January 14

January 14, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Trolling Wahweap Bay

	I finally took that first trip of the year. Nob Wimmer and I went to Lone Rock to see if we could catch a fish. We started graphing well downstream from Lone Rock beach and saw school after school of shad. My guess was gizzard shad but the depth was well over 110 feet so we kept going hoping for fish in shallower water. We first tried to find fish to drop spoons on near Lone Rock in 60-70 feet. It was not easy to find a school but there were some concentrations of individuals that showed promise so the spoons went down, but to no avail. I had dropped a marker at the biggest fish concentration and we returned there to chum and fish bait for a while. I had some small gizzard shad in the freezer since November. We used these with great confidence but the fish did not share our enthusiasm. After a while we went to plan C. Mann's Heavy Duty Stretch + (9 inches long - dives to 25 feet) This fish looks small next to the lure but it is 20 inches long and close to 3 pounds with a nice fat stomach containing two gizzard shad.
	All the fish marked were deep so I got out the deep divers and put the bottom and lure running depth in close proximity. We trolled in 25-30 feet of water with the lures bouncing off bottom occasionally. When the lure grounded I turned to deeper water. I wanted the little squirt of silt when the lure hit but I did not want to lose the lure. Norman Suspend plus 4 which runs at 15-18 feet deep. Fish is 22 inches and 4 pounds.
	When the 25-30 foot contour was worn out we went shallower and changed lure type and size to run near bottom at 20-25 feet. We caught a fish ever now and then over the next hour. We ended up with 3 in the cooler and 3 that were near misses. It was a good way to spend two hours on a sunny afternoon in January. Big Mac running depth 15-20 feet
	Here is fish size in a more traditional shot. I am excited about spring. Lone Rock fish are eating, getting fatter, and will come out of winter in good shape. Plenty of shad remain. Spring 2009 will begin another banner year of fishing Lake Powell. What a great resource. We noticed gulls and cormorants flying and perching in the area. Birds and stripers go together - even in winter.

January 15, 2009 - Brian Hammond - Padre Bay

	Wayne, here a 2 pictures of the bass Brandon Hammond caught last November in Padre Bay. He did not weigh it, but we estimated it to be around 6 Lbs.
	Of course, he caught in on a pre-fish day for the tournament and we have not found it again since. But, this past year we have caught more fish at 5 plus pounds than all our years on the lake.

January 25, 2009 - Kip Bennett Winter Bass - Padre Bay

I went out last Sat. Jan 17th instead of working like I should have been. It was a fun day since the weather was nice and the large mouth were hitting crank baits in the shallows. Here is a picture of a nice 3.5 lber.

Caught smallmouth in the shallows also but Jarrett threw 'em back in before I could take any pics. We fished around Padre, Labyrinth and Gun Sight.

Kip Bennett

February 16, 2009 - Kevin Grimm

	I caught this Large Mouth on Collin Keisling's boat 2/15/2009 by Wahweap. It's weight was 5 1/2 pounds.
	I did not get it officially weighed because we let it go, but the scale we used we verified when we got home showed 5 1/2 pounds.

Kevin Grimm

March 4, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Padre Bay

We headed to Padre this morning arriving about 10 AM to calm waters and beautiful vistas. I am so glad it was such a pretty morning because fish had no desire to participate in anything we had to offer. There is always something to learn even on slow days.

We tossed deep diving crankbaits into the shallows and ran them into deep water. We spooned in 40 feet at the back of the canyon but saw no activity on the graph. We went shallow all the way back into the tree lined main canyon without a bite. After about 2 hours of casting we went looking in the shallow brush filled coves.

All over Lake Powell there are coves just completely covered with thick tamarisk brush that is sticking up above water level. It is easy to see, hard to navigate through. Water depth may vary from 8 feet all the way to 2 feet and shallower. Bush whacking allows a good visual on fish occupying the brush piles. After covering 50 yards of brush we saw 4-5 largemouth and some smaller sunfish scurrying out the way. We could go no farther and were about ready to turn around when we saw a crappie. We dropped a grub and got bit but he spit it out too quick to be caught.

We reversed course and on the way back out the prop disturbance had activated the brush dwellers. This time was saw 10 or so largemouth and one smallmouth. The point is: Largemouth are tucked safely away in the brush in the warmer shallows. It is very difficult to fish for them unless they come out to feed. But at least we have the largemouth located. Now if we could only catch them.

I started to take pictures of the cover. I got his one before the batteries died. Rats!

About this time the wind came up. We decided to pull out of the cove to the channel and eat a sandwich. After two bites I looked at the graph and saw a fish for the first time today. I dropped the spoon and got two nudges and then a hit. The first striper hit the deck. We caught 5 more in 5 minutes and then they were gone. Nice fat fish. One had a threadfin shad in the stomach.

That pretty well sums up early March fishing. Find them on the graph before you can catch them. Afternoon fishing is better than mornings. And Oh yes! If you don't find fish try taking one hand off the rod to eat a sandwich. That usually works for me.

March 12, 22009 - Mike McNabb - Largemouth in southern lake.

	We've been out fishing and doing very well. I would say the BIG largemouth fishing is the best I've ever seen I've ever experienced in the 28+ years of fishing on Powell. I have been out fishing with clients and family 4 times in the last week and a half and have caught 14 largemouth that range from, one LM 2.8 (the smallest and the only one in the 2 pound range) most have been in the middle to up range of 3 pounds and 3 that were almost 5 pounds, and 2 smallies that were 3.0 and 3.2 pounds. We are not catching lots of fish just BIG ones!
	We have been catching them on a dark colored double tail hula grub in shallow water down to about 6 to 8 feet. We are letting the bait sit still for 20 to 30 seconds and then retrieving it slowly. They seem to be in a pre-spawn mode, paired up. They are in backs of coves around stick-ups. The fish are fat and healthy! With the air temp on the rise next week I'll bet it won't be long before we see spawning beds. We have been practicing catch and release, a good thing to do especially with the big ones! The guys in the photos are Dave and Bruce. We caught most of them in late afternoon.
	Here are a few more pictures of some nice largemouth caught in the last week and a half! Larry caught 5 big ones that afternoon and Irina from Switzerland landed the 4.14 pound fish.


	Here are some photos of family outing for 3 hours last Friday. Laura and Paul McNabb with 3.8 and 3.4 pounders
	Tayler, my granddaughter, with a 4 # striper. He really put up a great fight! I caught a 3.2 smallie but didn't get a picture of it.

March 17, 2009 - Kip Bennett - Bass Tournament

Hey Wayne here is the report I promised you. First off I just have to say that this last weekend was a blast. Alan and Colleen the tournament directors of Anglers choice put on a great tournament this weekend with over 30 boats participating. The weather was great and so was the fishing.

You reported last week that the large mouth are in the shallows and hard to catch. This is very true. I never in my life until this last week seen an actual school of 15+ 2-3lb large mouth in clear water 2-5ft deep. My dad (Robert Bennett) and I fished the tournament together. The idea was to go and have some fun. I never thought I would learn as much as I did this weekend on catching bass with lock jaw.

Robert and Kip Bennett

Saturday was day one of the tournament and we had a game plan of where to go but we did not know how to pull these fish out of the clear water and stick ups. The water Temp in the morning started around 49.5 F and got up to about 53 F in the areas we were fishing. I remembered an article on dead sticking out of a magazine so we tried it. I have never fished this patiently for a bite before but when it started working we got excited. I tried to keep the boat about 40-50ft away from some stick-ups that we knew held bass, made long casts to the edges of the stick-ups and let the bait (Pepper Jigs Delta Magic w/ a Yamamoto craw trailer and also Yamamoto hula grubs) sit for long enough to drink a pop and eat a candy bar. After the long wait I started a very very slow retrieval and sure enough would feel that tick.

Kip Bennett and Robert

Sunday was the same drill and the same holes. The water temp had risen a bit starting the morning at 51 and ending the day the hottest temp I saw was in Warm Creek at about 56.7 F. We caught fish all day long both days. The main areas fished were Rock Creek, Padre, Warm Creek and Wahweap. The first day we brought in 13.25lbs and a big fish of 4.46lbs the second day we brought in 11.41lbs and had a 3lb big fish. Our big fish did come on a wacky rigged 5" Yamamoto Senko in watermelon w/ black fleck. This was caught next to a cotton wood tree in stained water in Warm Creek. Three others were caught on senkos off the same trees in Warm creek. Again fishing the senkos really slow and making long casts so to not spook fish.

