FEBRUARY 2000

Date Received: February 11 - Jeff Zayach

 I fished on February 4 and 5th. I had never been to Wahweap before so this was a first. I found that navigation can be tricky with the amount of rocky shoals in the area and a bass boat that runs 75 mph. We fished for bass specifically and searched a few areas. We caught and found several fish on the 4th in the back of Navajo Canyon in 8 to 10' of water presenting 4" tubes really slowly. The key was stained water and stick ups. The largest fish was a three pound largemouth and the smallest a 13" largemouth on Friday.

On Saturday, we concentrated all our efforts in Navajo canyon, much to our dismay we could only boat two largemouths 12 1/2 and 12 3/4", both on chartruese spinnerbaits pumped off the bottom on the fall. The tube pattern from the day before was not working. Both days were partly cloudy and the temp was in the high 40's low 50's. Water temps ran around 48 - 50.

The first day, we also worked the back of Warm Creek which had a little bit of stained water, but only drew one bite.

Date Received: February 14 - Ray Young

Lake Powell Striper Fishing report for Feb. 11, 2000. Four rods on a 1/2 day outting to Warm Creek took only 6 fish. All on anchovies in 45 foot of water. Very light bite which caused us to miss many of the nibblers. It was a great afternoon of fishing but slow catching.

MARCH

Date Received: March 6, Darrell Hale

I've been fishing the back of warmcreek the last few weeks and been catching stripers on a regular basis. They average 15 to 20 inches in length. This last week end I even came up with a few catfish. I've caught all these at around 80 feet. Some of the stripers had a good amount of eggs in them.

Date Received: March 9, John Thurlo, WY

5 of us were fishing Lake Powell March 3 - 6, fishing mainly Warm Creek and Castle Rock. We caught a few stripers in Warm Creek using anchovies, but did better between Castle Rock and the main channel trolling shad raps and wally divers. We also caught a few walleye off Castle Rock. Only ended up with 10 fish, nothing big, but all were in good shape. Had a good time, and will be back in April. Hopefully the catching will be better then. I enjoy the fishing reports. Keep up the good work.

Date Received: March 23, Bruce and Pete

Fished the back of Navajo Canyon. Found water temperatures of 52-54. It did warm to about 57 at one spot in the afernoon. We caught 1 crappie and 1 striper after fishing all day with small plastic grubs. Water was just too cold. I think fishing will break loose with a couple more days of warm weather.

Date Received: March 26, Wayne Gustaveson

Today from 1-4 pm and yesterday at the same time stripers were caught at the power plant intake near Wahweap. Morning was not good. Not many fish caught at the dam or in Warm Creek either but it appears there are some stripers starting to gather and move along the walls as the temperature increases. Bass fishermen found some water in the low 60's in the backs of many canyons and reported catching small bass and a few bigger fish. Fishing is improving but a quick front will change that in a hurry.

Date Received: March 28, Ray Young

Fished Antelope Canyon for 3.5 hours with 3 rods (novices) Striper fishing is picking up! 10 fish caught in 30 ft. of water using anchovies. Graphed many and missed lots of fish with poor hook sets. Marked fish at the generating station but no takers. Fish were in good condition. Mixed sizes; 16 - 24 inches.

APRIL

Date Received: April 5, Jon

Four of us spent 4/1-2 days trying for stripers; a new species for us. We had very poor luck in most locations; Antelope Canyon, Warm Creek and Navajo Canyon were all lousy. Finally we found the intake along the cliffs in the narrows where the fishing varied from poor to fantastic as the schools moved in and out. Dunking anchovies was the ticket to success.

Date Received: April 6, Blaine Jeffs, Hildale UT

We had a great day yesterday, Wednesday the 4th. Got on the water at 8:15 am and went directly to the power plant intake. Within 5 minutes we had 3 striper hookups at the same time. It was kind of odd though because we would catch a couple and then it would be 30 to 40 minutes before we would get more action. Anyway, we left there at 10 am with 10 fish and went to the cliffs at mile marker 16. We graghed lots of fish but caught nothing. At 11:00 am we went up Navaho where the small island rocks are in the middle of the canyon and fished there till 1:00 pm. We only caught 2 there so we went back to the Power Plant intake area. Immediatly started to pull them in. We left the lake at 4:00 p.m. with 38 stripers, all very healthy. Most were 2-3 lbs but some went 5-6 lbs. Most of all, it was a great break on the lake with the wife and four of my boys. Keep up the postings. I read them every day!

Date Received: April 6, Michael Finn

We caught over 50 stripers at the pump out with 3 rods. Several were 23" 5 lb all were fat and healthy. No real small ones. The bite started about 11:00 and I got them up under the boat several times and they turned on about every hour. Line color was definately an issue.

Date Received: April 11, Edward T. Gerdemann

I got out on the lake this past Saturday (April 8). I caught a few smallmouth in a cut at the top of Antelope Island and off of some flats near the back of Warm Creek. All were males and all were caught in 15 to 20 feet just where the flats pitched off into the deep water. It appears this fish are just starting to come up. If the weather stays good over this week perhaps the big females will be working up, too, by the weekend. I had a few strikes on Yamamoto curly tails, however, my best luck was on Berkley Power Crawlers in watermelon color. Although the action was not fast, it was just nice to get out on the lake again.

Date Received: April 11, Wayne Gustaveson

Spawning by largemouth and smallmouth bass occurred for the first time on Sunday April 9th on the Wahweap end of the lake. Bass were actively building nests and some eggs were laid. Fish were easy to catch for a short time in the afternoon. Windy afternoons have made it tough on anglers but fish are still on the nests despite the mild storm front that blew through on the 10th. Bass are extremely aggressive for the first 2-3 days following egg deposition. Aggression declines with each passing day. Young will hatch in about 10 days. Males stay with the young for a short time and then renest and start the process over again. Cold fronts with a signicant tempearture drop cause nests to be abandoned and then reoccupied when weather and water warms again. Spawning continues through mid May for both species.

Date Received: April 11, Alan

We fished the intakes and the dam on Sat. 8. We only caught 10 fish and that was in about five minutes with 3 poles. It was slow that day. We seen only 1 other boat catching fish. They must of took the day off. The weather was perfect. I enjoyed the peacefulness. The graph showed a lot of fish, but they weren't hungry. Be back in May.

Date Received: April 17, Bryan Kelly

We arrived on Friday night with 45 MPH winds blowing across the reservation. Sat morning we get up and the wind is still blowing hard. We venture out to our spot near Pump station at 10:00 am I land two stripers at around 11:00 and then decide to try pump intake area by this time we got 15-20 boats in area. As you stated around 1:30 till 4:30 we caught 26 fish biggest being 3.2 pounds. My family and other boaters were having a blast. I am not sure if we dented the striper population but we tried. Sunday we took trip up Navajo Canyon to end we did not land any thing back there. So before heading down the hill back to the pump all our buddies are back except for the stripers. we fished two hours till 1:45 two fish was it not many fish being caught today then we decided to leave for home. Please keep up the great work on the site. Again see you in four or five weeks. After our next fish fry!!!

P.S. I love your posted recipe for striper.

Date Received: April 21, Wayne Gustaveson

Fished Last Chance today. Found stripers in the grey-green water in the back where water depth was 25-30 feet. It was overcast in the morning so fish were scattered. We trolled shad raps and caught 3 fish in 1/2 hour. Then we moved to clear-green water and caught bass (both smb and lmb) on 3 inch chartreuse soft plastic grubs. The pattern was 45 degree sloping shoreline with broken rock and stick ups. Caught 20 something bass, 1 crappie, 1 green sunfish. Moved to clear-clear water targeting small rock slides on sandstone cliff faces and caught more smallmouth. Watched them hit the lure in 25 feet of water. I love it! The clear water turned on this afternoon when the sun came out and temperature soared to 65 F. Very good day.

Date Received: April 24, Nate, Logan UT

I've just recovered somewhat from last weekends trip to a very windy, wavy, cool Powell. Five of us fished Lee's Ferry area, Friday 14th, and did pretty well, total catch was around 80 rainbows most in the 14-16 inch range. Most were caught drifting wooley buggers. We went to Wahweap the next day and met up with four others. It was a clear, cool, blustery day with 2 ft+ waves (thats what I'm recovering from). We tried fishing at the dam (3 hrs, 1 fish). We then moved to the power intake and got beat to death by waves. We fished another 3 hrs for 1 fish. In 7 hours of fishing I saw only 3 fish taken in these areas. Charted fish were seen in over 70 feet which are usually less active this time of year. A happy ending. I suggested, before leaving, that we try some canyon areas with some mud lines (also in your suggestions). We (1 boat) went to Warm Creek, found a mud line in water just 15 ft deep (water was much warmer and calmer). In about 1 1/2 hrs we boated 11 stripes & 1 cat and missed many more light biting fish. We may have boated 50+ stripes had we gone there earlier. We chummed and fished with anchovies the whole time. The moral is, don't fish in an area just because it's usually "a good area," as our "guide" insisted. Fish smart, try new ares, listen to the fish, they decide where it's good each day by their activity level. WHEN FISH ARE SLUGGISH IN SPRING, FISH THE MUD!

Date Received: April 26, Ray Young

Lake Powell catch report for April 25, 2000 Two fishermen caught 30 smallmouth bass on the flats at the entrance to Navajo Canyon. Great fishing on brown grubs (anything that looked like a crawfish). The afternoon sessions picked up 18 stripers at the generation statation intake. All on anchovies fished from 30 - 70 ft.

Date Received: April 25, Bob Hebert

We camped in Navajo Thursday evening late, fishing early Friday morning. The remaining 3/4 moon had fish out feeding all night, but Friday morning we found a few bass including a 3 lb. LM. We worked the canyon from the shallows to the big sand dune all day and did not fare well, catching maybe 20 fish (mostly small) between my wife and I. Saturday morning was dead and then the rain and wind came. We moved to Middle Rock Creek and set up camp there, but fishing was slow (for us) in Middle, Dry and Rock Creek. We caught mostly small dink SM bass and not many. Monday morning was short with only 2 hours of fishing time before we left for home, but I did see some sign of improvement. We were seeing a little more aggressive action from fish. I'm sure there are better fishermen who killed them this weekend, but it went down as one of our less productive trips over the past 3 years. My water temp readings were 59-60* in the clear water all 4 days and 62-64* in the stained water. I never saw a SM on bed and we fished many a rock pile. I bet the fishing is great today and beyond of course. That's fishing. On the up side, we did find the lake to still be the most incredible place to visit and fish.

MAY

Date Received: May 8, 2000 Joe Berno
We arrived 5/04 did not get on the water until about 12:30 pm. Spent most of that day taking in the sights (first time there). We fished the intake and around the dam without much luck. Saw lots of other anglers but not much activity.

5/05 We went in Navajo Canyon and saw lots of fish on the finder but not much luck in catching them. We were hanging out by large rock face trying everything that we had Jerk baits, rubber worms, grubs, and even some spinners, none of these came back with anything.We spotted some shad on the move, jumping against the rock face and figured there were stipers after them. We netted a bunch of shad and started using them for bait, we caught 17 stripers within 1.5 hours, average size about 18"-24".We were in heaven, left the area when the action slowed down.We cut the shad in half and casted out, typically we got hits within 5-8 minutes of it hitting the water.

5/6 We were Back in Navajo canyon at day break. We fished the same area and had a little success. We moved farther in and found an area by another rock face, no fish on the finder but we fished anyways, we started hitting them again on shad, there was a overhang about 3' down that extended out from the wall about 2', we would cast onto the shelf and pull our bait off of it and let it fall into the deeper area, no reeling, we caught 21 in a 2.5 hour time. We went around Castle rock in the evening but the weather was getting pretty foul, we decided it would be best to go to camp. We packed up early the next morning and headed home, We all had a great time and I plan on returning in July with my wife and kids, will have a better time with them there with me

Date Received: May 4, John Replogle, Scottsdale, AZ
We took your advice and fished the intake and Navajo Canyon last weekend. We caught about . 5 per hour until the last two hours when we turned a school on just inside Navajo Canyon and caught fish until our bait ran out. They were nice sized and, per you latest report, followed the bait up to about 20 feet. It seemed to us that there were always fish under us but few wanted to bite our anchovies. My friend would periodically throw a rattle trap to keep from being bored and more often than not that would produce some action but not sustained. I think our luck changed when our two day old anchovies started disintegrating on the way down to 40-50 feet. We were chumming and did not know it. Anyway when the bite started it was constant and strong. Thanks for your reports. They are very helpful.

