states. As soon as I get them together I will send you some pictures.

December 3, 2006 - Marty Peterson
Fished Bullfrog on 11/30 and 12/1 and found the catching extraordinary.

We did not get on the water until around 6 pm on the 30th arriving later than we wanted. Went over to the Bullfrog tire line and spotted possible fish on the graph. Lowered a jig with piece of anchovy and had a 3lb striper on 20 seconds later. Landed the fish and lowered the jig back in and bam! another. Less than 20 feet down in 117 foot deep water. We put out our green 4 foot Killerfishlight brand light and proceeded to catch fish until 11 pm when the ice forming in our eyelets convinced us to go get warm.

It only got down to around 30 degrees on the water and the wind was not too bad. Water temp still in the 50’s. But everything that got wet did seem to freeze eventually. The cold was tolerable as we were prepared but did not want to venture too far.


The fish were amazingly healthy. Richard Snow picked up the largest of the night at 3.9 pounds. Half of the 118 fish we caught we determined to be worth filleting. We both caught many over two pounds with great meat. Very few smaller fish were caught perhaps due to no chum used.

We slept in Friday morning as the temperature was down around 20. In the afternoon we fished around looking for crappie with no success until about 5 pm. Then we went back to our spot and instantly started catching more fish. Was not even dark yet.

A little trick we have learned is to cut up both our chum and bait prior to fishing. It is less messy. And then put it in zip lock bags and freeze well. So we had chum to use and started to spread it about. Our concern was that with 118 less fish in this one spot, the fish left might need coaxing.



We do not know if it is due to the chum or just luck but the fish we caught were different the second night. Of 142 actually caught, several were 5 or slightly more pounds. Many 3-4 pounds. And lot more skinny and small ones. Several others fought well enough to snap our lines at the boat likely because we did not retie often enough. 48 were determined to be worth filleting. Richard mostly fished 50 feet down with ¼ to ½ ounce jigheads. I used mostly 1/8 ounce and usually had a fish hit before getting that deep. Color seemed to make no difference nor did putting on a plastic body.

Tried a spoon but each time it was swallowed whole and then more difficult to remove than just using a jig. Temps did not get below freezing on Friday night but we still quit at 11 pm knowing that we had more than a good hour of electric fillet knife work to do in the cold.
 

We did have a few shad come to the light and a few fish had shad in them on Friday. Did not notice any Thursday. Attached picture (if it works) is of some healthy 4 to 5 pound fish prior to dinner.