The last Great surprise came on Sunday morning in the back of Rock Creek. As I was pulling a green pumpkin hula grub through some old tamarisk stick-ups and my lure was just getting visible from the boat I saw a silver flash come out of nowhere and attack my bait. I set the hook and this skinny little fish put up a crazy fight jumping out of the water and diving under the boat taking line off my spool. I had no clue what I just caught until Dad got it in the net. There was my first Rainbow Trout ever on Lake Powell. What a Weekend. This was not the only trout caught, one other angler caught what was thought to be a brown trout in the back of Last Chance on a spinner bait.

Kip with rainbow trout He got no credit for this fish during the bass tournament. :)

Waynes note: I seldom get fish reports from bass tournament anglers. I want to recognize Kip for sharing this with us. Kip owns the new Page Furniture store in Page, AZ. Go in and talk fishing with him. He has a nice couch you can sit on.

March 17, 2009 - Kevin Campbell - Navajo stripers

Fished Navajo today with 3 friends and trolled up 7 stripers on shad color Norman deep little N cranks and 2 on an umbrella rig with swim bait. Fish on slick rock drop-offs or humps were catchable but not open water fish. We graphed LOTS of bait in the stained water. Water temp peaked at 60.5 The fish ranged from 3-4.5 pounds and fat. Great fillets.

March 23, 2009- Joe Wright - West Canyon - Bass

Tonja and I experienced some good fishing just prior to the weekend storm. She caught these largemouth on white senkos. Fished them weightless in the back of West Canyon. We caught 14 fish in about two hours but only two were largemouth. We did catch some decent smallmouth though.

Tonja Wright

Joe practices catch and release. He let the fish go and kept the girl!

I also fished Wednesday March 25th with Mike Wright and Dick Buck and although we didn't catch an enormous amount of fish, we did catch around twenty fish. Wayne, the fish are sure healthy this year. We didn't catch anything small. Well, at least my dad and I didn't. Dick Buck doesn't ever catch anything big!

Sorry Dick! Joe said that - not me.

March 24, 2009 - Perry Berry - Largemouth bass

	The fishing was outstanding last week I thought I would share a few pictures from out last two trips. My boat was a bit crowded at times, but we were catching many nice fish throughout the afternoon warm spells. At times, we were fishing stained water that was 61 degrees and this is where we found most of our bigger fish. Jet Berry - Age 1
	Jade Berry - Age 4
	Jet and Jenae Berry Jenae Age 3
	Jacob 'BASS' Berry Age 7
	Jacob 'BASS' Berry
	Jacob 'BASS' Berry Jacob - someday you ought to teach your Dad to fish so we can post his picture here too.

March 30, 2009 - Mike McNabb - Wahweap Stripers

Well we made it out on Sunday for a few hours before the wind came up. We went to Lone Rock between 8 and 9:30am and did what you said to do. We trolled around Lone Rock and graphed stripers on the west side about 25 feet down and Kirk caught a 4.8 striper right away, we jigged with spoons with no luck.

Kirk

Started trolling again and had another one on but it got off and started jigging again this time David caught a 4 pound striper. We trolled a while longer and were unsuccessful so we stopped and jigged with spoons in a spot where we graphed them with no success so went off to catch LM and SM and compete for fishing spots with tournament fisherman.

We did catch 4 nice smallmouth and lost a couple. Fishing was tough this weekend with clear water and the cold front. We did enjoy some good fishing, he beautiful surroundings and great company!

April 2, 1009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Trolling Stripers at Lone Rock

Tolled for an hour near Lone Rock. I was using a clear Deep Down Husky Jerk that hit bottom at 14 feet. The productive bottom depth was 16-20 feet. I had two bites and caught 2 fat female stripers. The bite was completely random. Fish appeared to be solitary since no followers were seen in the water or on the graph after the fish was brought to the boat.

Lake was calm today with water temp going up to 53 near Lone Rock and 55 at Stateline ramp.

Deep Husky Jerk

April 7, 2009 - Kip Bennett - Southern Lake Bass

Dad and I fished another tournament this last weekend April 4th and to everyone's surprise despite the wind and bad weather leading up to the tournament there were some big fish being caught.

Saturday - We started the morning out in the back of West canyon. The water temp in the back was around 53 and we had our limit in about an hour. The only down side was the fish all looked like clones and seemed to be in the 13-14 inch range. We spent a couple hours in West and caught over a dozen keepers for the tourney just no kicker fish. So we worked our way back hitting Padre, Gunsight and Navajo Canyon.

Robert Bennett

After breaking off a real nice large mouth that could have brought some money our way we got some redemption and Dad caught a 4.35 lb Smallmouth. Talk about a fight. The best part of this story was the fact that we were on our way back to weigh in and I saw a rock slide and said to Dad lets fish that real quick since you never know when you will catch a 4 lb small mouth. Sure enough on his second cast he got her and it made the day great.

In all we brought in a 10.42lb bag and the winning weight that day was around 16.3lbs. The big Fish brought in was a 6.6lb large mouth. The main baits we used were Hula grubs, Senkos, caught a couple on tubes and we threw some spinner baits since there was a slight 12 -15 mph breeze. The big small mouth came on a 5 inch watermelon senko Texas rigged.

Good luck out there!

April 7, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Wahweap Stripers

Water temperature 54-57

It was too nice to stay inside so I took along lunch and cruised to the back of Wahweap where the stripers live. I traced my regular route from Lone Rock Beach to the back of the canyon.

Stripers were closer to the back of the canyon again today.

Wayne

Nob Wimmer was using the clear Husky Jerk. His lure was the best. I tried different Thundersticks until I found the clear body black top. That worked good too. Solid colors did not perform as well. We fished where bottom depth was 16-20. On two occasions schools came under the boat following a hooked fish. Then we caught a few extra fish on spoons and swim baits before they lost interest and left us.

Norvel (Nob) Wimmer

These fish make you grin when you hook them. They are strong fighters and fat fish. Most are ripe males with ripening females. A few had shad in the stomachs today. One was eating plankton. We caught 10 today in 2 hours trolling. They are between 3 and 4 pounds.

Fishing is getting better!

April 5, 2009 - Kyran Keisling - Navajo Canyon Bass

We fished in Navajo Canyon for the better part of the day. We caught 8 smallmouth bass and a nice walleye. I was throwing a motor oil with green fleck hula grub and my brother was using a green and white lightly weighted Senko. We were having success on broken rock slides that were gradually tapering to deeper water.

We did happen upon a bunch of LARGE pre-spawn Crappie in a clear cove but we were unable to get them to bite. I'm hoping that they will kick in once the water warms a little. Two weeks ago we were having much better days when the water was a few degrees warmer.

April 9, 2009 - Mike McNabb -

We braved the wind this morning and it paid off. Caroline caught her
first small mouth, all on her own and Grant caught a 3.9# LM.

Grant

Caught 5 Smallies ranging from 1.3#'s to 2.8#'s. We did really well for only being out a couple of hours.

Caroline

We went to the back of Navajo and picked up a couple of stripers trolling.

Grace

We had a great day, enjoyed the company and scenery.

John

April 20, 2009 - Kevin Campbell/ Lake Powell Outfitters

We hit Navajo Saturday. The green fish are frisky. Many are shallow and tight to brush near deep water access. We fished Navajo initially for crappie with no success. Mike hit a fat striper on our one and only trolling pass near where we started crappie fishing on a Norman DD22. The largemouth however, were cooperative. Hula grubs and weightless wacky rigged Senkos took these fish. The water peaked at 60 on Saturday.

