January 2

January 2, 2008 - Mark and Sue Rudie - Bullfrog - Night fishing

	Sue and I were cordially invited to fish off the beautiful houseboat of our beloved Capt. John “Rimrock” with Gold Cup, Bryant Butters, and his two sons, Matt & Hunter. This is the very first fishing trip we have ever taken to Powell at this time of the year, so we had no idea what to expect. We arrived Friday, December 28th and fished through Sunday. We stayed moored to the slip in Bullfrog and during the day, we tried walking around the docks for crappie, LM and SM bass. Bryant and his boys gave a valiant try for bass around the shore one day, but came back empty. Fish count was about 80 fish; about 4 largemouth, and 3 catfish with the rest being stripers. Not bad for the middle of winter and much better than we anticipated considering we fished right off the back of the houseboat in a slip! What a great spot. You couldn’t ask for a better place to be moored.
	The weather was cold in the mornings and at night, but from 2:00 pm till the sun went down over the horizon, if you were in the sun, it was gorgeous. The thermometer read between 50 and 60 degrees. The only problem was that no matter what we did or how hard we tried, we couldn’t catch a striper during the day. We tried a few lures, jigging with Kast masters and Wally lures, and chumming anchovies to no avail. Notice the “shirt sleeve” weather! I think we saw 3 boats cruise by all weekend. That sun felt great! Oh, …due to the “Witness Protection Program” the person with his back to you was not exposed…
	The striper bite always kicked in after sunset and lasted as long as you wanted to stay awake. This was not a constant bite…It took a bit of patience because the bites were usually few and far between. About the striper bite…Bryant and I agreed that we’d never seen stripers hit anchovies like they did on this trip. You had to be on the ball because it was the lightest bite we’d ever seen. They were like trout nibbles and would hit your bait very lightly and as soon as they felt pressure, they’d drop the bait. I can’t tell you how many one or two bump hits we had that we lost. If you didn’t set the hook on that second bump…they were gone and wouldn’t come back! I also believe that rigging your anchovy cleanly was important too. We caught them with small hooks baited below small sinkers or rigged to 3/8 ounce jig heads. All of our fish were caught with the tail or head section. They just seemed to work better with the stripers being so finicky.
	We caught them at various depths from 25’ to 90’, but most were caught deep. Bryant and Matt definitely caught the most fish. (Sorry about the pic, Bryant,…must have been a little shaky…
	All the stripers were between 1 ½ to 2 pounds. The larger stripers were gone and I believe winter killed. The small ones that we got were feeding on shad. We had a few burp some up. Gold Cup landed a few nice largemouth on crappie jigs at various undisclosed slips around the docks and Bryant managed to land one also during the weekend. I, myself, came up empty on the search for other species besides stripers. Bryant and his boys also caught a few stripers early evening at the end of one the docks. Two were caught on lures. A crappie jig and a Walleye Assassin, the rest on anchovies. All in all, a fantastic, fun trip with great friends, good food, and wonderful memories. Guys, from the bottom of our hearts…Sue and I want to say thanks again. Friendships were made and rekindled. What a great bunch to have together to enjoy the greatest lake on earth. Another tribute to Wayne. Without this website, we’d never have met everyone on Wayne’s Words. We’re sure someday we’ll say hi to a lot more of you!!

March 10, 2008 - Louis Santi - Bullfrog - Water Temperature 50 F

Caught 03/09/2008. Bullfrog. Caught on a Rattling Lipless Kinami Silver w/black back.

Caught by Louis Santi; Helper, UT.

The fish weighs 5lbs - 7 oz and measures 21".

February 28, 2008 - Rich Vosepka Shore fishing - Hite - Water temperature 48 F

A report for you from my first trip ever to Lake Powell. Made the drive down from Salt Lake City and fished Farley Canyon on Thursday (2-28). I was fishing from shore and found the water to be even lower than I'd expected (that spot you show in the photo on your Web site is now probably 300 yards from the water).

I used various lures and nightcrawlers on a floating Lindy Rig, right where the cloudy water in the back of the canyon turned into the clearer, greenish water of the bay. Caught one striper of about 17 inches on a Smithwick Rouge minnow bait. Had numerous light bites on the crawler rig but hooked nothing. Lost many jigs in the rocks but no bites. Had one strike on a Krocodile spoon.

It was sure a nice day, though. Hope to make it back soon when the water's warmed a bit.

April 11, 2008 - Marty Peterson Night Fishing - Bullfrog - WTemp 52-55

Nightfished Bullfrog next to houseboat Tuesday 4/9 and Wednesday 4/10. Till around midnight. Windy and raining. Water depth less than 30'. Tried deeper water with no success.

Landed 2 nice LMB, a 13" and 25" Striper and a small Cat the first night.

Just 4 small Stripers the second night.

All on anchovy near bottom. There were no fish seen on graph when we started. These fish just were either attracted to the green light or stopped by naturally during the evening. Water temp 56 Tue. and 52 Wed.

April 21, 2008 - CoachK - Moki Canyon

We did great in Moki for stripers. We fished the mouth on Thursday and caught nearly 100. Then on Saturday we went back. It was combat fishing so we moved up the canyon and found a wall that had some fish.