Date Received: May 31, 2000 Michael Bertrand
I was out on Friday the 26th of May and had some good fishing. It was a windy day and I headed to the south shore of Antelope Island to get out of the wind. For some reason I pulled into a little cove that was protected from the wind. The depth in there was around 35 feet deep and I was marking some fish. I anchored in about 33 feet and was using anchovies. In around 3 hours I had 17 stripers in the boat. Near the end the bite had died off and I wasn't marking anymore fish. It was a good day.

I headed out on Monday the 29th of May also and again had some good luck. I started out fishing for smallmouth on the north side of Antelope Island. I found a drop off from 8 to 16 feet of water. I caught 14 smallies off one dropoff. Half of the fish I caught there were around one and a half pounds each. After that I worked my way down the shore and observed some carp swimming in some shallow water. I anchored in 10 feet of water because I was just going to have some fun catching carp. I was using anchovies and the first fish I hooked was a nice channel cat. After that I started hooking into some stripers. I caught 4 more channels and 6 stripers before I ran out of bait. I returned to the spot in the afternoon with more bait and caught 6 more stripers and a channel catfish. This spot was on the north shore of Antelope straight across from Castle Rock. In all I fished about 6 hours this day.

Date Received: May 23, Ken Lee, Glendale Az.
We fished Powell 5-18 thru 5-21 weather was great water temp reached 68-70 in the Last Chance area (warmer in the stained areas) we were disappointed in the number of stripers we found. We usually catch 40-50 per day in this area.The smallmouth made up for the lack of stripers. Once we went to 1/16 and 1/8 oz. jigheads with 4" Yamamoto worms pinched off at the belly. We caught so many smallies at each rockslide that we hardly had to move. Although most were dinks several went 1-2 lbs. Also caught some nice keepers on topwater all day long, using a bone colored super spook. We caught several nice channel cats off the houseboat on thurs. nite but they turned off after that. Also one crappie and five stripers. We didn't do bad considering a cold front just passed through.

Date Received: May 22, 2000 Sharon Marmaduke, Flagstaff, Arizona
Had a very successful fishing trip May 20-21. Fished mainly in the Main Channel near the entrance to Dry Rock Creek. Most were caught on the rock pile - hazard buoy area. Caught 25 stripers weighing one to three pounds using chunks of anchovy 20 to 30 feet deep--all fat and healthy. A few more were lost due to all the excitement of everyone hooking up at once! They were biting all day long, and provided a great time for all!

Date Received: May 19, 2000 Rusty and Steve Robertson, Bakersfield California
My Husband Steve and I made the 11 hour trip to Powell anticipating great fishing and beautiful scenery. The Lake proved to have both. Having never been to the lake before, we found ourselves completely flabbergasted at it's size and beauty.

April 30- New found CampFriends directed us to Navajo Canyon. We fished rock piles and ledges with plastics. After trying several colors, salt and pepper sluggos or 3" light grey grubs seemed to be most effective. We caught and released small 15 smb and 1 good sized crappie.

May 1- After decision to fish different area every day there, we headed for Warm Creek Bay. Fishing hard for 3 hours with only 3 smb to show, we moved across to Camel Rock area, South of main channel to flats and big rock tops. Scoring only another 8 smb before jet lag set in making it an early in for us.

May 2- With friends, we made the trip uplake to Rainbow Bridge. Wow! What else can one say? From the Bridge we traveled on up into the San Jaun Arm and tried for the first time fishing for stripers. I was too impatient with all the ideal SMB habitat floating by. Switching to Junebug(purple/green) 2" grubs or the ol reliable 3" salt and pepper slugo worms, Steve and I began "Sacken em UP!" With a stout breeze blowing against the canopy, we were drifting fast, covering alot of territory. Too fast actually, but that's the hazards of fishing with someone else at the controls. They were nice enough to serve as tour guides, who are we to complain? Friend Roger caught one striper on a Zara Spook, but Steve and I C&R'd 12 SMB, and 2 LMB in a little over an hour of fishing. With Gas at a premium 2.30 per gallon at Dangling Rope Marina, that trip alone ran us 40 bucks! That was only Half!

May 3rd- In a final day of fishing flurry, we headed for Last Chance Canyon. A local tourney fisherman had given us the scoop, and we were out to test his report. As we progressed up into the canyon, we crossed a definite color change in the water. As in our previous days experiences, we had found bite to be stronger in clear water than in the stained. This day proved no different. The stained water produced only 1 smb in an hours fishing. We tried ever color in our box, and every ledge, rock pile, weeds we could find. Finally moving back out into the clearer water to troll a little while. Steve caught our only walleye on a shad colored plug at about 16-20 foot deep. The heat climbing into the high 80's finally sent us looking for some shade. We found not only a bowl with shade, but some awesome smb! In this one short canyon arm, we ended up C&R 48 SMB, and 2 Sunfish. One of the sunfish was as fat as a little football! Beautiful colors! Again, the salt and pepper or light grey with blue flake colored plastics on ledges, dark sides of big rocks, and rock piles worked best for us. We finished our day with an attempt at stripers back around from the dam against a shear wall. Although the Depth finder showed them stacked at 60-80 feet, we couldn't seem to entice any to our hooks. We ended up donating a pound of anchovies for the pleasure of the stripers we didn't catch. Darkness and fatigue from 12 hours on the water, sent us in without a Powell Striper!

All in all, we had a great trip. Boated nearly 100 fish, missed at least that many more, and saw some of the most outstanding scenery we've had the pleasure of laying eyes on. Our biggest disappointment was size. The largest smallie caught was 14" maybe. We came away with some awesome pictures, a good fish story or two, and wonderful memories of our first, but surely not last, trip to Powell.

JUNE

Date Received: June 29, 2000 prescott dave
Just returned from Powell. We fished 2 full days near the dam using whole anchovies @ 40-50'. Landed 55 stripers 2-4# and 1 small catfish. Not good but not bad either.

Date Received: June 26, 2000 Ed Gerdemann
My wife and I were up at Powell for the week. We had good success on smallmouth along both sides of the main channel just below the mouth of Navajo. Every broken rock shelf, point and reef seemed to have smallmouth all over it. Most fish were caught in 30-35 feet of water, however, we did catch some as shallow as 15 feet when we had cloud cover or some wind disturbance. Our best bait was the small Yamamoto Ika in a rootbeer and green color fished on a 1/4 oz. round jig head. We also had good luck on a 4-inch Berkley Power Crawler in a watermelon with black dot color. We fished these Texas rigged with a 1/4 oz bullet sinker and a 1/0 hook. In addition to the smallmouth, we caught one largemouth, a few stripers, a catfish and a three pound walleye which made a great dinner for us one evening. This was the biggest walleye I have taken from Lake Powell. Like the smallmouth, it found the Ika to its liking. Overall, I would have to rate the fishing as very good.

Date Received: June 26, 2000 Dee Reynolds Ransom Canyon, Texas
We just got back from a 5 day houseboat trip to Powell. Our first, and all I can say is WOW! We fished the morning of June 15th in a little cut on the east side of Oak Canyon for 2 hours. Chumming only produced 2 stripers, but 1/8th oz. smoke colored jigs got 8 nice SMB's and 1 channel cat. We got skunked the morning of June 17th in the far end of Warm Creek Bay. We were fishing the stick-ups for bass, but had no luck at all. A wonderful trip though.

Date Received: June 23, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
Fished Navajo this morning in search of striper boils. Got to the upper end of the canyon at first light and ran into an immediate boil. Stripers were lined up shoulder to shoulder and feeding in a wave. The first cast with topwater was ignored. A rattletrap ripped through the school only caused them to sound. I grabbed a shad minnow jigging spoon and dropped to the 20 foot bottom for an immediate hook up on a 3 pound fish. Another school popped up not far away with same results topwater and rattletraps were ignored. Took one mid depth on the spoon. We caught another blind casting a spoon. Then they quit.

Moving back down the canyon saw many small fish boiling on larval shad. They line up and feed in a wave. Its a distinctive feeding pattern that you will recognize with experience. Stripers were very boat shy. Drive away and they pop up. Try to get close and they descend. Seemed to be only small fish here. Would not take the spoon deep.

Hooked up a casting bubble. Just like fishing a fly and bubble for trout. Tied on a small jig and let it rip. Caught 2 more this way. Then went back in. The boils have started but it is more chasing than catching. But that's fun too.

Date Received: June 20, 2000 Scott Swapp, Kanab, UT
Went fishin' out to Padre Bay and smoked a boat load of Small Mouth. Every point, rocky, ledged, or gravel put out mid sized up to 2 pounds. A couple of 2 pound Stripers gave it up for us, but they seem tough to come by. The south end of the bay was much more active than the North end. If anyone wants to give me some inside info on the Large Mouth hideout, I'm all ears and diein' to snag me a can full!!! Nailed me a 2 pound walleye at the south end of Padre!!! Haven't caught one that size out there for a couple of years.

Date Received: June 20, 2000 Hank Schucking
Went fishing again on Sunday (June 18, 2000) with my bride. Started at 5:00 A.M. with good fishing in the channel rock structure for smallies. Caught 7 in about 20 minutes fishing top water to about 8 foot deep at the points and ledges. Each one caught was about 2 pounds. The fishing slowed down by 7 A.M. and was pretty much off by 10 A.M. when the clouds and rain started up. We caught a total of 22 smallies but only kept 10. Each one we kept was full of crawdads. We used the single tail chartreuse grubs (with skirt) with a ¼¼ ounce jig head again. Also tried a deep runner shad color Rapala. Both seemed to work good. Hoping to find some Largemouth someday. Will keep searching. Also, thanks to all the striper fishing, I think the other fish are making a slow but noted comeback. To all the people who fish for stripers, thank you and keep up the good catch.

Date Received: June 16, 2000 Hank
Went fishing for bass on Sunday (June 11, 2000). We had a good day. Between two of us, we caught 25 small mouth and 2 walleye. About 2/3 of the smallies were in the 1.5 to 2.5 pound range. We started fishing in Labrinyth early in the morning and caught 8 bass in about 10 minutes. By about 9 A.M., we moved to the channel and fished the rock structure. Since there was alot of boat traffic, the top water waves were numerous but only seemed to bring out the smaller smallies. We started fishing deeper (25 to 35 feet) and began to catch the bigger smallies. We finished our day in the channel at about 1:00 P.M.. We caught both of the nice walleyes in the channel at about 30 feet. We caught all the fish on the single tail chartreuse grubs (with skirt) with a 1/4 ounce jig head. We might have done better trying the Carolina Rig, but the jig head worked well in my books.

Date Received: June 12, Denis Denardo, Corona, Ca.
Just back from a week houseboating 6/4 thru 6/9. Stripers hitting at Red Bouy 22 at a rate of up to 15 per hour! Wide open bite...some evenings I didn't even have to chum a piece of chovie. Water was 70 degrees, depth of 38 feet. Fish were from 1.5 to 5 lbs. Fished both mornings and nite for a hour or two with a little more of a bite towards dark in the evenings. Used chovies dipped in crawsauce and a red bead above a #2 hook, this setup worked the best and caught the most fish. Always came back with at least 10 to 30 fish. Great fishing for the kids, my eight year old caught the big fish and ate a dinner of fish nuggets after.

One negative note was that the winds blew strong on thursday thru the nite, fish were still active but by friday morning the bite shut off, water temp dropped to 65.

JULY

Date Received: July 31, Ed Gerdemann
My father in law and I fished Powell on Friday evening, July 28, and again on Saturday morning. The fishing was much slower than it was two weeks ago but we still caught some nice smallmouth. The main channel pattern was still working with Yamamoto Ika's and Berkley Power Crawlers taking some decent smallmouth off the points and reefs, however, the fishing was much better in Navajo Canyon this time for both size and quantity of smallmouth. The broken rock points in the canyon were far more productive than the rockslides along the walls. We found fish anywhere from 15 to 30 feet. We caught quite a few smallmouth in the pound to 1 1/2 pound range with a few bigger ones thrown in. We caught a couple of channel cats, but we didn't get any walleyes or stripers this time. In fact, we saw very little surface boiling either Friday evening or Saturday morning. I tried a topwater lure right at dusk on Friday and again in the early morning on Saturday but had no takers. One thing I noticed was the smallmouth were not spitting up shad when we were playing them like they did two weeks ago. I think I only saw one fish spit up anything. The few we kept to eat only had crayfish in their stomachs. They were all fat and healthy, however. Perhaps they were just off their feed a little bit. Still, when compared to most places, this was pretty decent fishing. I'll be back up in a couple of weeks, and we'll see how things are then. Hopefully we'll get into some striper boils!