One of several for Mike McNabb on the smoke Hula grub,

	Love that Senko fishing in the brush, just shy of 3# Kevin Campbell
	Sunday I went solo and eventually ended up in Last Chance after talking to Kip Bennett about his first day of the latest tourney. I talked to another solo angler in the back left fork who was trolling for stripers and doing quite well in the 20-30 foot range with deep Rapala Husky Jerks in clown color. I figured I'd leave the stripers for later and concentrated on crappie for quite a while. I covered the very back of the same fork on the north side casting crappie jigs to the brush and big boulders with no crappie to be had. I then switched to a 7" hard jointed swimbait fished on a heavy Okuma 7.5' swimbait rod & reel combo thinking I'd have at least some follows on the big bait in such target filed water... nope. I dedicated about an hour to fishing the swimbait before switching to the trusty weightless wacky Senko. That was the ticket.
	I fished it until I had one of many fish take the Senko and when I set the hook the fish felt much smaller than the rest up to that point. It was a crappie. Where there's one, there's always more, especially in the spring. So for the next hour or more, I fished the area with 2 methods, flipping a slip bobber rig and a pair of 1/32 oz. jigs and casting a 1/16 oz white/ chart. Roadrunner. I brought 8 crappie to hand and had that may more short strike and shake off. Again I hit more Senko fish and a few pitching a 6" watermelon Texas rigged lizard to the edge of the brush lines and big boulders. I also used a 4" hollow belly Strike King swimbait to take 3 LM just before I went trolling for stripers. The green fish ranged from 2-3 lbs. I figure, I'd have an 11 pound tournament bag.
	I trolled 20 minutes for stripers in the area where the other boat was having success and hit one fat fish on the umbrella rig with a 4" Swim Shad for the trailer. No smallmouth all day. The temp peaked at 67!! Notice the water color, just perfect.

April 20, 2009 - Mike Wall - Southern lake stripers

	Dates Fished: 4/17-4/19 Thanks for the tips last week. My girlfriend and I fished Friday through Sunday. On Friday night we fished Lone Rock for a few hours. Caught a few stripers but it was still pretty windy and cold. The next morning was warmer with no wind.
	We went straight to the back of Warm Creek and were in the fish immediately. We were using downriggers w/ typical trolling lures. The best lure was a lucky craft aurora blue, but by the end of the trip the good old standard Rapala in black/silver was pretty solid as well. We used shallow running stick baits because we had the downriggers.

We ended up fishing Warm Creek, Navajo, and some of the canyons back in Padre Bay. It seemed like all canyons had fish as long as the depth was 30 ft or shallower. The money depth seemed to be 15-25 ft. just like Wayne mentioned is his report. We were running our downriggers at 14-16 feet regardless of depth, and had steady success with that all weekend long. We would have 15 minutes of fast action with lots of doubles, only to have to search for the school again for a while. Once the school was located, we would catch several more fish. We found one point that came up to 8 ft of water that we long lined over for about three hours one day with what seemed like a fish on every pass. I also found that keeping the trolling motor going very slowly while bringing in a fish often times produced a second bite.

I have fished Powell since I was a kid, but never with downriggers. This was an extremely effective way to catch fish. We had a blast doing it.

Mike Wall

April 23, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Spawning Bass and Crappie

Spawning was evident all over the southern lake today. I was lucky enough to be in a clear water canyon shortly after this nest was prepared. This nest was over 2 feet in diameter and probably belonged to a 3 pound largemouth cruising in the vicinity. It was brand new and eggs were not present yet. I am sure there will be eggs there tomorrow. That will make the male extremely protective for the next 3 days.

A smaller nest and smaller largemouth but eggs were present. This tough little male would not leave despite our boat parked directly overhead in 2 feet of water. Males on nests are absolutely fearless.

We were fortunate to see crappie spawning over this fresh nest site. There were about 10 crappie in vicinity of this nest.

Nearby there was a crappie nest that already had eggs and this male was protecting the nest. There were many nests in the back of this little cove with clear water, rocks, and brush.

We also saw gizzard shad spawning this week in shallow bushes in the back of canyons and bays. I was not quick enough to get a picture of the fast moving shad.

April 27, 2009- Zack Adams - Rock Creek

	Three of us guys went camping 4/24-4/26 Friday night through Sunday afternoon up in Rock Creek Bay... To sum it up the weather was horrible but the fishing was great... We caught over 160 fish on this trip most of the fish were Small Mouth Bass in between 10-16 inches with these two monster Small Mouth Bass the first is a 19 inch and the second is a 23 inch Small Mouth and a decent Large Mouth...
	Caught most of the fish on any color Gary Yamamoto Hula Grub... The fishing was really aggressive on Friday night but slowed down on Saturday and Sunday because of the storm that came through but overall was a awesome trip with some great fish.

April 26, 2009 - Kevin Campbell/ Lake Powell Outfitters

Holy wind advisory Batman!
I had 2 young clients on Saturday and we had a blast catching many LM, SM, walleye and crappie.

Hula grubs in smoke, watermelon and purple all took bass and walleye. The Senko crappie I caught last weekend that I thought might be a fluke was not; Derek caught 4 more crappie in the same spot on a 4" watermelon candy senko rigged wacky. Close by Derek and Ian hit a few walleye on the hulas and many more bass on Senkos and Hulas. The wind kept us from sight fishing bedded fish efficiently. The most active fish came from 5-15 feet on drop-offs or steep talus slopes. We trolled for stripers in the 15-30 foot range with only a small walleye on the umbrella rig after an hour spent in slow mode.

The ride back to Page was a long, wet and rough one from Last Chance to say the least. We made it to the cut only to be turned
around by 3-4 breakers on the Page side of the cut. We had to go around Antelope Island after being in sight of the Stateline ramp.

April 24, 2009 - Shane Spravzoff - Padre Bay

Just got back from our first trip to Powell this year and we were not disappointed. We ran into Wayne at the fish cleaning station. Good seeing you and thanks for all your work with the website! The fishing was RED HOT! We fished on the 22nd and on the 23rd. The fish were up shallow and ready to chew! I have never seen so many bass on the beds at Powell. We caught more bass than we could count.

Shane Spravzoff

I hadn't been up to the lake since last fall, so I had to rely on Captain Matt Turner (shown with the juicy largemouth) to put me on the fish. All of our fish were caught in 2-15ft. of water on yamamoto hula grubs fished on a 1/4 ounce jig head. The color of the grubs didn't matter, the fish were super aggressive and ready to attack anything that came near them. We concentrated our efforts in Padre Bay. We caught lots of chunky largemouths and a number of nice smallmouths.

I would encourage people to release the large females right now as they are full of eggs. Lets protect our resource! There are plenty of 1lb to 1 1/2lb. bass if you are looking for a fish fry. We caught stripers off of the two broken rock islands on the right hand side right after you make it through the cut. I took my 21ft. ranger bass boat through the cut! Its a little shallow, but passable. The fishing is just about as good as it gets right now, so get out there and take advantage of it, just let those big girls go!

Waynes Note! Males protect the nest. Perpetuation of the species depends on males - not females. Its a good idea to release the big ones and keep the little ones.

April 30, 2009 - Jerry Anderson - Bass in Warm Creek

	Fished the weekend of April 18th in Wahweap and Warm Creek with Scott Robertson.
	We caught several nice largemouth and some smaller smallmouth on grubs and senkos in 5 to 20 feet of water. Great weekend.
	All fish caught and released. Keep putting the big ones back.

May 2, 2009 - Shane Spravzoff (Flagstaff, Arizona) - Padre Bay Bass

Hey Wayne,
After the great fishing last weak, I just couldn't justify staying at home and doing yardwork! We fished April 28-30. Once again our efforts were concentrated in Padre Bay. Most of our fish came off of steep rock slides, or in the backs of coves were brush was present. The fishing was very good all three days, but I had my best luck on the 28th when the wind was crankin! Most of our fish were caught on Yamamoto hula grubs fished on a quarter ounce head. Watermelon, white, and pumpkin where the hot colors. The water temperature ranged from 58-67.

The fishing was better in the afternoons after the water warmed up a bit. The Park Service was out doing their body recovery off of Padre Butte after that tragic accident last week. This provides a chilling reminder to be very careful out on the big lake and that the wind can come up on a moments notice! The large smallmouth in the picture was caught and released on a Pro swimbait in the wakebait model in the gizzard shad color. Fishing is still excellent up there. Be safe and catch em up!

May 2, 2009 - McNabb Fishing Guide Service - Padre Bay bass

We had a great day of fishing today. Nels caught 2 nice LM, 4.7 in the picture and another that went 3.11 and the one that we all got excited about was the Small Mouth that, I thought might be a new lake record, was 5.0 on my digital scale (I weighed it several times andit stopped on 5.0 each time) It was huge!! Nels is a big man with big hands which makes the fish not look as big as it was. We took pictures and gave it a kiss and gently released him. Nels thought he had a snag at first and wanted me to back up when it took off and jumped a couple of times, I about had a heart attack!

NELS

Nels son Hans lost 2 big largemouth that would probably have gone 4+ and 3+ pounds. We caught a 3.7 walleye and a ton of nice small
mouth.