We wind drifted along the wall - down then back up. What a hoot. Caught over 100. Just threw an anchovy on a jig head out about 40 ft then drifted. The kids had a ball. Couldn't hardly catch a green bass. Finally went back to bank fishing and caught a few bass

April 27, 2008 - Joel and Lili Belmont, Glenwood Springs, CO

	We were on the lake from 4/15 to 4/26, and spent most of the time south of bullfrog. This Crappie was caught in Lake Canyon, along with a few others and some small green bass. Went down to Dangling Rope, and found a lot of SMB in Mountain Sheep Canyon, both in the narrow back part in crevices and cuts, and the open front end, along shelfs. 4" single tail grubs (yamamoto, pumpkin w/green and black, #196, on a plain lead jig head seem to be my perpetual bait of choice for SMB anywhere on Powell) were effective. Joel Belmont
	Fished near the Rincon middle of last week... fishing was tougher. Caught a good sized channel cat on the same 4" grub... pretty feisty fish. Lili Belmont decided that reading in the shade was better than slow fishing... she was probably right. Friday night (4/25) I was finally able to full on fish as we were leaving the next day, and were with friends earlier, making it more challenging to stay in a spot long enough to fill a cooler. Headed to Moki around sunset, and was blessed with the wind dying down so that I could anchor by the rock pile at the mouth (I've fished here a lot, and keeping a 26' TriToon in one spot over a chum cloud only works on calm evenings using two anchors) as others were leaving.
	Put the 4' Hydro Glow light in the water (luckily the moon was in a phase so that it didn't come up until maybe 12 or 1), chummed, and had an evening reminiscent of the same time last year, catching a fish on almost every cast. Lili got cold and retired after a while, but I kept fishing until around 1 or 2 am, and then motored across the way to a cove I had scoped out earlier. Ended up with around 80 stripers, using about a bag and a half of 'chovies. I found it worked better to cut about three anchovies up at a time, save the head, tail and close to tail segments for the hooks, and dice the rest to chum. This way I ran out frequently, and chummed consistently, which kept the fish coming. I like to use a chartreuse grub/jighead on the bottom, a bait hook about a foot above that, and another bait hook about a foot above that, so it reaches about a 3' section of depth at the same time. I tie these rigs at home, and use a snap to attach them so I am not tying knots in prime time fishing, or when it is dark (no fun).
	I don't know where the seemingly inexhaustible source of stripers comes from that live in Moki, but they rarely fail to show up. The fish were generally a nice small but thick size, offering great fillets. There were a few small skinnies, which was an odd encounter from the larger skinnies last year, but 90% of the fish were prime. Also picked up two walleyes... pretty scary looking at night! Fished Oak Canyon bay, close to where Oak Canyon meets the bay, and there were plenty of LMB and some smallies. They kept you awake at night with consistent splashing on the surface. Photo is of the mouth of Mountain Sheep at around 11pm, with a long enough exposure to make the full moon light look like daylight.

April 28, 2008 - Ryan Mosley -Stanton to Smith Fork- WTemp 56

	Here’s the day-by-day report for Roger and Ryan. The wind was absolutely annoying, but it's always fun hanging out in your backyard. To get to sleep last night I had to turn on the ceiling fan! Wednesday- we arrived at Stanton Creek and quickly set-up camp. The wind was already an issue that afternoon, and we shot up to Moki Canyon to look for fish. We trolled the mouth for stripers without any success. There was less wind in the back of the canyon, so we pitched grubs for a few bass and crappie. Water temp was 56F. Roger Schneidervin From Wayne to Roger - Famous quote "Even a fish could stay out of trouble if it kept its mouth shut!"
	Thursday- In the morning, we headed down lake looking for stripers near Lake and Slick Rock Canyon. We graphed some targets on the points along the western shore, just above Lake Canyon. We trolled about an hour, catching a couple of stripers using silver Wally Divers and Thunderstick Jrs. We also marked fish in the back of Hall’s Creek, but trolling only produced a few hits. In the afternoon the wind picked up (here we go). We switched back to fishing for bass and found a few cooperative smallmouths and largemouths in the mouth of Bullfrog Bay and the back of Stanton Creek. Water temps were 52F in the morning and only 55F in the afternoon (wind again).
	Friday- Once again, we searched for stripers willing to hit crankbaits. The cold front passed overnight and we took a chilly boat ride up to Knowles Canyon, graphing main channel points along the way. We graphed several fish at the mouth of Knowles between 30-60ft. Trolling only produced one striper, and we tried several different crankbaits. That afternoon, we moved into the canyons fishing for bass and crappie. The wind was light (surprise, surprise!), the sun was high, and the fishing responded. We caught around 30 crappies in Smith’s Fork Canyon, along with a few blue gills, stripers, and bass. We were using Berkely Power Grubs in motor oil/chartreuse on a ¼ oz jig head, 4-6ft under a bobber. Water temps were 50F in the morning, warming to 59F by afternoon.
	Saturday- After a bumpy ride uplake, we tried to mimic the previous day’s crappie event with little success. After a few hours and only a handful of crappie, we switched to bass. The wind howled (go figure!), the water remained cool, but the bass were active in both Smith’s Fork and Forgotten Canyon. We did best by fishing the sunny shores, and caught several smallies and one largemouth, using Hula Grubs in black/silver flake and single tailed grubs in brown/green flake. We also hooked a few more crappie fishing the trees in Forgotten Canyon. Water temps remained around 54F.
	Overall the fishing was pretty good, when the wind let you fish. The mornings were definitely slower and a little sun and/or reprieve from the wind warmed up the water in the afternoons. As the water temps slowly crept up, we saw an increase in fish activity. If winter will ever let go, the fishing is going to go berserk down there. Hope it helps, Ryno

May 13, 2008 - Mike Milburn WTemp 64-67

I just returned from an extended stay in the Bullfrog area. Last Wednesday and Thursday, May 7 and 8, we fished in the Cedar Canyon area and did very good on Crappie and some really nice Bluegill. We were using small jigs such as 2 1/2 pearl curly tails on 1/8 oz. heads. We also picked up some smaller SMB and a few LMB.

We fished for stripers at the mouth of Hall's Creek and did well using 3/8 oz. jig heads and a small piece of anchovy. The best spot was on the outside near the first vertical wall downlake from the Hall's Creek buoy. We found the stripers in 50-90 feet of water and most were suspended at about 25-35 feet. We chummed initially to get the feeding started. Most of the stripers were in the 15-18 inch range and most were in fairly good condition. Some of the guys in the party also fished in Moki Canyon and found stripers on the left side wall about 300 yards from the mouth of the canyon. On the way back to Bullfrog we stopped just downlake from the Rincon and fished the main channel.