Date Received: July 26, Chris Schlieter
My first time at Powell and only 1 small striper for my whole trip! But I had fun anyway. I was part of a large group (2 houseboats) out of Wahweap on July 16th and we motored up to Oak Canyon/Bay the first day. Chummed anchovies off the back of the beached boat and caught a few catfish (#8 hook, flylined 1/4 anchovies, 6# test on a spinning rig). The 18 year-old on the trip managed to catch a couple of bass (didn't get close enough to see if they were lg or sm mouth) on lures. Second night at the same beach only netted more cats.

Night 3 was in Rock Creek Bay and that's where the 1 striper wandered into the catfish frenzy. Plus a carp that weighed in at about 4 pounds.

Our last night was spent way back in West Canyon (3 turns from the end) and we managed to mix up the cats and bluegill for a while. A couple of the bluegill were caught with anchovies, while I caught all of mine on a micro jig (these guys did some color changes while being caught!). Something kept eating off the surface the next morning, but we couldn't get them to hit any of the lures or jigs we were tossing out there.

Considering that all of my fishing was done off the back of parked houseboats, I'm happy that I caught fish every day. Maybe next time I'll borrow a boat and go looking for more action.

Thanks for running your web site. It really helped me get in the mood for the trip (and slog through those last weeks of work leading up to it).

Date Received: July 26, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
I turned down a trip to chase boiling stripers in the upper San Juan because my son had a conflict and couldn't go. Will try to do that next week before it's too late to get in on the really good, big boiling, surface action.

Went out of Wahweap Marina instead. At 6 am (MST) just coming up on plane near the south tire breakwater I saw over my shoulder where a striper boil had just been. That's right! After seeing enough boils it is possible to recognize the distinctive surface disturbance stripers make as they sound. Dropped the throttle back and went to the breakwater where they popped up again. First cast with a baby shad minnow jigging spoon worked for a 2 pound striper. After 2 more fish I tried the rattle trap and found that smallmouth feeding in with stripers wouldn't leave that alone. I caught and released 3 smallmouth and put that lure away since I was targeting stripers and saving shad lives.

As the sun got higher the boiling fish spread out into small groups of 10-20 fish and worked further out into the bay. There were loose aggregations of stripers working all of Wahweap Bay from 6:30 to 7:30. I started to miss fish with spoons, white grubs, and rattletrap. I would idle toward a group of fish and cast when in range. Often there were many small groups all around and most were staying just out of casting range. I can throw almost 50 yards with a spoon and my level wind so I was reaching most surfacing fish that I aimed for. But they just bumped the lures and were not hooked.

Finally, as I was idling along the shoreline between Castle Rock and the Marina I put on the trusty old favorite jumpin' minnow that always works unless the shad are too small which they were last week.. The good news is that shad are bigger this week and if I could cast directly into or 3 feet beyond a surfacing fish he would hit the lure every time. I caught 10 and lost 5 others near the boat. They were slurping the lure more than hitting it so many were just hooked in the skin of the lip. The boils quit at 9 am.

Date Received: July 19, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
Just returned from my Wednesday fishing trip. Bad news is striper boils that I have been seeing from the road as I drive to work are "ghost boils". By the time you get to them they are gone. From Anchovy point back into Wahweap bay and down toward the dam there are many "small" (3 stripers chasing 2 shad) boils. Action peaks at 7 am (MST). I think there were less boils today than I have seen previously. That is usually how it goes when you actually get on the water.

We did catch one striper trolling a fat free shad at 5 mph in the area where boils were seen. While trolling, a small boil came up in front of the boat within range. A quick cast with a rattletrap resulted in an immediate hookup. The striper was all over the lure just like a center fielder gathering in a lazy fly ball. It seems he saw the lure coming and caught it before it hit the water. Both stripers were 2.5 pounds and slimmer than they were a month ago. Fillets were excellent.

After chasing stripers wore us out we went to the mouth of Antelope Canyon to duplicate Ed Gerdemann's pattern in the previous post. We fished shoals, outside points and deep water surrounding the good looking shallow habitat from Antelope Canyon to Antelope Point. From 7-8 am smallmouth were caught in 10 feet of water. As the day progressed fish moved progressively deeper. Finally after 10 am lures had to be at least 25 feet deep and then moved very deliberately to hook fish. Three anglers took 25 fish in about 2 hours on green Yamamoto grubs on 3/8 ounce lead heads. Ed's pattern is still working impeccably. We even caught a walleye just like he said we would.

I was very impressed with size of fish. Each bass was absolutely stuffed. As each fish was cradled in the palm of our hand, crayfish and sunfish and shad could be felt in the stomachs by gently stroking the sides. Many fish parts were regurgitated as each fish was brought to the boat. We had 2 fish bigger than 2 pounds and most were over a pound. There were only 2 fish weighing less than a pound. I have never seen smallmouth feeding as voraciously on natural food as they were this morning. There is plenty of forage along the main channel now and it makes fishing for bass very good.

Date Received: July 16, 2000 Ed Gerdemann
My friend John Conrad and I experienced some excellent smallmouth fishing all three days. Our first trip out was Thursday afternoon, July 13. We found numerous smallmouth along both sides of the main channel below Navajo Canyon. They were much shallower than we expected with many coming out of 15 to 20 feet. Yamamoto Ika's and curly tails all produced well as did tube baits and Berkely Power Crawlers. The fish were concentrated around the offshore reefs.

On Friday (July 14) we ran up into Navajo. We had excellent success on the rock slides and broken rock points. Again, the fish were shallow with many coming out of 15 feet of water. We left Navajo around 11 a.m. and fished the reefs at the mouth of the canyon. Again, we found large numbers of smallmouth in fairly shallow water. The same baits that worked Thursday worked again on Friday. We found smallmouth more numerous along the main channel reefs than in Navajo, however, the Navajo fish were substantially bigger with some topping two pounds. It appeared the main channel fish were feeding heavily on shad as they spit up many while we were playing them. The Navajo fish appeared to be feeding primarily on crayfish, however, they, too, spit up some shad.

Saturday was overcast and by mid morning became quite windy. We spent some of the early morning hours chasing striper boils along the main channel. John managed to get a striper on a spoon, however, all I got were a few slaps at my Spittin' Image. Some of the boils, to our surprise, turned out to be smallmouth. When the boils calmed down we started working the same reefs along the channel that had produced the previous two days. The action was considerably slower but still pretty good fishing. The fish were even shallower with the overcast sky. We caught quite a few in less than 10 feet of water.

Walleyes were a pleasant surprise for us. We caught them every day. The Ika's and the Power Crawlers proved to be the best. With overcast skies we caught several fairly shallow, around 15 feet. I caught one in less than 10 feet of water! The Navajo Canyon rockslides the the channel reefs produced all the walleyes. I even caught three channel cats that couldn't resist a Power Crawler wiggling past their nose!

This is without a doubt the best overall smallmouth fishing I've had on Powell in three or four years. The fish appear to be healthy and a full of fight. Many of them jumped at least once and some jumped several times. They appear to be feeding more heavily on shad than I have ever noticed, however, they are eating crayfish as well.

Date Received: July 10, 2000 Hank Schucking, Page, AZ
Went fishing on Sunday morning (July 9). Took some friends and had a good time. We were on the water by 5:00 AM and fishing by 5:05 AM. That should hint as to how close the fishing is to launch ramps. With 6 of us fishing on a pontoon boat, we caught 20 smallies within 45 minutes in a slot canyon off the main channel. The smallies were so active that when we reeled in a fish, there would be 2 or 3 following it. At other times, we would set the hook on a fish, reel it in a ways, it would come off the hook and bite again to be brought in. It is also the first time I have ever seen a smallmouth bass boil on this lake. We caught the fish on primarily chartreuse grubs with ¼ oz jig heads. We caught a few on white doll flies as well. When the fish were active, we caught on the surface, shallow and up to 25 feet deep. By 8:30 AM, the fishing was slowing down and was pretty much off by 10 AM. Lake temperature ranged from 76 to 80 degrees F and the weather was spectacular with mild temperature, steady barometer at 30.08 and partly cloudy skies. We kept 21 bass for dinner that night and put at least 20 back in the water. If this is normally the slow fishing season, I can hardly wait until Sept & Oct. Have fun, be safe and hope to see you out there.

AUGUST

Date Received: August 31, 2000 Robert Senecal
Our trip last week resulted in one striper from a small boil just past the first islands in Navajo. Got a late start (had to work) got on the water about 3 from Antelope. Went up Antelope Canyon. Saw some nice jet ski's and tour boat. Headed for Navajo. Dropped hook on ledge off the small island of the set. Fish And game stopped to check us and knocked us off the ledge so we went further up canyon. Surprised the small boil as we came around a bend. Cut engine and paddled closer but just the one. Continued up canyon exploring and watching the approaching thunderstorms. Had a good rain and enjoyed the water falls created by it. Still looking forward to spending two night on the lake mid Sept. Moons not right but that's what works out this time. How about a section on boating saftey that might pertain mainly to Powell. Maybe include personal examples of dumb mistakes that could be submitted so others can learn from them. Pilots try to share the dumb things that they live through so others may learn. Thanks for all that you and others take time to share with the rest of us. So big a lake so little time. (money) Thanks, Bob

Date Received: August 28, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
We had a memorable "Kodak Moment" on my last trip out saturday morning. We were waiting near the haystack in Warm Creek for stripers to boil. We chased a small pod or two but nothing major. When they finally came up the sun was just right to "backlight" the spalshes. The entire bay to the right of the haystack erupted. It looked the grand finale at a fireworks display. We rushed over to the moderate sized boil. My son and his friend Cody were casting topwater spooks and minnows and I was taking off fish and handing them new rods as fast as possible. The stripers fed near shore and then came right back toward us and fed under the boat. In the middle of all this my son looked down near the boat and saw one lone shad swimming on the surface next to the boat. It was swimming a little sideways and making a tremendous V-wake for a 2 inch fish. I commented to Mark about the v-wake and how that looked like the action we were trying to put on our surface lures. About that time the wake paused, turned around and headed right back for the boat and then disappeared in a giant splash as a striper found the shad. We were splashed by the boiling fish and got to witness firsthand the feeding pattern of stripers as they injure and then return and eat the wobbly shad.

Date Received: August 25, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
The lower lake has come alive with boiling stripers. Both marinas at Wahweap have had some serious boils within the breakwater. Probably the best one happened yesterday morning at the boat rental marina where stripers churned and rolled for over 2 hours between the gravel pile and outside the north tire breakwater. Only one brave soul there to participate and he caught 75 fish before his wife made him quit.

Other boils are happening early and late between Castle Rock and the dam, and from Antelope Ramp to Antelope Canyon. This morning the entire Warm Creek bay (Cottonwood Arm ) was rolling from 7-8:30 am. Better get out right away. This the best that Wahweap has been for over 2 years and maybe as good as it will be for a long time. Cruise the circuit described above and stop when you run into the spot where they are working today.

Date Received: August 24, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
Stripers have found shad under Wahweap marina and in the adjacent bays and coves of Antelope Island and a boiling up a storm. We fished from 6:30 to 8:30 am this morning from the south marina tire breakwater, then east to the closest point of Antelope Island and then into the next bay towards the dam. The striper count when we filleted them was 40 fish. (See above picture). We were a little late and stripers were already feeding in small pods of 25 to 50 fish. The Pods were scattered and some times up to 5 different pods could be seen at the same time. They were boat shy so we had to approach quickly and toss surface lures as we glided in. Another good approach was to put the boat between 2 pods and then let them feed towards us. They stayed up for 1-5 minutes but would come up within a few minutes after going down. They were usually 200 yards away when they returned to the top. Stripers boiled in Wahweap Marina by the main ramp and at the gas dock last evening. Use discretion and courtesy if fishing within the marina proper. Leave immediately if asked. If not save a few shad lives. Surface lures were best for us. Cast right into the swirl while the fish is on top for best results.

Date Received: August 23, 2000 Skip and Shelli Prawel
Wanted to write and tell you the advice you give us rookies to Lake Powell is appreciated!!! Persistance does really pay off.

Hit the water at 6:30am had 14 striper by 9. After 9 am, everything changed .. no hungry fish! I had been trying to bag a bunch for a long time..with no real sucess until this trip. So I strongly suggest to your readers to set the alarm for 5:30 and be ready.. fish action lasts about 2 hours maximum.

You may suggest this spot.. We were heading up looking for boils from Wahweap and had just passed Castle Rock... when I noticed not so much as HUGE boils but lots of unorganized surface feeding in the whole area BEHIND castle rock... slipped on Zara Spook and WHAM! we were in business. My wife also did well with a Chug Bug on top.. Most were 3-5 lb. Striper Thanks for your advice.