Earlier in the day I couldn't believe my eyes, I saw two long green thing in the shallow water just ahead of the boat. 2 stripers that would probably go 35 to 40 pounds cruising along the shore! Of course we tried to get them to bite but they wouldn't. They eventually disappeared. The biggest stripers I have ever seen, alive and in the water, and I've been here 28+ years, it was exciting!

We fished hard and had a great time! Great fishing and great company!

HANS

May 2, 2009 - Terry and Travis Young

The Young group - Terry and Travis Young (Valencia, CA) and Bill Daily (Livermore, Ca) fished with Page locals Ray Young & D.J. Schmaut Thursday & Friday April 30 and May 1 and found good to excellent fishing for Large Mouth Bass and Small Mouth and Fair on Crappie in the back of Navajo. Three good sized bucket mouths inhaled 5" Yamasenko plastic worms in green Pumpkin color. One tipped the on board scale at 3+ lbs. Be sure and rig these large soft plastics that you get an absolute straight worm presentation on 1/4 once bullet weights.

Second day we hammered the small mouths across from Navajo marina on the many rock ledges landing 25 + fish with six or more fish over two lbs all extremely healthy and very active with great fights. These fish ate both the Senko pumpkin and the 5" Hula-grub while being slowly trolled or wind drifted. No stripers taken at all by us however, we emphasized the great bass bite the is on-going now. Good luck and keep a sharp hook!

May 3, 2009 - Phil and Gary - Wahweap Bass

It was a great Friday morning. Gary Sotelo and I went out last Friday and caught 8 nice bass in a pretty short amount of time in the Wahweap area. Mostly 2-3.5lbs.

Today May 1st we hit pretty much the same. Beautiful sunrise and some pretty nice fish. Attached is a shot of Gary with one of the “smaller” ones, lol. 2’ of water and 60 degrees. All fish caught today were small mouth and caught on Yamamoto soft bait crawdads 3” length with a ¼ oz jig head, slow bumped on the bottom in the bushes.

Gary Sotelo

May 5, 2009 - McNabb Fishing Guide Service

	These are some pictures from a few weeks ago when we went up to Last Chance.
	We spend 4 hours in one cove and caught around 100 SM and LM bass.
	We had a great time, great weather and great company with the West brothers!

May 6, 2009 - Kevin Campbell/ Lake Powell Outfitters

	Returning clients Leroy and Deb from Stansburry UT fished with me on May 3rd & 4th. Deb had the first fish of the trip on Sunday on a white/ chart. Terminator spinnerbait in Warm Creek. The beauty weighed in at 2lbs 13oz. but it looks bigger than that.
	We caught many fish in WC on Hulas, weightless Senkos, spinnerbaits and chatterbaits. Later we fished Kane Wash for a while and had a fun time sight fishing smaller bass and a couple of crappie. Leroy stuck several with the fly rod on top water spiders and mouse patterns.

	Monday, we fished by Dominguez Butte and found the fish on the windward side of steeper drop-offs very receptive to Hulas in 5-20 feet. The windblown points or the lee side did not produce at all. Very specific pattern. Then we hit good ole Last Chance.
	After fishing along the shore with jigs and Senkos and picking up several fish, I put Leroy and Deb on my crappie spot. It was on big time. We hooked at least 30 and boated about 20. 2-4" grubs and small Roadrunners accounted for the tasty fish.

May 7, 2009 - Kevin Campbell/ Lake Powell Outfitters

	Judy and Dean from Idaho hired me 5/5 to take them striper fishing to celebrate Dean's birthday. For this trip, we stayed close to home and fished Wahweap Bay. We trolled a variety of shallow diving lures in water no deeper than 20 feet.
	Most of the fish came from the 10-12 foot range over the tops of flooded brush. We landed 7 stripers and had another shake off at the boat. The fish are nice and fat and yielded excellent fillets. The best crankbait was a Rapala DT 6 in bluegill color trolled at 75-125 feet back on 12 lb mono.

May 9 , 2009 - McNabb Fishing Guide Service

	Went out again on Saturday morning 5:15 am and got right on the fish. We caught a 3.3 SM and 5 nice LM weighing in around 2.4 to 2.12 and another SM around 2+ #'s and a ton of other SM. We caught them on white spinner baits, Yamamoto 3" watermelon crawdads and dark colored jigs, mostly in the shallow water still and a few SM in deeper water.
	LM were in the backs of coves and around stick ups. The spinner bait was pulled through the sticks to catch some of the LM. We had a great half day trip and caught lots of fish! I've taken Mike out before and I just met Bryan, both very good fisherman. Great company and great fishing!!

May 9, 2009 - Dave Morrow (Fishbone) - Last Chance

	7 of us met up at Bass Pro Shop on April 30, headed for Lake Powell. On the trip were newbie, Jerry Shumacher of Shadow Hills, Dave Morrow of Calvin Ok, and Gordon Lehman of Anacortes Wa, (who have been making this spring trip for almost 30 years) Glen Ward of Lancaster Ca, Jason Duplantis of Lancaster Ca, John Boudreaux of Palmdale Ca, and Bill Suddeth of Henderson Nv. Meeting us at the lake later would be Mack of St George, and Neil and his son Will, of Cedar City. We actually found them virtually out of gas. Fishbone
	We camped and fished in Last Chance. The fishing was pretty much phenomenal. The weather cooperated for the most part, only getting blown out a couple of times. With 4 boats fishing, I don't know the actual numbers of fish caught, but our boat had between 160 and 180 fish for 3 guys. The fish were bigger than last year. With a couple of the LMB going close to 4 lbs. In years past we have been catching maybe 10 to 1, LMB to SMB. But this year it was closer to 3 to 1.We caught most of our fish in the backs of coves with stick-ups, but some of the bigger SMB came from between cracks in big boulders a little deeper.
	Our main lure was a smoke colored Gitzit. But when we ran out of smoke, any color worked. We targeted the bass, but got side tracked on Crappie, once in a while. All nice big fish. We only kept enough for a big fish fry. No injures or breakdowns on the trip, (except for old men) We had a great time and always look forward to doing it again next year. Jerry Shumacher On a side note, we killed a rattlesnake in camp. Only one we've ever seen down on the lake.

May 11, 2009 - McNabb Fishing Guide Service

	Here are some pictures from our trip to Gun Sight and Kane Wash. Barry and Barry Bulow, father and son, had a lot of fun catching lots of smallies and largemouth. We used spinner bait, smoke grubs, and Yamamoto crawdads.
	We caught lots of fish from 1# to almost 3#'s. We stayed busy catching them up until 2:30. We fished shallow water and found lots of fish on beds still. All catch and release. The best fishing was early morning, it got a little warm for us humans by noon!
	Another great trip with great company! Good Fishing! Mike McNabb

May 13, 2009 - Ron Colby - Bass Tournament

Here's the way I head this story. Sheridan Colby was fishing with his dad Ron in the weekend bass tournament out of Wahweap. It seems Sheridan got two monster backlashes in his level wind reel during the day. When he got the first backlash cleared he took up the slack and caught a big bass just short of 5 pounds.

Next time he got the backlash it was cleared a bit quicker and this time the bass was 3 pounds. Just goes to show that we often fish too fast when big bass are present. We need to give them time to look and make up their mind before moving the bait.

What I know for sure is that Ron was lucky to have a good partner on his boat that day. Sheridan Colby allowed the team to take second place with over 15 pounds of fish.

Further, if Ron wants me to show him how to get a big birds nest in his reel I could do that. I know for sure that neither one of us has the patience to watch our bait holding still on the bottom for more than 15 seconds. Working on the backlash is the only answer. Wayne

May 15, 2009 - Shane Spravzoff - Padre Bay

Good seeing you at the fish cleaning station again! We traded the red ranger in for a white champion! We fished on the 12th and 13th up in Padre Bay. The wind was blowing hard in the afternoon on the 12th, but the new champion handled the rough water just fine. The wind didn't seem to bother the fish either, the smallies were on the chew! Yamamoto hula grubs fished off the broken chunk rock in 2-20ft. of water was the ticket.

Ryan Church and I put a hurtin on em till it got dark. On the 13th we fished in the back of Kane early in the morning and caught some real quality fish on spinnerbaits. Lots of nice largemouth and smallmouth falling for the blade (shad colored with silver willow leaf blades). The fishing got tougher later in the morning and we called it quits around two. The fishing was still excellent. Ryan caught one nice walleye that went 3.5lbs. or so. Time to get out there and take advantage of the great fishing before it gets too hot!