Alan and Jessica

Fishing on Sunday was excellent for smallmouth in this area. Each cast would have several strikes and most well placed jigs would yield a fish. Most of the SMB we caught on Sunday were 10-15 inches and would be perfect for someone looking to take some fillets home. We were using 3 inch tube jigs in the crawfish colors
such as greenish brown and motor oil. When the wind wasn't blowing we used 1/8 oz. heads in the tubes. We had to go up to 1/4 oz. when the wind picked up. I also caught a few SMB on topwater lures when the
conditions were calm.On Monday morning, May 12, we fished for stripers at the mouth of Lake Canyon. The best spot was right at the mouth on the left side of the wall as you enter the canyon. We used pieces of anchovy on plain jig heads. The three of us caught about 30 stripers in two hours of fishing. I have attached a photo of my son, Alan and his friend Jessica with a nice stringer of stripers. We saw water temps in the 62-70 degree range with most of the water being around 64-67. Fishing is great and it's time to visit Lake Powell.

Later in the weekend my family came down to join me and we took a trip down to Rainbow Bridge. Due to the lower water level there is a hike of about 1 1/4 miles to Rainbow Bridge. There is a well maintained trail
and only a slight climb to reach this wonder of the world.

May 12, 2008 - Jared Mayfield - Iceberg

I caught this fish on May 3 in Iceberg Canyon. The fishing was great that weekend. We caught many stripers, small mouth, crappy and walleye. I caught 3 small mouth that were 17 inches long, and one big largemouth.

I think we caught a total of 200 or more fish that weekend... It was great!!

Jared Mayfield
Copperton, Utah

May 13, 2008 - Jim Macaluso

Nancy Macaluso
Sandy, Utah
Smallmouth Bass 20'' Long 18'' Girth 5 lbs 6 oz. weighed on Rapala digital scale
April 29,2008 Ice Berg Canyon Released to grow

May 17, 2008 - Marty Peterson - Lake Canyon

Fished mouth of Lake Canyon Wednesday evening May 15th. Wanted to night fish there but too windy. Caught a few Stripers.

Tried to fish there Thursday in the wind. Caught only a couple even though we fished for hours. Water temp dropped 6 degrees down to 58 Thursday.

Picture of fishing with a jig pole and circle hook pole at the mouth of Lake.

Picture of how we can wait for the fishing to start in a cot placed across the bow of the boat.

Arrived Friday morning around 8. Conditions calm and beautiful. Fishing was great for mostly smaller stripers, the heaviest being 3 lbs. 3 oz. and 23 inches long. Boated 61 fish by 11 am when we had to leave to get to work. The most effective set up for us was a circle hook on fluoro line. With small pieces of anchovy.

May 14, 2008 - Ken Trujillo - Bullfrog - WTemp 61-64

Dates Fished: May 10 – 13

Two of us caught stripers, smallies, walleye, and catfish, but no crappies this year. Smallies were in fairly deep water (15-30 feet) on points and along canyon walls near rockslides. Typically we cast a grub tail (watermelon or pumpkin seed), crankbait, or jerkbait a foot or two from shore and retrieve toward the boat. After we caught a few in a row right next to the boat, we realized that we were fishing too close to shore and canyon walls and positioned the boat farther away. In fact, we were far enough away that we were unable to cast all the way to shore. Once we did this, fishing was much better but still spotty. We didn’t find smallies in the normal places like flats in Halls Bay. Fishing was better after 10 am than in the early morning. If I had only one bait to use for smallies, it would be a green or dark brown grub tail on a 3/16 ounce jig. Lizards and finesse worms also worked well. When the wind picked up, crankbaits were the way to go. Crawdad (red/brown) and ghost shad (brown) colors worked best. We caught 20-30 smallies per day, but some were very small at 10 inches or less.

The stripers were active, but again not until about 9:00 or 10:00 AM. We caught them about 50 yards before the entrance to Moki canyon and within 100 yards of the entrance. Small anchovie chunks on a hook with a small split shot about 1.5 feet above the hook worked best. We fished deep water, but only about 20-30 feet down. We had very little luck fishing with bait on a jig head, a jigging spoon, or trolling. We only counted stripers on one day. The count was 55 stripers for about 3 hours of fishing. Most of those fish were caught in about an hour long feeding frenzy. Catch rates were similar on other days.

May 21, 2008 - Kurt Douglas -Lake Canyon

I was able to bring my BIL from Longmont down for a few days for his first visit to Lake Powell. We camped at Stanton Creek and hit the water about 1 pm and headed for Lake Canyon. We spent the next few hours reeling them in on anchovies. We decided to try for some bass and tried the back of Lake only catching a single smb and lmb for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday morning we tried the entrance to Halls Creek with no luck. We headed back down to Lake and struck out again. We headed back to camp to prepare for the trip home. Before departing we tried Moki and had about 20 stripers in just over an hour of fishing. We did catch a few larger fish but most were smaller and healthy. Jeff really enjoyed the trip down. We managed to beat the wind storm off the lake.

May 29, 2008 - David Dunder

This is a 17" Big Mouth Bass
estimated at about 3-4 lbs

It was caught off of mile marker 80 on Rock Wall

Green Grub with white tail and red tip

Caught by David Dunder
Grand Junction, CO

June 11, 2008 - Marty and Ivy Peterson - Lake Canyon

Fished Monday evening June 9th and Tuesday morning the 10th. Fished the corner of Lake Canyon and the Main channel. Joined other anglers already there having great success for small Stripers up to 24". They explained to us that the fish were very particular to line and presentation. They managed a fish nearly every cast. We boated four Stripers then each had Catfish take our baits at the same time. Then not another hit. Thinking back, perhaps the "slime" that the Catfish left on our lines, which I did not think to clean off, defeated the purpose of flurocarbon. And spelled doom to catching more fish out of that school, that night.