Date Received: August 14, 2000 Ed Gerdemann
My wife and I fished Navajo Canyon and the main channel below Navajo. By most standards, the fishing was pretty good, however, compared to the fishing the past couple months it was a little on the slow side. Smallmouth appeared scattered. We never could find good concentrations of them in any one spot. The fact that we'd catch one in 10 feet of water and then 10 minutes later get another in 35 feet made it difficult to develop a consistant pattern. Still, we managed to catch a respectable number. The usual soft plastic baits performed well this trip, too. However, we did find a number of suspended smallmouth just off the big break lines at 15 to 20 feet so our usual bottom bouncing techniques didn't work on those fish. We found that by swimming Yamamoto curly tails in that depth range just parallel to the breaks we could take some of those suspended fish. After we quit fishing Saturday, we beached the boat and took a swim. I was amazed at how cool the water was about two feet below the surface. That and the algae bloom that has cloudied up the water might explain why the smallmouth were at such a wide range of depths. We even had smallmouth swimming around our legs while we were in the water! We didn't see any striper boils either morning. We were particularly looking for them in Navajo Friday morning. I don't think I saw a single fish hit the surface in Navajo the whole time we were fishing in there. I saw a few hit the surface along the main channel, however, most were carp. I did throw into one "boil" only to hook a six-inch smallmouth. There must have been over 100 in that one little group. I tried trolling both at the power plant intake and along the wall below Antelope Canyon, my two better trolling spots, but did not get a hit from a striper. Considering this is August, the fishing was really pretty decent. We just had to work a little harder than we have been. I'll be back up hopefully in mid-September and expect the action to be much faster then.

Date Received:August 7, 2000 David & Delisa
I just returned from the weekend at the lake. Friday I trolled the length of Navajo Canyon and caught 5 stripers, 3 of them on an all white Hellbender in 60 feet of water. Saturday early I trolled up 2 smallmouth with the hellbender outside the tire breakwater at the Wahweap houseboat slips. One of those bass had an old jighead with a plastic grub in it's stomach! Sunday was the real winner in that I followed Wayne's advise and fished just off the last cove south of the haystack rock in Cottonwood Wash. There in a submerged channel in 48ft of water, 100yds off both points of the cove, I caught 13 nice stripers between 8 and 10 AM on anchovies, and threw back 3 catfish also. Several of the stripers were 18 inches long and had some impressive girth on them like a largemouth when they get heavier.

SEPTEMBER

Date Received: September 19, 2000 Steve & Bobbi Haluska
Just like Wayne I fished the "normal" spots yesterday. I may have been there a bit earlier than he was. I couldn''t find any boils, just an occasional single working the surface. About 10:00 I decided that it was time to have fun with the smallmouth population. Once I went past Gunsight I found them on just about every rock pile and slide. The odd thing was in the A.M. they wouldn''t touch a top water bait. The later in the day it got the more they wanted a jerk bait or a top water. Throughout the day the good old standby, a Yamamoto double spider in any shad or crawdad color, was the easiest way to have fun. I couldn''t believe how much boat traffic there was past Dangling Rope, the vacation season is still going strong.

Date Received: September 19, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson
After receiving no reports of striper boils in lower Lake Powell since last Friday, decided to go find some. Tried both arms of Warm Creek with no luck. Worked up to Padre with intention of looking in backs of all canyons for signs of shad, birds, and stripers.

Tried Gunsight. Talked to campers who reported no boils in the past few days. Left their camp and saw a fish splash in the middle of a near by cut. Cruised over and cast to shore with jumpin minnow expecting smallmouth but got a striper swirl. Spent 30 minutes casting to singles - caught two in top water. Then the back of the cut just exploded.

It was a small canyon about 250 yards long. There was a narrow neck that opened into a broader bay. I stopped the boat at the narrowest spot and tied boat to shore. Fish were boiling about 100 yards away and I didn't want to spook them. I knew if they were working the back they would eventually have to come past me. If I went to the back in the boat they would spook and I would only catch a few.

Started casting towards the back. Got a swirl or a fish on every cast. Fish boiled like crazy in the back and I picked up those searching for meal on the deep water side of the boil. It worked too well. After an hour of reeling in fish I was hoping they would quit so I could go home. I stayed in the mouth of the canyon. They stayed in the back and hit the lure every time.

Finally I said one more cast. I threw it. The fish hit. My line was frayed and my jumpin minnow was GONE. That was the only sad note. I was out at 7:30 am. I looked for boils until 9:30 am without throwing a cast. I found the singles at 9:30 and then fished the boil til 11 am. Caught 35 fish. Had a big time.

Shad were trapped in shallow water. Stripers were probing the shallows swimming so their backs came out of the water. Ravens were walking the shoreline. Look for these signs any place on the lake to pinpoint striper use areas.

Date Received: September 18, 2000 Ed Gerdemann
My neighbor John Meyers and I came up to Powell with the idea of chasing all these morning striper boils I'd been reading about on the bulletin board and Anglers Corner. Both mornings we put the boat in the water at around 5:15 a.m. and motored up to the Haystacks in Warm Creek. Armed with both surface lures and spoons, we waited for these boils to materialize. Unfortunately, they never did. We did see some individual boils here and there but nothing major. We managed just one striper in two mornings.

We gave up on the stripers around 7 a.m. both days and went after smallmouth. The smallmouth fishing was excellent. On Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. we caught 35. We quit counting after that, but I'm certain we caught at least that many more until we knocked off at about 3 p.m. The main channel areas that have produced for me all summer were going strong again this trip. The best spots, however, were on the Antelope Island side. Most of the fish we caught were 25 to 35 feet deep. We caught some fish on Yamamoto curly tails, however, our best success came using four-inch finesse worms in watermelon color fished more or less vertically. Many of the smallmouths we caught hit the worm on the drop. If the worm made it to the bottom without a hit, we'd simply let it sit there, twitching it a couple times every 20 to 30 seconds. The strikes usually came right after the twitches. Although this sounds like a slow, tedious method, something to use when the bass are sluggish and not hitting much, it really produced some fast action. We very often had double hookups.

The size of the smallmouth overall were the best I've seen this year. We caught a number of fish in the two to two-and-a-half pound class with our biggest right around three pounds. We caught many, many fish between a pound and pound-and-a-half. All fish were very healthy looking and hard fighting. Many made spectacular leaps, clearing the water and re-entering head first. Even the little guys put on quite a show. One thing I noticed was nearly every hooked fish was chased by at least two or three smallmouth of a similar size. Sometimes there were as many as 10 to 15 fish chasing the one that was hooked trying to grab the lure out of its mouth. Also, nearly everywhere we stopped to fish, hordes of little smallmouth gathered under the boat. The number of smallmouth in this lake is mind boggling. In my youth I did a lot of fishing on a very good smallmouth lake in Ontario, but I never saw as many smallmouth swimming in that lake at any given time as I saw on Lake Powell this past weekend.

On Saturday there was definitely more boat traffic on the lake and the action was a little slower. Still, we caught 34 smallmouth between 7:30 a.m. and noon. That's still pretty good fishing. I would take that kind of action every time.

Although we were disappointed with the stripers, the smallmouth fishing and the spectacular weather more than made up for it. I'll be back up in a couple of weeks.

Ever had one of those moments when you realize you have been making a serious mistake for years without knowing it. I have been struggling with my jigging technique, in that, as I jig the spoon off the bottom and then let it fall on slack line, there is a loop created that often wraps around my rod tip. The remedy is to lower the rod tip at essentially the same rate as the spoon falls. I have know this since 1979 when I started jigging but today I learned the rest of the story.

This morning I was in one of those situations where the stripers were lighting up the graph from the bottom (40 feet) most of the way to the surface. I should have been hooking a fish every cast but only got an occasionally hit. After wrapping the loop around my tip for the 10th time I made sure that at the top of my next sweep of the 7 foot rod (from pointing at the water surface to the 10 o'clock position over my head) I watched the rod tip to time the drop so there was no loop to wrap around the tip.

As I watched, the tip vibrated about 3 times with almost imperceptible little hops. I set the hook which is quite a feat with the arm and rod fully extended overhead. There is no place to gather strength to set except maybe a little extra spring in the knees and an extra flip of the wrist. There is certainly no power left to drive the hook home. But it worked. I hooked the fish.

Next drop- same thing. Let the lure go all the way to the bottom. Sweep it up 7 to 10 feet with a full extension of the rod, watch the tip, set the hook. Stripers were following the lure as it zipped toward the surface and hit it exactly as it started to fall. They would turn it loose after it fell a foot. I had previously only hooked fish that hooked themselves as they tried to drop the spoon. Now by watching the tip and setting as the line jiggled at the top of the sweep I was getting a fish on almost every cast.

My habit had previously been to watch the line as it piled on the water, only setting the hook when it failed to fall at the correct rate or when I felt a fish. Today I learned to watch the tip and not let the lure fall on slack line. Do not impede the progress of the descending lure but let the rod tip proceed the fall just fast enough to be able to maintain taut line and detect the faint feel of the strike as the fish grabs the spoon. For years I have been missing fish right at the top of the drop.

Dear Wayne,

I want to thank you for turning my Bi-Annual striped Bass fishing trip to Lake Powell from somewhat of a disappointment into one of the most enjoyable fishing experiences I've had in my 60-plus years of fishing.

In the past 15 years that I have been coming to Lake Powell, to fish for "stripers" I have always used the anchovy, 1/4oz Jig head & white grub tail method. This has proven very successful for me. That is - until this fall. I fished from 18-30 September, almost every day. I caught a total of 4 striped Bass.

Then I met you at the cleaning station & you told me about fishing in the back of Canyons & Coves, in 40-60 feet of water, jigging off the bottom with a 2oz shad minnow spoon.---- "Gangbusters!" -- Taking your advise I started catching not only healthier fish, from 2 to 4 pounds average but a few bigger than that. Fishing early in the morning, starting at daylight until about 10 AM, I averaged from 10-15 Bass every time I went fishing and even caught 4 walleye.

However,the "icing-on-the-cake" for me were the last three mornings that I fished (14-16 Oct). I had my first experience of getting to fish "boils". They would start about 6:30 AM & last off & on until about 9 AM. What a thrill that was! Any crank bait seemed to work. I had a ball, thanks to you and your expert advise. You made my trip one to remember & I thank you!

I may never fish anchovies again!-----All the best. See you in the spring.

Fall is here and the barometer is bouncing up and down. This week we've had much cooler temps and more rain than last week. When we started fishing smallmouth yesterday, we started with tactics that were working a week ago. Last week, white grubs, on a 3/8 oz. jighead, fished slowly along the bottom, near any broken or jagged rock, were deadly. Yesterday, we couldn't catch a fish on grubs and the reciprocal worked best. We switched to ripping deep diving, intense wobbling crankbaits along or across submerged structure. Shad colored crankbaits like Fat Raps and Norman rattling divers fished well. We caught most of our smallies off the western shore of the narrows between Warm Cr. and Padre Bay. Our catches were ranging from 3/4 lb. to 2 lb. and were digesting lots of shad. Interestingly enough, I found myself in a similar situation last October. A cold front moved in overnight and dropped the daytime highs by about 15 degrees. The ripping crankbait technique salvaged our day of fishing and the action kept us warm! So good luck and enjoy the cold weather smallies!

My friend and fishing companion John Conrad and I decided to brave the ominous weather forecasts and make our planned trip anyway. We are both very glad we did.

Arriving at my Greenehaven mobile just before noon on Thursday, the 26th, we got my boat loaded as fast as we could and launched off of Stateline. We fished some points off a large cut on the top end of Antelope Island as well as a butte in Warm Creek. We found smallmouths more than cooperative in the 27 to 35-foot range. Four-inch finesse worms in watermelon and chartreuse tubes took most of the fish which ranged up to two pounds. On Friday, despite an on and off drizzle, we managed to fish a number of points and reefs off Antelope Island below the mouth of Navajo Canyon. Although the bite had slowed somewhat from Thursday afternoon and evening, we still had good action on a number of nice smallmouths. The main difference between Friday and Thursday evening was that we caught a number of smallmouth up in the 15-foot range. The overcast, rainy conditions along with the breeze probably brought them up. In addition to the worms and tubes, we caught some on Yamamoto curly tails and Kastmaster spoons. Fortunately, we got off the lake before the downpour hit in the late afternoon.

Saturday the fishing was very slow until about 1 p.m. At that time the sun sort of peeked through and the smallmouth responded. We fished some points and reefs above the dam where the main channel breaks off to the right and Wahweep Bay to the left, and then we motored up to the top of Antelope Island again just opposite Warm Creek. We nailed a couple of dandies there, however the wind started to come up and, being on the wrong side of Wahweep Bay for that situation, we high tailed it back to Stateline before the wind blew us completely off the lake.