May 15, 2009 - Tim Kelley and Jeff Bierer - Rock Creek

	Wahweap to Rock Creek May 5th to May 8th Tim Kelley and Jeff Bierer Took a one day break after the San Juan trip, then made a trip back to Powell with my buddy Jeff Bierer to fish the lower end. We went over to Warm Creek in the wind Tuesday afternoon, and got into SMB and Walleye. Went to Padre on Wednesday and fished the rubble piles for SMB. No disappointment as even the LMB were cooperative. Here is Jeff with a Smallie he caught while walking the shoreline during a short break. We went over to Cookie jar and trolled up a few stripers.
	Headed up to Rock Creek the next day and found some Stripers in Dry Rock Creek, with Jeff scoring here on a deep silver and black husky jerk. I was using a white and chrome deep diving Yozuri. We spent the afternoon fishing for SMB, and catching a lot like the one I show in this pic. It was great to be out with Jeff again.
	Here is Jeff with one of the many Walleye we caught fishing the tamarisks. The wind came up every afternoon, and we had a couple of rough trips back to Wahweap.

May 19, 2009 - Ed Gerdemann

I always enjoy talking fishing with Cap'n Chuck Duggins as he can take simple concepts and put them into colorful terms. When discussing the most important aspect of fishing he has said, "If the fish are in the bathtub, don't fish in the toilet."

Cap'n Chuck Duggins

To put it in simple terms, location is the single most important thing in fishing. This is not to say that presentation, lure selection and color aren't important, but all that is useless unless you put the lure in front of the fish. This concept played out importantly in our trip to Last Chance Bay last Friday in search of smallmouth bass and anything else that might bite. This was a big day for me. First, I enjoy sharing the boat with Cap'n Chuck. Second, this was my first fishing trip of the year and the first with my surgically repaired right shoulder. As always, I'm anxious to see how the boat and my tackle perform on that first trip, but discovering how my shoulder would hold up was of extreme importance to me.

On Thursday afternoon I dropped by Wayne's office to say hi and perhaps get a tip. Wayne told me to look for steep banks of broken white colored rocks. When he said that a light bulb went off in my head as I knew the exact spot I wanted to try. It was a small cove about halfway up Last Chance Bay on the right side heading north. It had been a good spot for me last fall; and, after speaking with Wayne, I was certain it would be a good spot now. After about an hour ride uplake, Chuck and I idled into the cove. Chuck's first words were how he understood why I wanted to come up and fish this spot. It had a 45-degree angle bank of broken white rock with a ledge of sunken brush on one side and a slick rock wall on the other. It also had a quick escape to deep water.

We stayed for nearly two hours there taking 15 to 20 fish. All fell to Yamamoto's Shade Shaped Worm in the 901 color (watermelon/white laminate). I was using a drop shot setup (sinker on the end of the line below the hook) while Chuck used a split shot rig (weight above the hook). It really didn't seem to matter as both presentations proved equally effective. The key was getting the bait in front of the fish.

We left that area and proceeded to the next cove up on the right. This was a much longer cove which had broken white rock banks; however they were not as steep and deep water was a bit further away. We did not do well here managing only a couple of fish over the next hour or so. The wind had come up making boat handling difficult. I believe that played a part, but I also believe there just weren't as many fish in that area. We moved up to another spot which had a combination of shallow broken rock banks and steeper slick rock areas. We did a bit better here, catching the only two largemouth of the day as well as the biggest smallmouth; however it was apparent this was not the right place, either.

Before quitting for the day we stopped at a spot I had bypassed earlier. I decided to fish it as the structure was similar to the first spot - 45-degree broken white rock bank with deep (30+ feet) water nearby. Immediately we were into fish. Over the next hour or so we took another 10 to 15 smallmouths before calling it a day.

What I failed to do earlier in the day is recognize all the elements of the first spot. I figured it was the broken white rock bank that held the fish. I really didn't take into account the steepness of the bank nor the importance of deep water close by. Because of this, we spent the middle of the day fishing unproductive water. Had I recognized all the factors involved in the first area and concentrated on finding similar spots, I'm sure we would have caught more than we did. I believe just about any presentation that put a lure in front of the bass would have been successful. Although we used Shad Shaped Worms fished on drop shot and split shot rigs, I am certain that Senkos, jigs, Texas-rigged or shaky head worms or even spinnerbaits and crankbaits would have worked. The reason I say this is we were trying to imitate shad or some other bait fish, however the fish we filleted had definitely been feeding on crayfish. It was clear to both Chuck and me that these fish would have hit just about anything put in front of them that suggested food. Most of the fish were caught were eight to 12 feet deep. We caught some as shallow as four feet and a couple at around 18. I believe many of them were spawning; however I also believe we caught both pre- and post-spawn fish.

I can understand why the fish preferred the steep bank. With the rapidly rising lake, a steep bank allows them to move up without having to move far. I can understand the need for deep water close by - to escape from potential predators. I'm not certain why white colored rock was more attractive than red or tan. Perhaps it has something to do with location of forage. I'm not sure the reason, but white rock definitely held more fish.

We finished day having kept 26 smallmouths, mostly 11 to 13-inch fish, and a 2 1/2-pound walleye that made a fine dinner for me Friday night. We released 10 to 12 more smallmouths as well as the two largemouths. Our biggest smallmouth was a bit under two pounds (also released). All in all, we were very satisfied with our day as far as fishing was concerned.

It was quite apparent that my shoulder, while getting stronger, has a ways to go before being back to full strength. Although I used only spinning tackle, the shoulder was quite fatigued by the end of the day. Also, I didn't drink enough water and got too dehydrated - a likely cause of the leg cramps I had later that evening. Because of the cramping and tired shoulder, I elected not to fish Saturday. I used that time to do so more cleaning around the trailer, doing laundry and cleaning the boat - which, by the way, ran perfectly.

I'm looking forward to more trips between now and late fall, and I'm hoping to pay more attention to all the elements of the locations I'm fishing. I want to be fishing in the tub and not the toilet, that's for sure!

May 19, 2009 - Jim Riddle

	My dad and I made the trip from Orem to Wahweap last Thursday and fished Friday and Saturday. Friday: We started out heading straight to Gunsight Canyon. We found lots of stickups and submerged brush. We concentrated on one little inlet near the mouth of the canyon. We caught several small small mouths. We had several hits on spinnerbaits when we fished them right through or around the brush. We were having a hard time hooking them up. Finally I got a big hit from a large mouth that then immediately wrapped me around a stick. After a little maneuvering, I was able to get around him and got him in the boat—my first large mouth bass at Lake Powell. I caught him on a 3/8 oz Strike King Premier Plus Spinnerbait in Sexy Shad color. We then headed around the bend to Padre Canyon and fished rocky shoreline. We had a hard time figuring out what they wanted, but finally I threw out a 5 inch Gulp Shaky Worm in green on a ¼ oz Spot Remover shaky head jig. After that I would get a bite, or a nibble, or a hook up on nearly every cast. I fished it almost vertically just a few yards out from the boat in 8-15 feet of water. I also had some success on a 3.5 inch yamamoto tube in smoke on a 1/16 oz weighted 3/0 Owner twistlock hook, and a 4 inch Senko on a 3/0 wide gap worm hook fished weightless. Later we headed up lake near Grotto canyon and I fished a spot that two years ago (the last time we visited) was an exposed island but is now about 10 feet underwater. The fish were still there and it is here we probably had the most success in the shortest time. Shaky worms were the ticket, although I also caught fish on a ¼ Booyah jig with a Yum Craw Papi trailer.
	Saturday: We had heard that fishermen were having some limited success fishing for stripers by the dam. We tied up to the buoy line, threw out chunks of anchovies and dropped our line. We stayed for probably 2 hours without a single bite. Another group was right next to us and had stayed even longer, they also had no success. We then tried trolling up the canyon walls on deep diving plugs—again, no luck. We then headed up Antelope Canyon to a big crack in the wall where we had had success in years past. No luck at all for stripers, but I did catch some very small small mouth on a slow sinking tube. At that point we gave up on striper fishing. Too bad, I think my dad would have had more fun bait fishing for stripers, but it just didn’t seem to be happening. So, we headed up Warm Canyon, found some shallow reefs and had similar success on shaky worms, smaller spinnerbaits and weightless Senkos. We caught pretty small small mouths. After several hours in Warm Canyon with pretty spotty success, we made one more run up the lake. The main channel was pretty rough due to increase boat traffic so we stopped halfway to Gunsight and fished a shallow area off the main channel where we saw some exposed brush. Tried several different lures, but didn’t catch a think until I moved to the shaky worms, then I caught a few more smallies. As we fished a familiar looking aluminum john boat with a hand rail across the front came motoring by. We waved. I think it was Wayne, but couldn’t be sure.
	We then made our way back up to Gunsight and tried fishing across from the area we fished the day before where there was a more rocky shoreline and less brush. We caught several small smallies and one pretty small largemouth. Then we headed back across and fished the brushy inlet we fished the day before. After a couple of small mouth I realized I was fresh out of the 5 inch Gulp Shaky worms so I tried a similar size and colored Roboworm. No sooner had I rigged it up did I start seeing greenish shapes slowly cruising the brush beneath us. I dropped it down, gave it a few shakes and WHAM! Got my best Largemouth of the trip (certainly not a trophy, but for me it was pretty good). Dropped the roboworm down again and BOOM another similar sized bass that took the bait, jumped, and threw the hook. After that, we got a couple of more bites, but no hookups. Had followers on a spinnerbait and on an X-Rap, but no takers. I don’t know how many fish we caught—not as many as a lot of people have reported and certainly no big ones to speak of, but I had a great time. It was a little hot for my dad’s taste and he got a little tired and cranky, but hopefully he had a good time too. I had a blast and can’t wait to come down again—hopefully when we can get some stripers.