Ivy Peterson

Because Tuesday morning we arrived around 9:00 and again joined catching in progress again. I retied on a jig head tossed us "because this is what is working this morning". And Ivy promptly started catching Stripers. My pole was kind of just empty. But she kept me busy putting her fish in her cooler and grabbing another anchovy bait for her out of my cooler. The wind prompted us to leave around noon. She had 36 Stripers, the largest 2.8 pounds. The fish were mostly being caught between 10 and 20 feet deep. After I learned that I started to catch a few. On a circle hook. Not too deep.

Picture is of Ivy at the Bullfrog cleaning station with her cooler worth of fish ready to fillet.

June 23, 2008 - Mason Williams - Escalante River Arm

	My family and I just returned from a very successful week of fishing at Lake Powell.
	We fished the mouth of the Escalante River Arm at dawn and dusk every day and found that the bite for both small mouth and striper peaked at those times.
	Keep one eye on the shore and the other on the open water looking for boils like this giant one.
	Trolling the rocky shores with a Rapalla Rat 'L' Trap produced steady striper action.

June 22, 2008 - Leo Heugle - Bullfrog

Weather was great all week which surprised me. Fishing early in the morning did not help--smb fishing was poor compared with previous years--striper fishing was fair at times--only one area provided fish--Lake Canyon right at the mouth on the north side--we tried
Moki area but did not catch a striper so returned to Lake Canyon--learned the secret of catching stripers this year which I have not been
told by anyone that I read--brightly colored jig heads instead of the plain type--luckily I had a few of them and used them my last day which was Friday--I still only caught ten stripers that three or four hours but that was the best fishing of the week and I was glad to get those--cat fish drove me nuts for I caught that many of those critters. Leo from Price.

June 25, 2008 - Dr. Cole Snyder, Tooele UT - Bullfrog Bay

I was fishing all of the way up Bull Frog Bay from June 17th - 21st. When I was actually fishing at the right times of the day it was on fire. We were anchored on a little island all of the way back against the tamarisk fields in the far northwest portion of the bay. I was receiving success with a black and white spoon mouth floating lure. All of the fish really liked the jigging action. I was catching 8-12 inch small mouth bass in the mesquite field and on the east side of the island that was much deeper and full of pebble sand. I was catching stripers and walleye using the same lure. These stripers and walleye were between 14-20 inches. My nephew caught two channel cats that were 12 and 14 inches. He was using cheese and left over ham from breakfast...it's amazing at what catfish eat. Funniest part about the whole trip...two of my biggest fish were caught off of the back of the house boat. I never left the house boat or the 1/2 acre island while fishing nor fished more than 30 minutes per day and I was more than satisfied with the amount of fish I ate for breakfast and brought home to smoke.

The walleye, cat and most of the stripers were caught in 10-25 foot of water at a depth of 6-12 feet. The small mouth were in 6-10 foot water. I did notice 3 smaller boils of stripers on Friday the 20th. That was the first time I had ever fished into a boil...what a ride. Nothing like trying to get a fish off the hook fast enough, not lose the fish and then cast toward the boil while it's still in reach of the island. What fun that was. I can't wait for my next trip down there. I think I had more fun fishing there than I have ever had on the wave runners or water skis.

I also tried a little fly fishing while I was there. I didn't have any success. I'm guessing that the water just wasn't clear enough yet since it was still rising 6-8 inches per day.

All in all I think I caught 4 walleye, 9 small mouth and 8 stripers. Like I said before, I didn't spend much time fishing since I only needed them for breakfast and just a few to smoke since we were so short on space and available ice.

Thanks for all of your hard work on your website. I learned a lot about fishing at Lake Powell before I left for vacation due to this site.

July 11, 2008 - Marty Peterson - Bullfrog Boils - WTemp 77-85

Launched at Bullfrog the evening of July 7 and found Stripers boiling straight across from the ramp near the opposite shore. Took us a few attempts but finally hooked up. Jumpin Minnow worked best that evening. Worked our way to Lake Canyon where we tried anchovies on the north entrance point with no success. Night fished Lake Canyon with little success. Our lights brought in thousands of small shad. So many shad we could reach into the water and catch them as they crashed into our hands.

In the morning of the 8th we found no Stripers boiling in the canyon but many in the main channel. They did not want the Jumpin Minnow in the morning but did take smaller topwater. Boated 35 Stripers that morning between two of us. All fat. Heaviest 2.9 lbs. and 22 inches. Most more than 2 lbs.

Went back out in the evening. Picked up another 15 or so in Bullfrog Bay. Small topwater seemed to work better than large. Tried night fishing again. Nothing till 4am. That is when the Catfish started to bite. After sunrise the boils were few and far between but we picked up 30 Stripers with larger plastic body jigs casting at swirls till some boiling started later. The best boils that morning were about 500 yards out from the Bullfrog ramp.

Water temps ranged from 77 first thing in the mornings to 85 in the evening. Water clarity improving but still some logs in the water, nearly solid in places up Lake Canyon. My transducer kept getting kicked up as we cruised after boils.

July 22, 2008 - Jon Gates

Eleven year old Clint Gates of Ivins Utah caught this 7 lb. catfish in Warm Springs July 14, 2008.

It was early evening and he was using shrimp bait casting off the houseboat next to the shore.

July 23, 2008 - Greg - Boilermaker - Boils at Buoy 90

I just got back from my trip to the lake. My Brother and I were able catch around 100-150 stripers. Sat we went north from Halls and found very little boils but we marked shad everywhere and caught 20 or so by casting to jumping single stripers. We were able to get One good boil sat night right across from Halls marina. Sunday was windy and cloudy and we were drying out from the rain storm.