We graphed some striper schools in Warm Creek on Thursday evening, however, we could not get them to hit. I graphed some large schools of fish along the channel suspended about 40 feet over 60 feet of water on Friday which I believed to be stripers. I dropped spoons down to them but had no takers.

All in all it was a pretty good trip, considering the weather. I hope to be up again towards the end of next week.

A group of 20 Elderhostelers in four 50' houseboats set forth on Lake Powell on October 22 for five days of fishing. We were accompanied by two fishing boats with guides. With the exception of one day, weather was lousy. Lots of wind, rain and hail did not contribute to good times fishing. Jim Lovett, a guide from Page, did show us how to catch a lot of smallmouth bass on jigs with Yamamoto grubs every day but we had difficulty getting striped bass to bite even if we could find them. We did get to see a number of waterfalls because of the runoff in to the lake, which is something not seen in nice weather.

About 8:30 am Oct 25, pretty far up in Last Chance Bay, we did encounter some striped bass and were able to get a bite started on pieces of anchovy dropped at 15-20 feet on light jigs. In 45 minutes, six of us filled and ice chest to the brim. This forced us to make a run back to the houseboats to ice them down and get another ice chest. We returned to the same spot and caught more although the pace was slowed down. The bite quit about 11:15 and we returned to the houseboats for lunch. The attached pictures show 47 striped bass which were caught by six anglers in less than a three hour stretch. We also lost 10-12 as we were fishing with 8 lbs. or lighter test line. Our guide on this boat was Bill McBirnie out of Prescott, AZ.

This catch was the highlight of the trip and provided filets for a large fish-fry for 28 folks on our last night at the lake. While our success rate was not as great as other angler reports posted at this site, we enjoyed ourselves and most of us look forward to trying again and hoping for better weather.

Date Received: November 30, 2000 Wayne Gustaveson

I was anxious to get back out after stripers since I was humiliated by them last trip. I don't like being skunked! So I took off at 8:30 A.M. intent on different strategy than last trip when I just went to where they were last year at this time. I headed to close canyons in Wahweap where shad were most recently found. I graphed Independence Cove and cuts by Windows of Wahweap. These spots were always good for a few fish a month ago. I dropped the spoon near a sandstone point and had immediate tension on the line. As the spoon got half way back in the water column it just slowed down - no fight. I realized this was NOT a fish and gingerly reeled in the rest of the way to see what I had. I was surprised to find a Zebco 101 reel and a two foot rod. If you lost it, I have it! It still works as good as new.

That was all the action there so I went to Ice Cream Canyon. I graphed - no shad. I moved to a cut where shad had been a while back and dropped the spoon. No hits - but speed reeling the spoon back interested a dormant striper and I saw it follow the spoon to about 15 feet. I tried anchovies for 15 minutes without luck. Then I moved to Lone Rock Canyon.

I found grebes searching for food and graphed the area they were working. Sure enough at 100 feet I found two large shad schools. Fishing around the schools was fruitless but these were the only fish seen. It is very difficult to catch fish deeper than 60 feet. I have done it but the shallower fish are much easier to get started.

So I rounded the corner and went back in the canyon. There were two grebes working so I knew shad must be back there. Graphing intently I finally saw 2-3 scattered fish blobs. I dropped the spoon immediately and got hit before it reached bottom. I threw out the marker as I played the striper. I splashed the first one in the well and dropped again. The spoon was hit each time it hit bottom. I splashed 4 fish in 4 casts. The fifth fish hit the spoon when it was fouled and it got off just under the boat. As usually happens in this case the school followed the fleeing fish and I lost them.

I looked for the grebe and he was diving about a hundred yards upstream so I headed towards him. I graphed another school and got 2 more on two drops before drifting off them. Then I went downwind of the marker and started another drift. Right at the marker I hit one more. I was afraid it was over but then it seemed the stripers had just started and the school scattered out below me and seemed to be everywhere within 100 yards of the marker. Each time I would drift off a short boat movement would put me back over more fish.

These scattered wary stripers did not bite as voraciously as the first 5. They started playing "The GAME". I love it. It goes like this. Drop the lure, fish bite. Tighten the line, fish let go. Jerk and miss the fish. Let the lure fall, fish hits. Try to take out slack, fish gone. Rip the lure up, fish follow until you have overextended your reach, then they hit while you are standing on your tip toes trying to figure out how to set the hook when the rod is already straight over your head. You can try jumping but better not fall out of the boat. Watch the lure try to descend and the line pops. Jerk again and miss. There is no need for aerobic workouts after a session of the striper spooning game. Finally I don't rip rod tip all the way up, pause at 11 o'clock and then set the hook from 11 to 12. It works. Then I do random hook setting all the way through the drop. That works in a random fashion. They win some - I win some.

We do this for an hour. When I feel like I have played a 3 game set of racquetball I decide to call it. Fish are still hitting. The grebe is still working. We are the only ones aware of this school and the excitement going on under the surface. It is great.

Back at the cleaning station the 18 stripers averaged about 1-2 shad per stomach. Some shad were 2 inches but others were as long as 5 inches. The stripers are working them over pretty well. I got 2 legitimate 3 pound stripers today. They were bigger than anything we got in the gill nets.

My son Matt and I went to the pickup station at Page this past Friday, 30th of March and caught 60 stripers between the hours of 10 am -3 pm. Saturday we nailed 30 more between 8:30 and 11:00 am. The majority were in the 20 - 23 inch range and in very good condition. The best I have seen yet. We caught a half dozen in the 5-6 lb class. All were on anchovies and in 25 -40 feet of water. Many hits were on the way down and a few were on the way up to check the bait. The boat next to us had 110 fish on stringers. A great two days for us. I hope it's this good in two weeks! Oh yeah, water temp at 54-57 degrees. Fished seemed to be biting at all hours of the day.

30 Mar 2001

We arrived in Wahweap on Friday night and launched our boat in preparation for fishing Saturday morning. The weather was warm and the water was calm. When we checked into the Wahweap Lodge, they handed us Wayne's Lake Powell Fishing Report which was posted the same day fortunate for us. Since fishing was reported good at the Power Intake as well as at the Dam, we decided to try the dam first since it was easiest to find since this was our first fishing trip to Wahweap.

On Saturday Morning, we loaded up on anchovies and made our way to the dam where we arrived at about 9:00 am and found two "retired" fisherman from Big Water catching stripers with surface water temperature at 55 degrees. They let us pull up next to them near the rock wall on the west end of the dam next to the bouys. They had already caught 14 stripers during the ten minutes in which they had arrived ther before us by jigging with anchovies. They were catching them 15-20 feet down. The water was co clear we could actually see some of the stripers take the bait 20-30 feet down.

Once we started fishing, we tried a slighty different method than our new friends who were using weights and chunks of anchovies. We tied our hooks straight to the fishing line, no leader or swivel on two poles and a swivel and leader on the third. I had a two pole permit and my seven year old boy, Ethan, was watching the third pole. We would then hook a whole anchovie though the eyes or the hard part of the head and cast as far as we could next to the west wall of the dam and let the anchovie naturally drift towards the bottom and back to the boat with the drag set. Often we would get bit in the first few minutes and we would let the stripers eat the anchovie and swim away with it before we started reeling. Most of the time the stripers would set the hook themselves.

If the drifting method didn't work, we would then jig and reel the bait in after it reached about a 45 degree angle with the water from the boat. With the anchovie being hooked in the mouth, reeling it in resembled a lure or a live anchovie. The stripers seemed to prefer this moving action and they would agressively hit the anchovie. Movement appeared to be the key. My seven year old son, Ethan, was goofing around and he started catching more fish than his dad all on his own with the jerk and reel method. Hence, I need to give the credit for the fishing success of this trip to him.

We had several doubles and triples on that rewarding day. We caught 50 stripers between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm when we left to clean fish. We learned the following day that several boats continued to fish the west side of the dam and continued to catch large numbers of stripers. Our friends fishing next to us caught 44 stripers and they left about 20 minutes before us. Hence, there were at least 200, possibly 300 stripers caught at the dam on a fairly steady bite from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm between six to eight boats at the dam on Saturday. The fish ranged in size from 2-6 pounds, some too thin to fillet, but others were in good shape. We noticed that while cleaning our stripers, they had been gorging themselves on our anchovies which we were using to chum with. We were the only ones who were chumming.

31 Mar 2001

We started earlier Sunday morning arriving at the dam just after daylight. Fishing was slower than Saturday and the clouds caused it to take longer to warm up on Sunday morning. At about 9:00 am, we had a double hook up and during a brief bite we bagged four stripers using the drift method near the west wall of the dam. The stripers were less eager to bite than on Saturday and we caught most of them on the drift, jerk, slow reel and pause techniques. The stripers would most often hit hard during the pause. Most of the other boats on the west side of the dam didn't do as well with the straight down jigging method. However, those fishing towards the middle of the dam were catching stripers slow but steady. We caught 20 stripers by 11:00 am and headed back up north after a fun and rewarding weekend of fishing at Lake Powell. We decided to leave our boat at Big Water so that we could come back again on Easter Weekend and bring the whole family!

Wayne ... nice job on the site. I read it all the time even though I live in Canada and can only fish Powell a couple times per year. Last week was one of those times so here's our report ...

April 12, Sunny and wind blowing hard. air temp around 50.

Got out there from Phoenix around 1 pm. Wind was blowing hard. Big swells and whole lake was white caps. We're too dumb to stay in so we run down to the power intake. We got very wet. For 3 hours we drifted (more like trolled) with the wind using 1/4 ounce leadheads tipped with anchovy heads. Got 7 Stripers. Average size 2-3 lbs.

Friday April 13, Sunny and clear, no wind, temp around 60.

Very nice weather. Zip to power intake about 10:30 am and find about 15 other boats there. All had 20 or so stripers on their stringers. Then the bite slowed and we looked like sad sacks, having no fish while everyone else was fully loaded. We hung around and the bite would pick every hour or so. You'd get multiple hookups real fast. Fish were at 40 - 60 ft. 5 or 6 fish per activation (or school swimming by) and every boat in the group would get fish on around the same time. Pretty wild. Later as it warmed up the fish were up higher and more active. We saw one guy pick one up on a fly rod. The active fish were 20-40 ft down and *every cast* produced a striper or a hard hit (you still have to pay attention to hook them). From 2-4 pm was basically non-stop catching, with occasional short breaks in the action to keep you honest. Lots of 20 inchers with one at 22 inches, all nice and healthy. Fish were on jigs again (1/4 ounce white worked best) with anchovies. We caught so many fish that I forgot to count. Kept 12 big ones for dinner.

At about 4 pm, we decided that we wanted to explore and see if Smallmouth were active. We jigged the rock piles off the left side of the channel as you go from Antelope Canyon towards the Dam. We caught a walleye 16 incher or so, on a yellow 1/4 ounce jig, green twister tail at 35 feet.

Three of us fished for Large and Small Mouthed Bass April 13th late PM through Monday sunset and found fishing slow, with only small bass near shore. We fished Warm Creek and Navajo Canyon a lot and to a lesser extent, Rock Creek, Middle Rock Creek and Cain's Wash. Our largest fish was about 1 3/4 lbs, but most of the others were in the 13" range. I found water temps at 50 degrees Saturday morning by the Wahweap marina and at 55 degrees in the same area Tuesday morning when we left. During the day as we fished we would find water temps up to 61 degrees on Monday. We felt the big fish had not yet moved close in for the spawn, but would at any time and expect fishing to turn on Wed-Friday this week.

It was of course a wonderful time again on Lake Powell.

Fished Lake Powell 4/27 to 4/28. Launched at Stateline Friday about 1:00 pm. Weather was breezy and cloudy with a good chop and a few whitecaps. Surface water temperature was about 65 degrees. I camped and fished in Dry Rock Creek. Caught a few small mouth bass on Friday on a dropshot rig and also on a "Senko". The good news is that stripers are hitting top water plugs every evening. I was using a silver and black back Storm"Chug Bug"(my favorite catch everything lure). Stripers were coming in close to shore and hitting with abandon (from the minute the sun went down below the cliffs to total darkness). They were about 18 inches or so and fat and healthy.

Saturday and Sunday were sunny, calm and warmer. Fishing for small mouth got a little tougher. I tried running crawler harnesses deep for walleyes along rock rubble piles but with no luck. I was really looking foward to a walleye dinner (had to settle for chili instead). Few small mouth here and there on trolled minnow plugs but nothing to brag about. Saturday morning got some nice size small mouth on a surface plug (a Sammy). Saturday evening the stripers obliged again hitting poppers till total darkness. I will try to get back out next weekend(still want that walleye dinner!)