May 22, 2009 - Bob Howard

	My two grandsons Weston Anderson, & Isaac Gallegos and I fished Friendship Cove the first day using Yamamoto 3" grubs and caught SM & LM but no stripers. We caught a few nice SM in 2 lb range and LM up to 3 1/4 lb. Weston Anderson
	Fishing was slower than usual, there were lots of boats fishing when we got there & we were fishing in 2nd hand water all day. Isaac Gallegos
	Next day we headed to Last Chance & had much better fishing, but still no stripers. SM & LM were running a little bigger. Weston switched over to a 4" double tale grub & was catching twice as many as Isaac & I.
	Third day we went back to Last Chance & ran into Wayne and he put us on some stripers in the back of LC & we started trolling & catching stripers 2 & 3 at a time till we had to quit & head for the Rally. It is really hard to leave when the stripers are still biting.
	Not as many fish this time but much better quality, which is the way we like to see it. Thanks Wayne for putting us on the fish and for making this the best Lake ever Bob Howard

May 26, 2009 - Kip Bennett, Shawn Johnson and Papa - Navajo Canyon

	Kip Bennett, Shawn Johnson, and Papa Memorial Day fishing trip with Papa. We headed out at 5AM towards Navajo Canyon where Kip knew some good stripers and crappie would probably be. On the way all three of us threw our lines in the water while going through the wakeless zone of Antelope Point. Kip had a smallmouth hit his crankbait, but nothing of any real size. Shawn Johnson
	We got back into Navajo and found some little coves to try for some early morning SM and LM. Kip hit a nice largemouth and we had a few smallmouth come in the boat. Then we headed to a cove further back where some crappie had been seen in recent weeks stopping to chum a few anchovies along the way in a spot that we'd later come back to. Kip Bennett
	Kip and Papa each caught some nice 2lb crappie on Gulp Minnows. Papa
	Then, we headed back to where we had chummed and set up our poles with 1/4 oz jig heads and anchovies and let our line go down to the bottom which was 45-50 foot deep. We saw them on the graph and soon Kip got the first one. What a fight! Forgot how fun striper fishing can be! After that, they were all over on the graph.
	Shawn and Kip continued to catch 15-20 nice stripers ranging from 2-4 lbs each and Papa got into the action as well with a nice 4lber! After 10am though the bite died off and it got really hot so we left the area and hit one more spot on the way back and got a nice crappie to bite. We released all the LM and SM and kept enough striper and crappie for a good dinner. Side note: Wasn't sure what kind of shad this was but it was inside one of the stripers. Also, a lot of the stripers still had eggs. *Wayne's note:* Its a gizzard shad evidenced by the rounded snout. Mouth is under the snout so it can eat on the bottom like a carp.

May 28, 2009 - Brian Lewis - Rock Creek Bass

Jeremy Voeltz

4 pound 9 ounce largemouth taken in Rock Creek.

May 28, 2009 - Mike McNabb

Well we got in a half day of fishing on Thursday and did alright considering the lake level coming up. We fished around Gun Sight and Kane Creek and inside Padre Bay. We used the same old reliable dark colored double tail hula grub to catch these fish. The fish were in water 8 to 15 deep and the water was mostly strained. The water temp was 72degrees.

Kaleb

We didn't seem to do well in the really cloudy water. Kaleb is holding a nice largemouth and a nice walleye and Samuel has a nice smallmouth. I think they out fished their grandpa Rodger, but that's the way he wanted it to go, of course!

Kaleb

We had a great time, the weather was beautiful and great company! I wished I had half of the energy the boys have!!

Samuel

June 2, 2009 - Rodney Chugg - Warm Creek stripers

Nice to visit with you on Friday! As we told you we fished the Warm Creek Wall on Friday. Aaron Anderson, Garrett and I caught 35 stripers, with the largest one around 5.5 pounds. They were all healthy and fun to catch. We also caught 12 catfish.

Rodney Chugg and Aaron Anderson

Saturday we fished the same spot and did not catch any stripers. Aaron’s daughter Ariel joined us on Saturday and out fished us all catching several smallies and catfish. It was fun fishing even though the weather chased us off the lake each afternoon with the thunderstorms.

Rodney Chugg

June 4, 2009 - Tom Macosky - Navajo Canyon

Tom, Karen, and Austin from Phoenix, Arizona, recently spent a week at Lake Powell (5/23-5/30) and thoroughly enjoyed the fishing and camping experience.

Pictured is 10 year old Austin Macosky with his 3 lb. striper he landed in Navajo Canyon.

Austin Macosky

June 14, 2009 - Shane Spravzoff - Southern Lake

I just returned from fishing the big pond June 9-12. Overall the fishing was good, not as good as a month ago, but still good. Most of my efforts were concentrated on the southern portion of the lake. Most of my fishing was done in Wahweap Bay and around Lone Rock.

Shane Spravzoff

I found that the largemouth and smallmouth would take yamamoto hula grubs fished slooooow and deep on rocky points. Most of my fish came out of 25 ft. of water or more.

I was using a 3/4 ounce jig head with either a watermelon or pumpkin colored jig. I ran up lake one day of the trip and found some great striper boils off of Gregory Butte and out at the mouth of Last Chance. The stripers were fat and sassy and would smash anything thrown into the boil. I also saw one good boil in the cove behind Lone Rock one morning, but unfortunately I was on a wakeboard at the time.

I included a picture of horseshoe bend as well, if folks haven't checked it out, they should! Its pretty awesome!

June 21, 2009 - Kip Bennett

	I got out before work again on sat June 20th. Great overcast skies and light sprinkles made it much easier to take my Grandpa (Gordon Paulsen) out without all the heat. My cousin Tanner Catlett came all the way out from Missouri to go fishing with us. Kip Bennett
	We started out early in the morning fishing for small mouth in Navajo canyon. Most of our success came on hula grubs and senkos catching plenty of little small mouth. I did manage to catch a very nice 3 lb small mouth on a watermelon/white laminate 4" senko. We fished mainly 5-20ft range. Tanner Catlett
	When we could not find any stripers on the typical points that produce in Navajo we moved out into the main channel were I heard about the stripers boiling. Sure enough we found some really descent sized boils between the mouth of Navajo and Antelope marina. The biggest was around 40 ft in diameter and moving quickly. We did great pulling strips off the boils with top water baits but the boat traffic had already begun and made it hard. Surprisingly the waves had no affect on the boils as a tour boat came by and they just kept boiling. The fish all seemed healthy and around 20" 2-3lbs. Gordon Paulsen
	Our fun got cut short by time as I had to head in to work. Like you told me last month Wayne once June hits tie on the top water and leave it on all summer. P.S. I also attached a picture from the May Mothers day tournament I did with my Mom. She slayed the fish and kicked my butt. She had our first four keepers in the boat before I even got a bite.

June 25, 2009 - McNabb Fishing Guide Service

Fishing has been anything but great the last few days but I sure
had a lot of fun watching Stephen, a seven year old, really get into
fishing. We went out late afternoon on the 23rd and did okay. We caught five decent fish including this 2.6 pound largemouth Stephen brought in.

Stephen and his dad Warren are from Aspen, CO.