Monday We were looking for boils and only saw ONE other fisherman; everyone else we asked did not know what we were talking about. He told us just south of Halls in the main channel. We turned the corner and the complete main channel in front of Halls Creek was a boil all the way across and about 250 yards long. We caught fish until all coolers were full and they were still boiling at 11:00 am Monday morning. I am to let you all know that their is NO fishing pressure up north and Tons of shad and the stripers and just now finding them and they are healthy and fat and you only half to drive about 2-8 miles from Halls downstream.

The best action was centered around buoy 90 but fish boiled as far downstream as buoy 87. Watch the north side of the slope between mile marker 89-90 this gets shallow real quick and some rocks stick up but right in that area was AWESOME for boils on Monday night all the way up to the point. Hope this helps.

Boiler Maker - Out!

August 6, 2008 - Sean Stansberry -

Just a quick report and some pictures. We had an excellent week at the big lake with a great group of friends. We launched out of Bullfrog on July 30th and returned on August 3rd. First, the bass fishing was tough! You called it, but I really expected some better action for the largemouth in all that brush. The stripers were hit and miss with a few good boils. Thursday evening, July 31st was the best action a couple miles south of Hansen Creek. We got into a good boil and loaded the boat with fat 2 to 2 1/2 pound stripers. We never found that group of fish the rest of the trip.

On a final note, my son Zachary may have caught the lake record Gizzard Shad! We had it weighed at the Bullfrog post office at 2 pounds 8.4 ounces!

Crew of the Olathe Yacht Club

August 12, 2008 - Flint Stephens - Halls Crossing

Arrived Halls Crossing Friday afternoon Aug. 7, just in time for a doozy of a storm. After dark we tried fishing off the docks with a green glo light, but were unable to attract any shad or stripers so we called it quits after midnight.

Saturday morning was cool. We went as far as marker 117 looking for boils but finding none. Eventually we tried fishing shoreline structure with twister tails. We caught lots of smallmouth bass and big bluegill. Saw another boat at the cleaning station with a few stripers. Said they caught them in the same area we were in several hours after we left. Tried night fishing from the docks again but didn't even draw in any plankton.

Sunday morning we started early intending to head up lake. Spotted a boil across from Moqui Wall. Chased slurps for about four hours and caught about eight really nice stripers (16 to 19 inches). In the afternoon we headed up lake again, only to get trapped by a thunderstorm before we got very far. Pulled into the back of a canyon to wait it out. We were stuck for a couple of hours. We made use of the time to catch a dozen or so catfish--none very large. After the weather cleared we again found small boils across from Moqui and chased them until dark.

We had to leave early Monday morning. Fishing was never very fast, but it was still fun and we ended up catching stripers, catfish, bluegill, smallmouth bass, green sunfish and pumkinseed sunfish. Too bad we could never get the night fishing going. That is my favorite.

September 6, 2008 - Scott s - Iceberg

	Just a quick report from our trip to Iceberg Aug 30-Sept 5. My father and I fished exclusively in Iceberg mostly for Smallmouth as each time we went to the main channel it was windy and difficult to spot boils. (Weird week of weather as we didn't need to run the air conditioner!!) Dad's lure of choice was a Norman Deep Little-N in fire tiger and I used a variety of rattle traps. Our technique was to fish fairly quickly until we found a fish then focus on that area. If we found shad in the back of canyons usually we located Smallmouth and Largemouth. The stripers we saw were single splashes and difficult to fish.
	We caught numerous fish on this vacation but many were smaller. The bellies of all the fish were HUGE and often shad would spill out of their mouths. We let most of the fish go except for what we kept for a wonderful fish fry. I've sent a few pictures showing the perfect size fillets and the shad that spilled out while being filleted.
	If you look at the fish in the bucket you'll notice how full their stomachs appeared!! Last shot is a photo of the beautiful location while Dad threw out a line. Thanks to everyone for making this a successful fish fry!!

September 14, 2008 - Wayne and Pauline Crawford - Sandy, Utah - Bullfrog area

Fished the mid lake area for a couple of days from late Wed Sept 17 to early Sat Sept 20. Camped the first cove up from the Hall Ferry dock the first night. I caught a couple of small SMB, and was fishing a curl tail from shore when I see several fish jump in a small area. A blue over silver 3/8 oz. Kastmaster brought in a striper. Stomach bloated with shad..... Cooked up the striper and (he) tasted great!

Next morning, no boils spotted, trolled a shallow and a deep diver for naught, in an attempt to locate a striper school. Saw occasional singles on the graph along Moqui wall and into the canyon. A few bass off of the rock piles, but the big ones were dormant. I couldn't find anything of size with various color curl tails, Rapalas, and Kastmaster. Even with Spiderwire to 60+ feet. Went back to the neighboring cove to camp again for the night. A couple of borderline keepers for SMB.

Next morning roamed around looking for boils and struck out. A few small fish off of the rock piles in Lake Canyon. Pretty slow in the channel, Lake canyon, and Lost Eden. The boats I saw fishing didn't look to be doing too much either. At midday, I finally hit upon a "pattern". I decided to drop bait on the occasional singles along the big walls. The bait didn't work, but if I chummed some anchovies, the Kastmaster did the trick when vertically jigged. There appeared to be several stripers together, but no big schools like I'm used to. The fish were suspended from 30 to 100 feet, concentrated at about 50. I use the word concentrated liberally, there never was a concentration that got me too excited. Camped in Halls. Great/fast fishing for juvi LMB there, with a couple of keeper crappie. I've always heard that crappie were good, but never thought that they were worth the work of my amateur attempts at filleting. I stand corrected. Great fish, well deserving of their reputation as good table fare. They will be keepers from now on! Also, I can never remember catching so many LMB. This was the best LMB fishing that I have ever had. I hope this is a prelude to a return to the glory days of (a long time ago) longer than I'm going to admit to being a Powellphile.