Here is the lake record tiger muskie caught by Ralph Pearce of Gunnison Colorado. The monster weighed in at 22 pounds 12 ounces. It was 44.25 inches long and 19 inches around the middle. The fish was caught near Lone Rock in Wahweap Bay while Ralph was pre-fishing for a bass tourny. Understand Ralph put his hand in the toothy mouth while landing the fish and has the scars to prove it. Good Fish Ralph!

Here is Ralph's version of the encounter!

It was friday the 20th around 11 am we were way in the back of Wahweap. I don't know any landmarks around there as this was the frist time I have fished that end of the lake. I pitched a brown and purple pepper jig with a yamamoto crawdad trailer into a bunch of brush. I felt a fish pick it up expecting a LM bass. I reeled down and set the hook, it felt like I snagged up in the brush as nothing happened right away as I put pressure on hoping to pull my jig free the line started to swim away. I was using 12# test trilene and didn't want to use too much force so my partner started to move the boat through the brush. That's when we finally saw the fish and realized how huge it was. The fish then came to the surface and really came to the boat with out a lot of fight. It just rolled on the surface shaking its head. I got it up to the boat and my partner Justin Hicks hadn't got the net untangled out of the rod locker yet. Knowing this fish wasn't going to just lay there and wait on us I reached down and grabbed it in the gill plate and started lifting it out of the water. Thats when it became very mad. I managed to get it in the boat but not before it managed to deskin most of my right hand. It's gills felt like I had a handfull of cactus with a bad attitude. The fun part was trying to get a fish that size in the live well on a bass boat. We had to stick it's head in then coil it like a snake to get it in. Thats about it. I did get a lot of ribbing after the tourny by the other guys saying I used up all my luck on friday as we finished 7th in the bass tourny. Everone joked that the big bass of the day was probably in the big fish belly.

Mark, Cody Thomas and I went fishing early so we could get the boys back in time for school. First stop was a Warm Creek main channel reef marked by a white rock hazard buoy. Cody stuck 3 smallmouth in 3 casts with a 4 inch single tail Yamamoto grub (194 watermelon pepper) on a quarter ounce swimming head jig. Mark and I just watched him in the dim light of morning as we drifted across the reef. Bass were on top of the 8 foot deep reef and just off the edges down to 15 feet. We boated to the next submerged reef 200 yards away. This time Mark got 2 in a row. I was throwing topwater and hoping but to no avail. Then we cruised to the main channel narrows between Warm Creek and Padre Bay. Caught a smallmouth between 6 and 12 inches on every other cast. Mark and Cody were counting. I was just having fun. Cody was doing best by letting the jig hit bottom and then slowly swimming it back. Mark and I were bottom bouncing all the way and not getting quite as many hits. Mark did get a walleye on the deep side of a boulder rock. We ran out of 194 color grubs so tried chartreuse - it worked, smoke sparkle - it worked, and white - it worked too. Caught 40 bass in two hours and then headed to the classroom for the boys and the office for me.

Took son Troy out in Wahweap Bay for an hour at mid day. We fished a rockslide - caught smallmouth. Fished steep cliff with shelf at 15 feet in shade - caught smallmouth. Fished a long rocky point in sun - caught smallmouth. Fished slick rock points on breaking edge - caught smallmouth. Fished a shallow sandy cove - no fish (just checked this spot to be sure bass were not EVERYWHERE). Fished muddy water in back of cove with brush - caught smallmouth and Troy got a 2 pound largemouth. Fished Yamamoto 194 singletail, 194 double tail and 194 IKA all worked just fine. It was fun.

I had my first really serious Lake Powell fishing trip since last October. I fished with my father-in-law on both Friday, May 18, and Saturday, May 19. Friday morning we decided to concentrate early on smallmouth. We made my "traditional" main channel smallmouth milk run starting at the top of Antelope Island and fishing the reefs, points and any other broken rock structure we could find. Although the lake was much lower than when I last fished this area in October, the smallmouth were in all the same places. As far as numbers go, the fishing was nothing short of phenomenal. We rarely went more than just a few minutes without a strike. We caught fish as shallow as five feet and as deep as 30, however most seemed to come from the 15-foot range. I managed a nice walleye which hit a Yamamoto grub in about 15 feet of water on a point just below Navajo Canyon. After four hours of chasing smallies, we shifted to stripers. Here our luck radically changed. We tried both the intake and the dam with no success.

Saturday we decided to fish stripers early and then go for smallmouth. I located a school on my graph just off the gravel bar just above the Stateline launch ramp. We chummed the area well and started fishing. After about 10 minutes I hooked into a really nice fish but it broke my line. After that neither one of us got even a nibble. We stayed there and chummed some more but couldn't get them to hit. I searched the opposite side and graphed another school which we chummed but again no success - not even a touch. I moved a little further and found a third school and chummed it. Again, nothing. It was then around 7:30 a.m. and, after nearly three hours of nothing we decided to head back to the channel for smallmouth. If anything, the fishing was better on Saturday. I suspect the cloud cover might have had something to do with it. We caught nearly as many fish as the day before in considerably less time. With what looked like a nasty storm moving in we decided to get off the lake.

The only downside, besides our poor striper luck, was the size of the smallmouth. Although we caught a few decent fish, most of what we caught were 10 inches and less. We did catch a fair number in the 11 inch range and a few bigger ones. We tried fishing deeper looking for better fish but still caught the same size virtually everywhere.

I really don't think there were too many lures the smallmouth wouldn't hit as long as it was put in their strike zone. Probably our best bait was a four inch Yamamoto curly tail in a rootbeer with green and red flake color. I also had very good luck on a Yamamoto Cut Tail worm, also four inches, in watermelon with black and red flake, and a four inch Yamamoto Hula Grub in the same color. I Texas-rigged the worms with a 1/4 oz. bullet weight and used 3/16 and 1/8 oz. darter heads on the curly tails. I used a 1/4 oz. football head jig with the Hula Grub. My father-in-law fished exclusively with a split shot rig using the small Yamamoto split shot hooks. I was very impressed with this setup. He didn't have to worry about setting the hook, and most fish were hooked neatly in the corner of the mouth. I plan to utilize this setup more in the future. It was my intention to give the Yamamoto Senko a good workout, however, I had a reel break down on the rig set up to fish them and, having such good success on the other stuff, I never bothered to set up another rig for Senkos. There's always next time.

The real highlight of the trip, besides the fish, was watching the sun come up over the lake Friday morning. When those first rays hit the rocks bringing out all those red, pink, tan and brown colors, I remembered why I love this lake so much. There's no place quite like it!

We just returned from Powell on sunday the 20th, fished thurs, fri, sat, and sunday a.m. We beached the houseboat in upper Last Chance and once we got settled in went out fishing, we had 10 people in our party with 8 people fishing, 1 full time fisherman and 6 once a year fisherpersons and one first timer.

We caught over 100 smallmouth from 6" to 1 1/2 lbs.

30-40 stripers 3-4 lbs. about half and half skinny and chunky.

20 channel cats.

2 mud cats (Waynes note: bull head catfish)

8 largemouth from 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 lbs.

1- 2 lbs. walleye.

We kept and ate several small bass and all the stripers, released all but one of the largemouth(swallowed the lure) also ate or brought home the rest. Weather was great and the fishing was great. We made a fisherman out of the first timer, I think he's hooked for life.

Tues.15 - Bill Williams & I fished dam site & power intake all morning, caught 2 stripers after much work. We fished in Navajo at first & second point past twin islands & no luck. We decided to try the smallmouth & fished Warm Creek & Wahweap Bay at some of our old spots & caught about 20 sm, 10''--11'', not too good! Wed., we went to dam, power intake, Navajo for stripers, No Luck. That afternoon we fished for sm around the islands in the middle of Padre Bay, markers 21&23 & caught about 35 sm 8''---12''.

Thu. same story on stripers at dam, power intake, & Navajo. Went to West Canyon - no luck there either. We came out of West Canyon & just to our right about a mile or so we fished for sm again , & got about 30, from 10''---14''. We got some of our pride back!

Fri. we went the same route again, dam, power intake, & Navajo, with a few stops along the way for stripers. Not a bite, we ate dinner about ' 12' at first point past twin islands & that's when the STRIPERS HIT; we started catching almost as fast as we could bait up, sometimes 2 at a time. We got 21 from 18''---23'' with the largest wt. 2.8 lbs. & then ran out of anchovies. We went after the sm again & fished the channel on the north side from mouth of Warm Creek to #13 & got about 25 sm same size. We fished with Rapala shadrap, silverfluo chartreuse 5/16 oz.trolling. We got 4 or 5 walleye & released them along with the sm, & gave the stripers to another boat, that was keeping them. We had a great time & can't wait to come back to POWELL one more time!!

My husband and I fished just North of Wahweap the first week-end of May and caught a few large and small mouthed bass and 6-8 stripers, the stripers were nice and fat. We did this trolling an area several times where we had gotten hits.

Then we went out this week-end, just got back, we're from St. George. Caught rain on Saturday, then 52 stripers on Sunday plus one little smallmouth and one HUGE Carp. Caught these from the bank back in Mountain Sheep Canyon where we were camping. (Not near the mouth, go past a small bay with a few shallow areas in the middle then to larger bay, camp area on right hand side, with a small hidden cove with a small sand area. We fished in the main bay area off the bank.)

Then this morning caught nothing but sand, cold and wind so we came home. I wanted to stay, I really want that money fish so I can help out my kids and quit working spend more time with grandkids etc. Well, maybe next year.

I've been tardy in sending you this message, but I owe you it nonetheless. My son Neil, 12, and I returned from Powell on May 9. It was his second trip and my eighth or ninth. We skipped my favorite haunt at Last Chance and followed your advice to fish slickrock canyons from Cathedral Canyon to Llewllyn Gulch. We launched at Wahweap on May 5 under very stormy skies, motored 51 miles to Oak Bay and camped in the very rear of a sandy canyon. Very nice camping spots there, so thanks for that tip. I had some significant problems with my outboard engine and trolling motor that compromised our outing, but we still had an EPIC time and caught lots of fish. Call it 20-25 smallmouth daily -- 40% of which were 'keeper' size -- two nice largemouth (1.75 lbs) and two walleye (15-17'') and all the stripers we wanted. This was a slightly below average haul for me at Powell, but I ascribe that to my boat trouble and the storm, rain, chill wind that raked the lake Friday, May 4, and early Saturday, May 5. We threw all fish back, except the walleye, which we ate with thanks.

Everytime I fish the Big Water, I learn something new, and this time out was no exception. It is the first time I fished those green, twin-tail Yamamoto grubs. Holy cow! You Had to beat the fish off those stupid things! I usually stick to shad-pattern crankbaits and grubs, but I threw a pack of 20 of those green grubs in the tackle box just for the heck of it. Wow. They were amazing, outfishing all other lures, including my secret silver-sparkle grubs, by about 3-1. Because supply was limited, I let my boy use those green grubs and, well, let's just say he put a serious hurt on the old man! Lots and lots of smiles and noodled rods for the lad. I did bang about a dozen fish on shad pattern Fat Raps, fewer than in previous trips, but still worthwhile.

Water temp was 58-59 first day, then 61-63 next two days, then 65+ when we left on Tuesday, May 8. We fished Cathederal Canyon, Driftwood Canyon, the pocket bay behind the Dangling Rope Marina, rockpiles and reefs all along the main channel, San Juan near the confluence with the main river, Llewellyn, Oak Canyon and a side canyon to that main canyon where Rainbow Bridge is. Yes, for the first time, I suspended fishing long enough to zip over to see Rainbow Bridge. What a sight! Can't believe I didn't behold it on past trips. Unforgettable, well worth the time.

Best spots we fished: The rocky point 70 meters from our campsite in Oak Bay. Every night at sunset, my boy and I worked this long, long sloping point with book-size broken rock and just put on a smallmouth clinic! Also drilled a lot of bass on that first side canyon to the left as you enter the main canyon to Rainbow Bridge. There is a long rockpile in shallow water in the back of that side canyon where it seems every rock is the size, shape of a grapefruit or volleyball. The bass were just all over that thing! We watched a dozen boats pull in for cruising, picnics -- some very close to where we were casting -- and no one stopped to wet a line there! Incredible. Neil caught four keeper bass and one nice largemouth in five consecutive casts there, plus about a dozen more fish in, say, 75 minutes. Outstanding.