We were fishing a huge rock pile about 15 - 20 feet down with 4" green and white senkos on a small hook. We were fishing slow taking our time and letting the bait sit on the bottom. The bite was unnoticeable until we slowly raised our poles. Patient fishing paid off.

The next day, late morning, we fished the same rock pile and only pulled a few small smallies out. Then we went into the back of Kane Wash and started using a crank bait and caught 6 more fish. Stephen caught 4 of them which included a walleye, 2 largemouth and a smallie. He was really getting into casting and bringing in the fish, all by himself. He didn't want to quit!

The fishing was okay but the company was great!

June 28, 2009 - Kyran Keisling - This Side of That - Guide Service

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but I've been really busy chasing boils these days. I wanted to send you a pic of this really nice Walleye that my clients Albert Ferguson and Robin caught this morning in Wahweap Bay. We chased striper slurps from 5:00 am to about 8:00 and caught a bunch, throwing 1/4 ounce blue and silver Kastmasters on 6lb test. The keys to the striper were approaching quietly, making long accurate casts to the LEADING!!! edge of the slurp (hence the Kastmaster and light line), and quickly reeling the lure through the strike zone (1 to 3 feet deep).

The action has been best once the sun hits the water, up until you see the first of the jet ski, rental boat circus at about 8:30 am. When they churn up the water and put the boils down I have been trolling deep diving crank baits at the 20 to 30 foot depth, over the weed beds that used to be on the shoreline at low water. I have been paying very close attention to the graph and have found that when the baits are bumping the tops of the bushes (plan on losing a lure or two) that success goes up. I have been hooking Smallmouth, Largemouth, Walleye and Striper on a regular basis and the average size has been high. The action is sporadic but I haven't caught many fish on the bottom with jigs, so it has been my best bet when the water gets choppy. We caught this Walleye with a Bluegill Imitation crank. Also, I noticed on my last few trips that the smallmouth have been mini-boiling off of the 20 to 30 foot depth areas So... Next time I'm going to troll a shallow crank (and keep a spook on hand for those unexpected splashes) and see what happens.

June 28, 2009 - JR Roederer

JR, 14 years old from Flagstaff, caught this 16" 2.5# Large mouth in a shallow wash behind Cookie Jar. Total of three fish caught on gray jigs this day 6/20/09. This fish was so full of fight he decided to let him go to swim another day.

July 6, 2009 - Doepke Boy’s - Padre Bay

The Doepke boy’s (three generations) from Phoenix camped and fished in Labyrinth Canyon area from 6/30 to 7/5. We fished all over Labyrinth and also the main channel islands at the entrance to Padre Bay with very limited success.

Small slurps would appear but usually a jet ski or a wake board boat would head toward them and chase them down.

Small mouth fishing was slooow and you really had to work at it to catch a fish. The good news is that all of the fish are full and healthy from stuffing themselves full of shad.

I tried everything in my bag of tricks for the SM. I concentrated from the surface down to 50ft. with a wide variety of baits. The best bait I used in the early am was a white fluke. Every fish that I hooked threw up many ½ inch long shad which is the reason for the slow fishing.

I had to travel back to Antelope on Wed. 7/1 to pickup one of my sons and we spotted Wayne’s boat at the entrance to Navajo. We chased slurps for about thirty minutes in this area and we did manage to catch several fish. However, the largest slurp we found was located across from the fuel docks at APM. This was a very aggressive slurp that stayed up longer than most others.

I am still surprised that other boaters on Powell will see that you are fishing but will choose to buzz right by you and think nothing of it. This was in the middle of Labyrinth, which is about one mile wide and we were the only boats present. This happened twice on Thursday morning, 7/2. Please remember and be respectful of other users of the water, not just yourself.

We are looking forward to better fishing in August and September and hopefully less wake board boats and wet bikes.

July 14, 2009 - Wallace Family, Phoenix - Navajo Striper boils

	Dates Fished: July 10th-11th Where: Antelope Point Marina to about 5 miles back in Navajo to mouth of Warm Creek, go back and do it again. Tackle: Mostly X Raps I wanted to pass along a tip to the folks chasing striper slurps. This last weekend I took my wife, mom (75) and dad (79) to Wahweap to chase stripers. I have fished crazy boils in Aug in the past and it didn’t really seem to matter what you threw. That was not the case on this trip. I could see why you call them “slurps” instead of boils.
	On Friday morning we easily found groups of stripers slurp’n heading up lake from the Antelope Point Marina, but we had a hard time getting them to take a bait. It was a little frustrating to move from group to group make a perfect cast beyond and in front of a moving school and get nary a bump. By the time we came off the lake at 11pm we had cast to hundreds of Stripers and I only had 3 fish and the others had 3 between them to show for it. I was a little stumped. During the mandatory afternoon nap, lunch at Slackers and a call to my therapist (ok, actually it was my long time Lake Powell fishing buddy) we guessed was that we need to use the “reflex” stimulus rather than trying to get them to “eat”. So, our plan was to use our reels with the highest retrieve speed and start reeling like crazy. Doug Wallace and Mom
	Personally, I went from a reel with a 4:1 ratio to one with 6:1. We got back out on the lake about 5pm and didn’t really see anything until 6 pm a few miles up Navajo Canyon. It appeared to be a small group in an inside corner. The four of us cast and reeled like crazy and 2 of us hooked up. Ding! We didn’t see as many boils that evening or on Sat morning/evening, but by greatly speeding up our retrieve we went from catching 1 fish out of every 10 boils, to 1-3 fish out of every 2 boils we cast to. The difference was astonishing and I wanted to pass our findings along to others. Of course in another week or two as the slurps change to full tilt boils, “burning” your lure probably won’t be needed anymore. Janae Wallace

July 19, 2009 - Kyran Keisling- This Side of That Guide Service

I thought that you and your viewers would like to see this beautiful Rainbow trout that my client Jerry Dire caught while trolling in Wahweap Bay. This rare trout hit a silver rattle trap and then launched at least two feet out of the water, three different times. I have fished here for over thirty years and this is the first trout that I've ever seen boated. Look how healthy she is!!!!

As for the bass fishing......

Last weekend I was in the best boil fishing of my life and then suddenly they stopped. I noticed that the enormous boils fragmented into groups of 2 to 5 fish that were randomly hitting the surface in all directions. A few days later even that died out. This weekend I am yet to see any significant striper activity. I have however been doing really good for Smallmouth and Stripers, trolling silver Rattle Traps over submerged brush.

July 20, 2009 - Mike McNabb Guide Service

We went up lake a ways and found 30+ small mouth in the back of a cove along with big schools of very small shad. We caught the Smallies on a dark colored jigs and top water - Sammys. The depth was 8 to 18 feet. When we saw a swirl on the surface we would throw the top water bait. They sometimes hit as the jig was falling but fishing slow got the best results, an occasional Smallie hit as we reeled in fast.

We fished from 5:45 am to 10:00 am. We stayed in the shadows as long as we could. This 3.2 pound Largemouth hit a jig at 8 am, the only LM we caught. We had another nice fish on but broke off when it hit the trolling motor.

July 25, 2009 - Shane Spravzoff -Flagstaff, AZ - Padre Bay Boils

Just got back from another great trip on the big pond. We fished July 21-24 and most of our efforts were concentrated in Padre Bay. The striper fishing was excellent in the mornings from 6 until 10. We just ran laps around Padre Bay in the mornings searching for boils and slurps. Some of the boils were as small as ten fish or so and others had hundreds of stripers. We caught fish on topwater, jerkbaits, spoons, and rattle traps. We had our best luck with TD minnow jerkbaits and spoons, because you can cast them a mile. We also found that you couldn't reel too fast for the stripers, the faster you reeled, the harder they hit. We had a couple of gorgeous evenings with no wind and I looked for striper boils but they were non-existent.

The smallmouth bass fishing was good drop-shotting out on rocky main lake points in 20-30 ft. of water. We met some very nice folks from California and Idaho who let us share a great campsite with them. Thanks to Dave, Linda, Buck, and Annie. I included a picture of Buck and I with some stripers we caught one morning. Buck came along to take pictures, but after he caught a couple of stripers he was addicted! Lake Powell is all about having a great time, catching some fish, and making new friends! Be nice to one another out on the lake! Hope the report helps!