Next morning, early start, a couple of additional LMB, the usual no boils, and time to head for the barn.

September 25, 2008 - Matt Fenn - Stanton Creek

My boys and I were fishing at Stanton Creek between Sept 12 - 14 and even with the moon being bright the weather was great and so was the fishing. We caught mostly green fish and my nephew Mateo caught his first big one. They all came off of baby bass crank bait so the little kids had a ball. The only boils we found where little and only held largemouth and smallmouth but they where still fun.

Thanks from the Fenn family

Mateo

September 26, 2008- Shane Scott - Lake Canyon.

I've used Waynes Words for several years. This is my first post. I am NOT a seasoned angler. I have fished on Lake Powell for a number of years, but spend more time wakeboarding than anything. I like to take a morning or two during the week and try for some stripers. When fishing I just chase boils.

Since I love to drive my boat on beautiful Lake Powell, it's a win-win situation. If no boils are found (win), the trip was a beautiful drive about the lake. If boils are spotted (win-win), get the beautiful trip plus the excitement of catching some stripers!

When I read that the stripers weren't boiling this week, I thought I was going to have to settle for the win of a beautiful boat ride, and some peanut butter and jelly (PB & J) sandwiches. My wife and I took a chance. When we were grocery shopping for our week on the lake we decided not to buy the salmon that was one of our dinners. We were eating fresh stripers for one of our dinners, or if I got skunked, PB & J sandwiches.

This morning was a win-win. I read Rhonda's message on Waynes Bulletin Board that there were boils reported at Slick Rock. So this morning I headed off at early twilight. As I headed down the channel, I decided
to turn into Lake Canyon and see what was happening there. Well, spotty boils were happening. I was all alone. Well, just me and the stripers that is. I wasn't in Lake Canyon for 2 minutes before the first striper was in the boat.

There were spotty boils over about 1/4 mile area in the canyon. I was using 3" Sassy Shads. Just tossing them over any surface action, and bringing it back in pretty quick. If I could see surface action during the cast, nearly ever cast netted a striper.

I'm not a very avid angler, so I wasted a lot of time messing with getting the jigs on the hook. I kept thinking about getting my sons pole (he wasn't with me) rigged up with a spoon. Between replacing the jig from the last catch and getting to the latest surface action I never had time. After the action died down, I caught one last fish by letting the jig sink to about 30' and giving the pole a little tug every 5 seconds or so.

That netted the biggest fish of the day. No big fish this morning, but fun had by all that were in the boat, me.

One last note for anybody who feels bad for the poor stripers being caught. Here's a shot of a shad that was half swallowed by one of the stripers caught. Think of it this way. We're saving thousands of shad.

Anyway, we're having fish tonight!

October 4, 2008 - Mike Milburn - Cottonwood Canyon Bass

	Based on your report of the slow fishing uplake around Blue Notch, Alan Green and I headed down lake on Wednesday. We decided to fish around Hole in the Rock and Cottonwood Canyon. We found a great campsite in a totally shaded alcove just across from Hole in the Rock. When we arrived I saw an otter catch a small fish and then he swam away around the corner. It was the first otter I've ever seen at Lake Powell. When we unloaded the boat we noticed some surface activity across the cove from camp. I started throwing topwater lures and immediately caught several smallmouth bass and a couple of fat 3 pound stripers.
	I've never seen so many shad in all my 36 years of fishing Powell. I saw clouds of gizzard and threadfin shad in the cove where we camped. The back of Cottonwood Canyon also had millions of young of the year shad of both species. I also saw numerous adult gizzard shad. We had short duration striper boils near our camp at first light and then again just before dark. We didn't see any boils in the main channel areas we fish. Our best success on the SMB and LMB was with crawfish colored tube jigs fished 10-30 feet deep along the main channel rock slides that had smaller sized rocks. The larger rock structure didn't seem to hold as many fish. The main channel bass were feeding on crawfish and small sunfish. The fish we caught in the backs of the canyons were keying on the shad and wouldn't touch anything else. I used topwater lures such as a smaller size clear Zara Spool or Tiny Torpedo and a Skitter Pop. The topwater action was almost no-stop in the backs of the canyons, but most of the hits were from smaller bass and the occasional striper.
	I believe we caught about 15 stripers and around 150 bass. We didn't get a walleye or any crappie. I was somewhat surprised that the stripers haven't found the huge schools of shad in the backs of the canyons. There are probably plenty of shad out in the main channel and they don't have to go far to fill their bellies. We kept a few SMB and all of the stripers. Biggest of the bass we caught were about 2.5 pounds for the SMB and a few 2 pound plus LMB.
Alan Green	The weather was great Wednesday and Thursday. We had a very brief shower early today around 0430 and then the wind picked up a little ahead of the approaching storm. I think fishing is just going to get better as the water cools. We saw water temps around 73-75 in most places and it was still warm enough to take a dip to wash up. I have attached a few pictures to use with the story. The LMB with the clear Tiny Torpedo was almost exactly the same size as the lure and he had all three hooks in his mouth. I was able to release him unharmed. He'll be a dandy in about 4 years! Alan Green is holding up three stripers we caught in the cove near camp. They are very fat and healthy and all of them fought well. I would imagine these same fish will be about 5-6 pounds in a year if the food holds up. A fisherman will need heavier line in the years ahead. 6 or 8 pound test won't be enough for the stripers of the future. The scenic shot is the back of Cottonwood Canyon across the main channel from Hole in the Rock.

October 8, 2008 - Luis Hernandez - Slick Rock stripers trolling

My name is Luis Hernandez and my wife's name is Jackie. We live in Parachute Colorado.
We fished on October 3rd before the weekend storm.
We fished in Slick Rock canyon and caught 14 nice size stripers.