Most disappointing place we fished: Llewellyn Gulch. Wayne, when we motored into that canyon around 8:30 a.m., it was just as you described. Breathtakingly spectacular and big mountains reflected in glassy water. Structure, structure and more structure. I was stoked, and we fished it hard. Of particular intrigue was the heavy flooded timber in the back of the gulch -- by far, the best timber, largemouth habitat I have seen anywhere on Powell. My boy caught one keeper largemouth on the first cast, and a few fish were breaking the surface. Yet that sole bass was the only one we caught after 2 hours of stealth fishing in those shallows! I couldn't believe it. I flipped worms into trees, threw topwater, worked a spinnerbait, Rapala minnow, Fat Rap, green grubs, silver grubs, Texas-rigged plastic worms -- all for naught. Waaaay frustrating. We worked out way out the canyon, which is no small feat, but still only scored two or three fish. Never seen a spot look so choice produce so poorly at Powell.

Waynes Note: I hear ya' My best spots don't LOOK like anything. The better they look the more they get fished. I find plain places, usually shallow, submerged structure to be the best.

Guess that sums it up. Next trip, assuming we don't have a houseboat, I think we will stay at the Wahweap Lodge and fish Wahweap Bay, Antelope and the nice-looking reefs at the entrance to Warm Creek and along the main channel. Never fished those waters. And we can make a run or two to Last Chance, which frankly I think is the best spot on the southern lake apart from San Juan because it is close to the marina, not heavily fished, and has killer structure and most every species. This trip, however, was cool because we saw lots of new water, places we have never seen before. We just had the time of our lives! Thanks for helping.

Thank you Wayne. My son Karl and I just finished 2.5 days of the best fishing we have ever experienced. We fished Navajo canyon from 5-18 to 5-20. What a blast. Like most people we don’t follow instructions well, but I have been reading this web site for a little over a year now. Haven’t had much experience on the lake, so we followed MOST of the instructions in the tip section.

On Friday we tried the Power Plant inlet and could not get a bite. Went up Navajo canyon to the point of the canyon where there are two islands. There were lots of boats on the east shore. We fished there all three days. Friday we caught 15 Striped Bass, Sat 14 and 23 on Sunday. We also caught 3 catfish and one 5-6 lb carp. This was from fishing deeper than the stripers. We also caught about 24 SMB at the entrance to Navajo canyon.

On Sunday we had about 2 bags of Anchovies left and could only fish the morning. So we finally started following Wayne’s advice to chum with multiple anchovies at once. The sun was just coming up over the canyon wall and you could see down about 30 feet and watch the chum sink. We saw one striped bass come up to feed and take 6 pieces of chum scattered over a 15’ x 15’ area in less than a minute. Obviously if you want more than one striper to feed you have to put more chum in the water. With more chum we got the school to really turn on and we could catch several while the adjacent boats were just watching.

Today I saw the creel report from Sunday, which we participated in. Karl and I fished from 6:30 am until 10:45 or about 9 hours total out of the reported 1358 and caught 23 striped bass out of the reported 328. Following Wayne’s directions we fished 0.6% of the hours fished and caught 7% of the striped bass reported. Since we normally can’t catch a cold let alone a fish, we can only credit the instructions and help offered on this web site.

We did learn a little on our own and would offer these fine points.

1. The chum anchovies work best thawed and mushy. You can get more little pieces.

2. The anchovy on your hook works much better frozen solid.

3.The bite was much better if you back reeled the anchovy down to depth. The bite was almost always on the fall. One of the other true gentlemen fishermen we met, taught us that one turn on most spinning reels takes in or lets out about 2’ of line so it is easy to keep track of the depth of your bait.

4. Since you know you can’t keep the stripers alive in your live well, put a couple of bags of ice in it before you start and just ice the stripers down as you catch them.

Thanks for the great web site and the work to make Lake Powel an outstanding fishery.

Arrived at Oak Bay late on Friday the 18th just in time for the storm, fished anyway and caught 3 Stripers, 2 Channel Cat and 2 large carp (8 to 10 lbs.) bottom fishing with anchovies.

Saturday morning set up camp in the back of Reflection Canyon (left fork) caught 26 Stripers, 5 Cats and two more large carp. Released all the carp and 2 small cats, kept the rest. Stripers were all 17" to 23" - 2 to 3.5 lbs. Cats were small 1 to 1.5 lbs. All fish were caught bottom fishing, mostly with anchovies a few on night crawlers. Tried several lures for LMB and SMB with no luck, several bass boats fished the area at different times and we only saw one LMB caught (small). Nick caught 2 of the carp, 3 or 4 Stripers and a cat, all on a kids pole with 4 lbs test.

Looking forward to next weekend with my wife. We plan to go to the north part of the lake, maybe Moqui Canyon or Good Hope Bay. We have never been up past the Escalante Arm.

Stripers are eating crayfish with shad being in short supply and young shad not big enough to interest them for another two weeks. Stripers rest in deep water and then move up on shallow rocky flats or points to search for food. In this mode they are really moving and not on every point. Fishing with anchovies is a slow way to check for stripers. Dropping the wallylure spoon is a quick way to verify if the fish trace seen on the graph is striper or some other critter.

On June 8th, I checked out a tip from Chris Cliburn that stripers were holding on the point closest to nun buoy 30 in the main channel above West and Last Chance. We found the point about 8 am and graphed across it once without seeing a fish. We then went upstream and fished some points in Dry Rock Creek without success.

About 10:30 am we returned to the point at buoy 30 and graphed again. This time there were fish traces holding in the 35 foot saddle between shore and a 25 foot deep reef in line with the point. Since we had chum readily available we threw it out and immediately caught stripers. We hooked about 15 in the next 45 minutes. They were really aggressive so I tried the spoon and it worked quicker and better than the weightless fly line anchovies we were drifting. Dave put on a white grub and that worked as well. My brother came into fish that afternoon. Armed with what I had learned that morning,we went right back to buoy 30 and caught 45 stripers on bait from 5 pm til dark.

We returned the next morning (June 9) early and found no stripers on the point at buoy 30. We proceeded up to Dry Rock and fished the point that separates the first two big coves on the right (east). The first cove goes back about 500 yards. The second cove (further south) is bigger and separates into two short arms in the back so you know you are in the right place. We caught 25 fish in the really pleasant shade of the steep cliff. The "point" is really a just a more gradual drop than seen on the rest of the cliff faces nearby. There is some broken rock on shore if needed to tie to when the wind comes up. We fished pieces of anchovy with no weight or one small split shot to get the slow descent rate that is working well now. Fish hit at about 20-30 feet in water that was 25-50 feet deep.

When we came by buoy 30 Chris was there catching fish. Stripers were moving on the point later in the day not a first light. We returned that evening and caught no fish. It was too windy and we didn't have enough time before dark to locate another school.

Stripers are moving and feeding shallow. Move with them and try many spots til you find them. They may not be in the same place two days in a row but may return again on the 3rd or 4th day.

June 8, 9 &10th

Arrived Friday June 8th and set up camp in the back of Twitchell Canyon (Last Chance Bay). Graphed a school of Stripers just prior to beaching the boat (beautiful campsite). Water depth was 35 - 40 feet with rock ledges. About 5:30 pm a large school of stripers were thrashing about right in front of our camp (clearly visible) fished with whole anchovies on a #3 double hook with a small split shot. Cast just beyond the school and let the anchovy fall, could see the Stripers attacking, caught 10 in about 1 & 1/2 hours. Couldn't stringer the fish and rebait the hook fast enough to catch more.

Saturday morning June 9th 4:30 am the moon was very bright and lit up the canyon. Caught a couple of catfish and a couple of SMB in the first hour. Then came the shad! A school of a couple hundred shad evidently were chased in by a school of stripers and were trapped in the small sandy area were I had beached the boat. Every time they would try to get out they were attacked by the stripers and chased back by the boat, I was amazed. This went on for an hour and at one point the stripers were boiling about 10 yards from the shore in front of me, this was the first time I had actually seen this. During this time I was only able to land 1 striper trying anchovies, lures, grubs and a variety of other things but they were only interested in the shad. After the shad escaped I landed 9 more stripers and a couple of cats before they left the area. Saturday evening was windy and didn't get much action landing only 2 stripers in 3 hours.

Sunday morning June 10th as the sun came up the stripers were back, landed 8 more in a couple of hours before departing for home. It was a great weekend and I finally saw all the things that I had read about stripers. Another outstanding weekend at Lake Powell.

On Monday Tom and I made my main channel smallmouth "milk run" starting at the top of Antelope Island and ending at the Antelope Point launch. The clear, sunny weather really brought out all the colors on the rocks. Between 5 and 11 a.m. we caught somewhere between 50 and 60 smallmouth between us. It didn't matter what we threw at them - Yamamoto single tail grubs, double tail Hula Grubs or Cut Tail worms - all caught fish. The single tail grubs caught the most fish but the Hula Grubs caught the bigger ones. We found the fish holding in 12 to 20 feet along the broken rock substrate. It was important to be fishing near a dropoff as the smallmouth seemed to be holding right along the breakline. After meeting our wives for lunch, we tried trolling for stripers but had no takers.

On Tuesday we motored into Navajo Canyon. Tom was totally enthralled with the scenery and the serenity in there. The colorful canyon walls reflecting against glass smooth water is a sight I never tire of seeing. Taking advantage of a tip Wayne gave us, we fished a shelf just above the double islands taking several decent smallmouth on Yamamoto single tails. From the surface this shelf looks like nondescript slick rock not capable of holding smallmouth, however, the depthfinder revealed an irregular bottom at 18 to 25 feet. We caught some of our better fish of the trip along this shelf. Thanks, Wayne, for the tip. I don't know if this area will hold fish when the water is higher, but it certainly is holding fish now.

We worked a number of other rockpiles and points in that area. Because the water is lower than it has been in several years, I located another shelf along what I had previous thought was a straight up and down vertical wall. We were getting smallmouth nearly every cast along that area, and often several smallmouth were following the hooked fish trying to grab the lures out of their mouths. I love that about smallmouth.

We had to get out of there around 10:30 a.m. as the wind was coming up and I couldn't hold the boat. Although we didn't catch nearly as many smallmouth as we did along the channel, our average fish was considerably bigger in both length and girth. The smallmouth in Navajo appear to be significantly heavier than comparable length fish taken along the channel. I didn't make an actual weight comparison, however, it was obvious the Navajo fish were heavier for their size. This may warrant some more study.

On Wednesday we took a day trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I mention this because if any of you haven't seen the Canyon, particularly from the north side, this is a trip you really should make. In addition to the spectacular views of the Canyon, Cape Royal is the best view on either rim, the Kaibab forest is one of the prettiest (despite the burn areas from last year) I've ever seen. We saw numerous mule deer and wild turkeys. The highlight of day was seeing three dandy bucks cross the road right in front of us. It was cold (it actually spit some snow) and windy, but the trip was worth it.

Back to fishing. On Thursday we returned to Navajo and again caught some decent smallmouth in the same areas that produced on Tuesday. We also fished an area along the channel just above Antelope Point. Again, all areas produced well with the channel producing more fish but Navajo producing bigger ones. In Navajo we caught fish from right up against the bank out to 25 feet down. Along the channel most fish we took were around 20 feet. Single tail grubs worked best in Navajo, however Hula Grubs caught the best fish along the channel. After lunch we fished the points where the channel splits off from Wahweap Bay just above the dam taking a number of fish, mostly small.

Friday morning found us back in Navajo but the fishing had slowed considerably. Our best area was a rock pile that we had not fished the day before. We took several smallmouth in the the 12 to 13-inch class along that rock pile just above the double islands. Wayne's shelf provided a couple nice fish as well as the only striper of the trip. We finished our morning by working the reefs below the mouth of Navajo were we took a number of decent fish.

As mentioned earlier, just about any soft plastic bait would work, however, our two best baits were Yamamoto single tail grubs (4 inch) and double tailed Hula Grubs (also 4 inch). We fished the single tails on a 3/16 oz. darter head jig. Our best colors were watermelon with black and red and smoke rootbeer with green and copper. We used 1/4 oz. football head jigs for the Hula Grubs. These light heads worked extremely well with the bass as shallow as they were. Watermelon with black and red was the color of choice on the Hulas.

We actually caught 34 striped bass (smallest abut 16 inches, largest about 21 inches, 5 small largemouth bass (about 9-10 inches), 6 catfish and just for the heck of it 2 carp.. Most of the fish were caught near the end of mountain sheep canyon.

Tried numerous baits but the success came with anchovies. Bass were caught mostly on artificial grub type bait. Best fishing time was 7-8 a.m and 6-8 p.m.

I was in Lake Powell from June 10-17. We caught a ton of stripers in Rock Creek Bay by the Island where it splits into Dry Rock Creek Canyon. We probably caught a hundred fish a day there. It was excellent. We were using anchovies at about a 20-35 foot depth. It was the best days of fishing of my life.