August 2, 2009 - Bill and Penny Angel - Southern boils

We just returned from our now annual Powell trip on Aug 1st. We heard the northern lake was doing very well, but the southern part wasn't too bad at all. We saw quite a few boils from Padre Bay to Antelope Canyon. We had one boil last bout an hour or so as they went up and down. It was quite large. It was in the main channel between Navajo and Antelope Canyons.

Bill Angel

Saw boils there everyday, but the northern lake still sounded better right now. When I pulled up to the edge, it would continue to grow to about 50-60 feet all around the boat (100 ft diameter). My white super spook worked best when I walked the lure around the top of the water. I had a hit almost every cast, but 3 or 4 did come off and I lost them. Oh well, the excitement was not lost.

Penny Angel

August 5, 2009 - Ed Gerdemann - Last Chance Bass fishing

Midsummer fishing can be challenging at Lake Powell. On any given morning you might do really well on smallmouth bass or, especially if you get into some boils, stripers; however on other days fishing can be just plain challenging.

Challenging would be the best way to describe the fishing my longtime fishing partner John Conrad and I experienced this past week. We had to work hard for every fish we caught - more like fishing one of the lower desert lakes instead of fishing Lake Powell. Nevertheless, despite the tough conditions we still managed to catch some fish - and a lot more than most would expect.

Friday morning we launched at 4:45 and motored the 20-plus miles to the mouth of Last Chance Bay. In a trip two weeks ago a friend and I had taken several decent smallmouths around Gregory Butte at around noon on the hottest day of the year, so I thought this might be a good place to start. As we motored uplake we kept a sharp eye out for striper boils; however it was breezy, and we just didn't see anything. With the wind blowing straight down Last Chance, it was a challenge just to hold the boat; and it was even a bigger challenge to catch some fish. We took a few but most were very small. After working that area for over an hour and a half we had managed just three "eating size" smallmouths in the cooler and about a dozen or so dinks that we released.

Having tried the main lake area, I decided to work some of my favorite coves in Last Chance Bay. With the water level higher than last year, things have changed; however the places I fished still had plenty of good structure, and, in my opinion, should have held fish. In fact, I do think there were plenty of fish everywhere we tried. While watching my front graph I noted lots of arches relating humps and dropoffs at 23-28 feet. When fishing has been in good in the past, I found that if I dropped a soft plastic lure into those arches my rod usually bent over when I engaged the reel. Time and time again on Friday I dropped Yamamoto Senkos and Shad Shaped Worms into the arches getting only occasional hookups. From the back of the boat John worked various sized tubes, Senkos and curly tail grubs with similar success. John finally settled on a small crappie tube and caught lots of small fish as well as an occasional decent one. I switched off between the Senko and Shad Shaped Worm all day catching fewer smaller fish than John but perhaps a few more larger ones. We finished the day having taken 35-40 smallmouths, a catfish and a couple green sunfish, keeping 11 of the bass as well as the catfish and one sunfish. Our biggest bass were around 13 inches. We simply could not find the larger ones. As mentioned earlier, most of our fish came from 23 to 28 feet with 25 feet being the most productive depth. Vertical presentations got more strikes than horizontal casts. We tried fishing between 30 and 40 feet with no success.

We only saw one small striper boil all day Friday. It came up at the mouth of Last Chance around 12:30 p.m. and lasted about 10 seconds. We couldn't get close enough to make any casts.

Saturday I decided to fish the Padre Bay area. After cruising the bay in the early morning light looking for striper boils and seeing none, we started fishing a large rockslide on the Padre Canyon side of Gunsight Butte. It was a repeat of Friday's pattern - a couple fish here and there, mostly small with an occasional keeper size bass. We kept our eyes peeled for boils but none materialized in the area we were fishing. There was a lot of boat traffic including water skiers and jet skis from around 6:30 a.m. on which didn't help the fishing in my opinion. At around 9:30 we motored to the east side of Padre Bay to fish along a vertical wall with adjacent rock slides. I picked the area because it was shaded and there was no boat traffic. The water depth along the wall ranged from 35 to 40 feet, but suddenly we came upon a hump that came up to 18 feet. There were many arches all along the sides of the hump. I took a nice walleye and a decent smallmouth, and John took a couple keeper fish; but, alas, two jet skiers came by at full throttle within 20 feet of our boat and that ended the fishing there. We finished the morning working the adjacent rockslides and picked up a couple more fish. The highlight of the day was a large walleye that grabbed a small bass John was playing. The walleye held on the bass for quite some time before dropping it. In my Canadian fishing days I saw many a pike grab a hooked walleye, but I never saw a walleye grab a hooked bass or other game fish.

As with Friday, 25 feet seemed to be the best depth. Sudden dropoffs off the ends of points and humps held the most fish. John primarily fished with his crappie tube while I again drop shotted both Senkos and Shade Shaped Worms. I also tried jigging spoons and made a few casts with a crankbait. Only the soft plastics produced any fish. We kept nine more smallmouth Saturday along with the walleye, another catfish, a bluegill and a green sunfish. We probably released 20 to 25 small fish between us.

This was not great fishing by Lake Powell standards. It took patience and perseverance to catch what we did. We managed plenty of fish for a couple nice fresh fish dinners, and the fellowship between two old fishing buddies was priceless. Hopefully we'll do it all again under less challenging fishing conditions.

August 5, 2009 - Steve and Duke Doepke - Phoenix AZ - Mountain Sheep and Wetherill

Fished Friday, 7/31 to Tuesday, 8/4.

Location – Southern Lake, San Juan.

Doepke Boy’s (Stratos 66)

We setup camp in Mountain Sheep Canyon on 7/31 and fished this general area on Friday with limited success. On Saturday morning we ran up to the San Juan almost to Cha Canyon without seeing a boil. We were able to catch stripers and small mouth by finding coves that contained shad. The stripers would hang on the outside of the edge of the cove in deeper water and when hungry they would attack the shad and then head for deeper water to rest.

On Sunday we stayed in the Mountain Sheep Area and found the pattern in this part of the lake. Every morning at 5:00am the stripers would be chasing shad by the small whales at the entrance to this canyon. Good fishing in the morning until the sun comes up.

On Monday, 8/3 we ran from camp all the way up the San Juan to Neskahi. We spotted several good sized boils in the bay outside Piute, but they only stayed up for a few minutes.

We had to leave on Tuesday, 8/4 and during our water trip to Antelope Point (6 am) we saw sporadic boils from Wetherill Canyon all the way to Friendship cove in the main channel. If I was going to the lake today I would camp somewhere around Friendship or Dungeon and cruise the main channel early in the morning. I was on the largest boil I have ever seen this morning mid channel out from Friendship. They hit on almost everything I threw at them including Yamamoto single tail grubs (white) that I usually throw at small mouth.

July 24, 2009 - Danny Woods

Danny Woods with This Side of That Guide Service, I just wanted to send you a fishing report for some mid week fishing July 21 to July 24.

Striper fishing is holding solid with large boils being found in the Navajo and Antelope areas. Zara puppies and spooks on 6 lb test seems to be the best combo. Boat position and long casts are a must, the stripers go under very fast with approaching motor noise. Find the boils and just hang around for awhile, the striper will surface again.

Danny Woods

Bass fishing is picking up, smallmouth and crank baits is a great combo, although most of the smallies are on the lighter side you can still manage to catch a few 2 pounders with a little patience and persistence. The largemouth bite is kicking into gear and they are beginning to attack top water lures, both plugs and spooks. Find the submerged bushes in about 12 feet of water and run those top water lures over the top very early in the morning.

I also sent in a pic of a beautiful walleye that Kyran Keisling and I managed to land after trolling large crank baits in 35 feet of water off the cliff faces. The walleye are few and far between but make a great meal when you are lucky enough to land one.

August 5, 2009 - Danny Woods

Danny Woods again, this is our most current report. (This Side of That Guide Service)

The top water bite is really picking up and small, silver and white zara puppies and plugs seem to entice most of the bites. The smallmouth's are still gong crazy for shad pattern crank baits at multiple depths (12 to 25 feet). Most of the fish are quite small but you can count on catching a lot of them, remember to stay at it and you will land some descent size fish.

Kyran Keisling

My brother Brian Woods, Kyran Keisling and I spent the last couple of days fishing the warm creek and Navajo canyon area. We did manage to hunt down a couple of small boils and catch a few 4 to 5 pound striper. Finding the boils is very random and the old saying "its better to be lucky then good" holds true. If you are in the right place at the right time you can have some of the best striper boil fishing ever. You just need to keep on looking for those those monster boil, they are still up producing great action.