We were using Storm Deep Thundersticks and trolling over an underwater hump that went from 75' up to 15' and back again. Most of the fish were caught in 20' to 25' of water. There were three boils in the canyon, in the same spot. They didn't last long and we were only able to catch one striper off of one of the boils.

We met a couple at the Defiance house with an unusual pet (a bobcat)!

Great website and very useful when planning a fishing trip.

October 9, 2008 - Kelly Brooks - Stanton stripers

I don't have enough information for a full fledged report, but thought I would pass on what we experienced last week at Stanton. We fished on 09/31 and 10/01

We only fished two mornings in Stanton Creek, (Late morning, 10:00 or a bit later) both mornings we would troll our way out from our camp. We used Silver and bass colored rapala type lures about 125' behind the boat. Both mornings we caught several fish with out leaving the Stanton creek area. We trolled the west side of Stanton and headed toward the west end of the Halls houseboat field. Stripers were fat and in great health. 2 1/2 -3 1/2#

We even had a few double hook-ups. Stripers were suspended and most fish were caught in 25-40' I never saw any big schools of fish, just lots of fish scattered out most every where I looked in the area.
We tried trolling in several places, Hanson, Moki, and Lake Canyon, the fishing was by far the best right next to camp.

October 14, 2008 - Bryan Hetzel - Rincon boils

	I Am A Big Fan Of Your Site. I always read up on the fishing and angling. Went down to Rincon today, Oct. 14th, 2008 My First time there.
	Had Major Boils Going off today, Just seriously violent feeding activity. Much more than I had ever seen in a striper boil. very impressive. The Shad Swimming around was extreme. and the boils just kept coming. We landed our fill, and was off. In between boils was able to hook on to small mouth in the weeds. I have included some pictures of the boils and the catch.
	Bryan Hetzel
	We stuck around from about noon till 3:00 pm then headed up to slick rock and then back to bullfrog. Tasty dinner we had tonight from fillets and taters and onions. Rincon is definitely the hot spot up this way. Take care and lets keep them stripers cooking.

October 20, 2008 - Ken Gallacher - Bullfrog

Our family read your advice on your October 14th report and headed down to Bullfrog for UEA—the only time we could get away. The fishing was terrible. We tried everything we had, lures, jigs, sun up to sun down and green light fishing at night near Bullfrog and the ONLY thing that worked was exactly what you said—the suspending jerk bait. We caught a 1 ½ lb. striper trolling with the jerk baits at 11:30 AM between buoys 97 & 99 situated between Halls Crossing and Moki Canyon on Thursday morning and again on Friday morning, same size fish, same location, also at about the same time.

Attached is a photo of our son Michael Gallacher holding the one caught on Friday morning.

We were amazed at night how many dozens of fish were on our fish finder at 11:30 PM, with our green light suspended and no matter how much anchovy we chummed, how many spoons, lures, chum on hooks—they wouldn’t take it. We’ll never go on the full moon faze again.

We love your reports and read all of them. We depend our your reports and will eagerly await more updates before we go down again—when there is no moon. And by the way, thank you for all you do—you render a wonderful service.

I forgot to include anything about us—I just sent you the info about our trip along with the photo of our son Michael.

We are the Gallacher (pronounced “Gallager”) family from Riverton, Utah. We LOVE Lake Powell but have rare opportunities to go there. I’m the dad—Ken Gallacher and we had 3 of our 4 kids there with my wife Brenda. The photo is of our son Michael with his catch on Friday 10/17.

Were it not for your advice, we would not have caught the 2 that we did.

We’re not very experienced, so I printed off all 71 pages of your prior reports and carefully read all of them, made a list of everything you recommended, then spent $160 at Sportmens Warehouse and headed down with 4 coolers full of ice and 5 bags of anchovies. I chuckle at our act of faith, but hey—we got two and had so much fun anyway.At least we’ll be more prepared for our next trip. And we hope to be able to afford a REAL boat instead of my 12’ boat with 6 HP motor that barely carries 3-4 people. But it works for now.

Thanks again for all you do.

October 23, 2008 - Bryan Hetzel - Bullfrog Crappie

	Figured I would give you a small update. Crappie Are Growing nicely and very hungry. This is night of October, 21. 2008 Count them, 12 over 2 pounds each. We merely Used dark colored jigs, with flowing tails. in the weeds. Nice fighters. And very fun to catch Bryan Hetzel
	The LM And SM Bass Were hitting nicely as well. Woke this morning to constant fish on for about an hour with bass ranging in the 2-3 pound weights. Not a striper in sight however.

October 25, 2008 - Brian Cassidy - Bullfrog area

Here is our fish report for 10/14 to 10/20.
Left Bullfrog on the 14th and headed down to Iceberg canyon and found a nice beach in the end on the right fork. Started out that evening fishing points and rock piles with lots of smallies caught. These bass where in the 1-2 lb range, next we tried in the back near the trees that are in the water and on the 2nd cast a nice striper slammed in to my X-rap. After that we hit the rock points around the trees and picked up a few more, we fished about 2 hrs in the mornings and 2 in the evenings for stripers which where the best times to catch them. We would average 5-6 each both mornings and evenings.

The catch rate was off from other years
but man were these fish healthy fat 3-5 lbs and put up a great fight ( watch out next year when they grow)
Then best lure was the # 7 X-rap in silver and black, this out fished all others 5 - 1, best way to fish was a fast slash retrieve that let the silver really flash. We caught some shad with a cast net and tried them the next day on fish that showed up on the fish finder in 60 ft. with just a few taps.

We used Iceberg as our base for 3 days and found stripers in these canyons:
1) Slick Rock in the back where the trees are in the water to the channel that wind to the back, there is a big school of shad that is staying there and the stripers seem to come in to feed, This was by far the best spot for stripers.

2nd) was Iceberg canyon in the backs near trees and points. In Rincon we only got 1 striper and lots of bass. Now bass fishing in this area was great with small mouth on the points and tons of smaller Large mouth 8-10" in the backs of the canyons. As a nice bonus we found large crappies in the trees that had water over 12 feet, these were large 14-16" crappies and great eating.

For the bass and crappies, tubes and yum salted crayfish where the hot ticket. The yum salted crayfish fished off deep water points would get you some big small mouth. We wanted to try Hall's creek for a few days so we headed back up there on Sat. Man was that a mistake, no stripers and lots of crazy people. The bass and crappie fishing was good in the back right in the trees with tubes, You could catch 100 small bass in 1 hour and some big crappies. Now the people near us were down right nuts, We had people ski right in front of our boat doing 40mph and fall in our path, then some nuts tried to bean us with golf ball while we fished.

Our best lure was the X-Rap # 7 in silver and black fished in a slash fashion, this out fished everything we tried 5-1 and bass seem to like it too. For bass go with the tubes and yum salted crawfish. These stripers where very hard fighting and broke 3 of my hooks on the X-rap and bent them often. I had to change out hooks twice because of the hard hits and rod bending fights
All I can say is next year will be awesome. I have never seen so many shad, The stripers did not need to boil or chase shad, all they had to do is sit and wait for a school to go by. 3 times we saw bass boil up the shad and it was full of these 8-10" large mouth bass made up of 100 or more fish.

Thanks to all for the tips and hope to be there next Oct.

October 26, 2008 - Marty Peterson Lake - Hansen Creek

Just back from Bullfrog area. Fished the evening and night of Thursday the 23rd up Lake Canyon. Found no biting stripers until after dark when one striper took a jig with anchovy under a green light. That was all the first night. Fished till about 10 PM. The winds were light but cold. Air temp 35 water 63-66. Not many shad came to the light.

Fished all morning long, Friday, all through the canyon. Just some smallies and sunfish. Moved to Stanton area for the afternoon and evening. Tried trolling with no success. Spooned some smallies from 80 feet down trying to find stripers. Set up on an open buoy in the Halls Field for night fishing.

At least ten times as many shad came in as we saw in Lake Canyon, starting about 45 minutes after dark. They never got thick enough to mess with the graph though. Soon after the stripers followed. We only landed 10. Lost 5 to the cables. Fished till 11PM. When the bites slowed. Also had some catfish hit. Air temp stayed up above 40 Friday night and Saturday morning.

Fished the mouth of Moki and then Hansen Canyon Saturday morning. Caught only catfish.

October 26, 2008 - Chet Garling - Bullfrog

Arrived Friday around noon trolled up a dozen stripers before sunset, all were 4-6 lbs and very healthy. The stripers were moving constantly and I could not stay over them. Saturday morning first light trolled up 6 all past the Dome rock toward the back, the mouth of the first big cove was productive. I was trolling 24' deep thunder in silver and a shad color Pointer trolling around 12', for the trip the deeper one out caught the shallow one 2 to 1.

Went back to Lake canyon and fished up a dozen crappie and small mouth, Saturday afternoon I hooked up with Goldcup and we went back to trolling Bullfrog, We boated 25 stripers and lost quite a few. We fished with Howard O and Jim P who finally caught on how to troll like Chet (which is faster than average) and started catching fish shortly thereafter (Ha,Ha). Nice to see Capt Rimrock and Art and crew, another great weekend with perfect weather but not a striper boil to be seen.

I do not use downriggers or leaded line but I do put out a lot of line to get the lures to stay down, my deep diver (norman deep thunder) was out 165' according to the line counter and ran at 24', my lucky craft would troll around 12' with a lot of line out. I troll as fast as I can keeping the lures down, the stripers were moving also, working in tandem with Howard and Jim we were able to find them first hugging bottom on the Halls side of the back of Bullfrog around 25' and then they moved into the channel from 25' down to around 55'. I do not troll a straight line but weave through making one side slow down and the other side speed up. Sunday morning they were just off the ledges to the channel in the back of Bullfrog.

November 14, 2008 - Paul Swaner - Bullfrog

	October 18th to November 1st Fished Bullfrog area from October 18th to the 1st of November It was slow fishing for us compared to past years. We caught about 25-30 Stripers from Moki to Lake Canyon using mostly bait. We also caught many catfish including a large 9 lb. 10 oz Catfish brought in by Michelle. She is the monthly winner in the striper contest for last November. We had Steve, a newcomer, who landed a nice 3.3 pound striper. and Rusty and Jeff also caught nice fish. We ate so many fish tacos at the lake, we hardly brought any fish home. We were also able to bring in a few LMB and SMB too. The weather was absolutely great making it one of the best Octobers trips I can remember. Michelle with 9 lb 10oz Catfish
	Steve
	Rusty
	Robin standing on Island in Bullfrog Bay where the Ferry goes between this and the open water. We marked the hidden island after one of our boats ruined a prop on it.

November 25, 2008 - Tom Goodbar - Rincon

I saw some reports from the Rincon area and the lack of stripers. We camped in the south Rincon October 2nd and 3rd. Water temps low 70s.

Thursday the 2nd the entire south bay boiled for about 40 minutes. 1/4 ounce Chrome and blue rattle traps brought fish on every cast. The same thing Friday Morning 30 minutes after sunrise for about 40 minutes. We were missing one stringer out of the picture. The fish from Thursday night were already cleaned and on ice. One of our non-fishing campers thought they saw a whale in the bay, which turned out to be a school of shad. Anyway here's hoping for some good fishing next spring.

December 10, 2008 - Marty Peterson

Fished Bullfrog Bay on 12/8 and 9. Tough weather. Found a few Striper schools. Between two of us we caught 30. Largest near 5lbs. All on anchovies. No bites on lures.

Richard Snow holding a fish close to the camera.