We hit the water at 4:30 a.m. the following morning looking for smallmouth (and anything else that would bite). Our first stop was the top of Antelope Island. On our second casts we were both hooked up with fiesty smallmouth. We spent two hours working that main point and the secondary points inside the cuts, getting hits on every third or fourth casts. In between casts we enjoyed watching the colors come alive as the morning rays hit the rocks.

We moved down the channel towards Antelope Point, hitting a number of my better spots. Every spot produced at least a few fish, some more than others. We fished a ledge that comes out on the Antelope Island side just a ways below Navajo. I hadn't fished it since last September, however, it produced several nice smallmouth, a 19-inch walleye and a catfish. We fished on down the channel, finishing up on the reefs where the main channel splits off from Wahweap Bay just above the dam. Here Jim hooked what he thought was a monster. It ripped line off his reel so fast as it headed for deep water that I had to start up the motor and follow it! Jim battled it for nearly 15 minutes until I was able to get the net under it. I couldn't believe it was only a 2 1/2 to three-pound striper! I had expected a fish of at least six to eight pounds. I never saw a fish of that size fight so hard for so long. Jim also caught a largemouth in the 2 3/4 to three-pound class.

Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday, except we didn't get a walleye. With the exception of the top of Antelope Island, we found the spots we fished on Friday not nearly as productive as the spots we hadn't visited the day before. On Saturday, I was the one who got the striper, however, mine didn't fight nearly as hard as Jim's (wasn't as big, either).

The smallmouth were mostly caught in 12 to 20 feet of water. We did catch a few deeper, however, the better ones were actually some of the shallower fish. Four-inch Yamamoto single tail grubs did most of the damage with Hula Grubs producing a few fish as well. Again, many of the fish were on the small size, however, we did get enough in the 12 to 14-inch class to keep things interesting. We saw no striper boils either day.

On my way back to Phoenix today from Colorado. Fishing was terrible there for those finicky mountain trout, especially for a desert bass fisherman. So, I convinced my wife and in-laws to stay an extra night in Page and fish from shore the next day. This morning came a little too early but still found some nice pea-gravel and river rock shoreline at Wahweap at the Coves. At 6:45 am, on my 3rd cast with a 4-inch alewife slug-o, I caught a 14 inch green back smallmouth. I caught 2 more in the next 20 minutes, and then they stopped chasing the slug-o. I switched to the trusty yamomoto grub and caught about 6-8 on the white and, surprisingly, watermelon colors. I then caught 3 consectutive fish on a 4 inch watermelon zoom lizard. After it died down a bit, about 10:30am, I buzzed the shoreline with a 1/8 oz yellow panther martin in-line spinner and picked up 3-5 more little smallies. My father in law, caught 2 respectable 1.5 pounders deep on his bait of choice, night crawlers. All of this just on a 100 yard stretch form shore!!!! In all a great sunday morning of fishing before having to back to work monday. I thought I might share this to help your weekly report.

We managed to get launched off Antelope Point around 3:30 p.m. We fished the main channel between Navajo Canyon and Antelope Point until dark. Smallmouth had slowed considerably from my earlier trips. John managed to catch quite a few, but mostly small, fish on a 1.5 inch tube jig on a 1/16 oz. head. He was fishing it vertically in around 20 feet of water. I found the smallmouth reluctant to hit the bigger stuff I was throwing but did manage to get some later in the evening. None of our fish topped 12 inches.

Friday morning we ran up into Navajo. We stopped at the mouth of the canyon to throw into some striper boils but got no takers. When they subsided we ran on back into Navajo looking for smallmouth and anything else that might bite. Fishing was very slow. We managed a couple of decent smallmouth off a ledge just above the twin islands as well as a few off the points below the islands. We ran up the canyon a little further but saw no boiling activity. We returned to the channel and fished the reefs just below Navajo taking several decent smallmouth there. Again, John caught many small fish on his mini-tube as well as a couple bigger ones. My best bait was a four-inch Yamamoto curly tail, however, it didn't catch nearly as many fish as John's little tube. The grub fished averaged a little larger, however. I also fished a Hula Grub and Cut Tail worm. The Hula Grub was ineffective, however, the worm did produce some bites from small fish. I think if I would have fished it more I would have caught more fish, however, the grub was getting better fish so I kept going back to it. I tried split shotting a Senko but, while getting a few hits, could not hook anything. I wish I had tried drop shotting a three-inch grub as I think that might have worked quite well. Twenty to 22 feet seemed to be the magic depth. I noticed we hooked more fish just up off the bottom than right on the bottom. I did lose a nice smallmouth that looked to be well over 16 inches that hit a grub on top of a ledge in about 10 feet of water.

Saturday was a difficult day. I think the Friday storms had an effect on the fish as we had trouble getting hits. We managed to get a few smallmouth early on the same baits as before, however, the bite was even tougher. The highlight of the morning were the striper boils we found on the channel below Navajo. We managed to get close enough to four of them to get lures into them. My personal highlight was getting a striper to hit a grub thrown on my ultralight. What a fight! I got a couple others on Wallylures. They ignored the Spit'N Image. The whole boil activity lasted only about 25 minutes and then they were gone. We kept motoring around for another 1/2 hour or so looking for boils but then the wind came up and the storm clouds started moving in quickly forcing us back to the ramp. We took the boat out and waited for the storm to pass. We were able to get back in around 11 a.m. but the fishing had slowed even more. We caught a few smallmouth but they were much deeper, 30 to even over 40 feet. Finally, as another storm moved in, we got off the lake for good.

Again, this was the slowest trip I've had since May. Still, I caught 45 smallmouth in two and a half days on the water as well as some stripers. When numbers like that constitute slow fishing, that says a lot for the quality of fishing we have here.

Found stripers in Gunsight bay yesterday morning. Left Wahweap in a light rain at 6 AM. Entered Gunsight and saw small boils in many locations. One cast per boil usually resulted in a fish on the super spook jr. Boils splashed for 30 seconds and then fish popped back up two minutes later.

Action was found right in the middle of the bay, then as it got latter, headed toward the cove directly west of Gunsight Butte. Found more fish here feeding on shallow points with 30 feet of water in middle of bay. Stripers were scattered and many times surrounded the boat. While only a few fish were up at one time there were very willing to hit topwater. Caught 20 fish in 2 hours.

Returned today to repeat the experience and saw absolutely nothing on top. Knowing stripers were in the vicinity we dropped Wallylure shad minnows (1.5 ounce) onto the 20-30 feet bottom. Got bite immediately. Stripers wanted to feed but obviously had no shad except for our shad spoons. They hit deep, mid depth, and shallow following the lure right to the side of the boat. The shad minnow was king today. We caught 29 stripers from 10 inches to 2 pounds in 1.5 hours of nonstop action. We only repositioned the boat twice to start a new drift. The rest of the time we were over fish constantly. That was without a graph since mine is in the shop for repair.

I had previously been using the baby shad minnow feeling that the smaller lure would match the size of forage much better. But the larger shad minnow is definitely the best size and action. Surprisingly, the bigger lure settles slower than the smaller one and is incredibly effective for fish that want to boil but don't have any shad going at the moment.

A few words from the 2 guys that tore-it-up for 6 days at lake powell. This was by far the best fishing we've ever done here. In the course of six days, we bagged well over 350 fish ! Aug. 24-29. We did 90% of our fishing @ the dam, west side. Carolina rig, #2 hook, 1oz. Bell sinker with 18 inch leader. The fish were all over the graph, mostly between 45-60 feet.

We also caught trout @ 75 feet. Everything was caught using anchovies, cut in 1/2 or 1/3. Our total bag included: striper,cats,largemouth,smallmouth, @ trout. Numbers per species varied, but the trout count was 4 . We really enjoyed ourselves, and are looking forward to our next trip ( 2-3 weeks out ). We thank you for your words of wisdom , and anticipate another awesome trip. Dan @ Bob

Our Rally plan to cruise uplake to Gunsight and Padre was thwarted by wind so we pulled into Cottonwood Wash with 3 boats of SHAD rally anglers. Find the haystack in Cottonwood Arm of Warm Creek then go to the big cut on the left of the haystacks. Lots of beach and houseboats parked along the edge means you are in the right place. The beach is broken up by about 100 yards of rough shore line marked with broken rock. This is where the stripers are holding. On the right side of the canyon there are shallow sandy points. Near the rough rock slide on the left there is a trench that is 40-45 feet deep. Fish in the trench for best results.

The stiff breeze was blowing us along at a good clip. Spoons were effective for me but the windy conditions dictated different tactics for the less experienced anglers in the group. We marked fish and anchored in the trench. The wind was strong enough that we all occasionally dragged anchors along the bottom. The first broadcast of anchovy chum got their attention and we began to catch yearling stripers midway (20-30 feet) in the water column.

I used two rods, one with no weight and one with 2 spit shots and identical #4 circle hooks on both. I put one- third anchovy on the no weight rod and cast out leaving the bale open. Then I picked up the weighted rod and cast that out and let it sink to 25-30 feet. I held that rod and used a sweep set every time I felt a tap. While playing that fish a follower would invariably hit the weightless bait. I threw the first fish on the floor and then picked up the second rod and closed the bale. When I got that one in I rebaited both and did the whole thing over again. I was pretty busy from 7-10 am with this technique ending up with 45 fish on ice in the cooler.

Some started slowly being unfamiliar with the feel of bait fish and getting the bait at the right depth. After an hour everyone was catching fish at a good rate. Other rally boats joined us around 10 after very limited success at the dam. We had a break in the action at 10 am but then they turned on again and continued to bite all day long. When we finally met at the fish cleaning station at 4 pm we had over 200 stripers to filet.

Doc Bill and Dave were the best. Their secret was a constant chum line. Every time they put a new bait on the hook they threw a few pieces in the water. This kept fish around their boat constantly and they were rewarded for their efforts. I recommend this chumming technique every time stripers turn on to anchovies. Slow and steady chumming is the formula for success.

Monday (9-10) we headed back to Warm Creek, Cottonwood Wash haystacks to catch some more yearling stripers. We got cocky and didn't get there until 9 AM expecting them to run to our bait when we arrived. I guess the nearly 400 stripers caught there over the weekend had some impact because we couldn't get anything going. Left without catching a fish KNOWING I have to get up early if I am serious about catching anything.

Today we did it right and hit the lake at 5:40 AM arriving in Gunsight by 6 AM. We graphed the big cove west of the notch in Gunsight Butte but saw only shad - no stripers. I see from today's fish reports that perhaps the stripers have moved to the back of the canyon and I didn't go back far enough..

Left Gunsight and tried the back of Padre Canyon near the gravel top islands. Saw a few slurps between the islands but more towards the middle of the bay. Coasted to the closest slurp and cast surface lures - nothing. Dropped the spoon and the graph lit up. We spooned up a dozen before the screen went blank. Padre Canyon looking toward mouth over gravel islands.

Looked for another slurp, cruised over to it. Caught one on topwater. Dropped the spoons and greased another dozen fish. Deepest fish were 65 and we caught them most consistently at 30-45 feet. The graph was alive with fish while we were catching them and then when it blanked out we moved again. Saw a splash near shore in the back. By the time we got to the spot the fish had moved around the point but we caught two on top water and then dropped spoons to get a bunch more.

We had an hour of real intense catching from 7- 8 AM. We headed back to filet 37 stripers. This trip can be duplicated every morning for the next two weeks by looking for splashes and graphing the back of Gunsight, Padre or Dry Rock Creek from 6-8 AM. If staying all day then switch to bait when the spoons quit working to catch fish all morning long.

We took our houseboat out from September 9th through the 16th. We found a nice beach in dry rock creek and camped there the entire trip. We had one day with light showers but we didn't mind as the overcast skies cooled it down enough to do some hiking. On two evenings the wind kicked up but quit within an hour or so. Overall, the weather was gorgeous! Most mornings there were other boats out in the center of the cove fishing the protruding rock pile but I didn't see much catching activity happening.

Three of our party fished everyday at all different hours and found the fish more than willing to bite. They chummed with anchovies and caught more stripers than we could eat. Most were fat and healthy although there were many that were just small. We guessed they were very young fish. Small mouth and catfish were also caught. The best place was along the canyon wall out towards the main channel. The fish were found there everyday at about 40 to 60 feet. We had so much fish that we traded enough to feed a neighboring houseboat party of 12 for a pan of lasagna.

One of the fun moments of the trip was when we went into Dangling Rope Marina. I came out of the store and the carp were begging for food. If you have never seen it, bring your camera. They would pop their heads out of the water and open their mouths, the message was pretty clear.. FEED ME! So I threw some Fritos into the water and it started a fish riot! Dozens of giant carp fought for the food while large striped bass would zoom through the wriggling bodies and even flip out of the water as they grabbed food away from the slower carp. Several catfish wiggled up on top of the seething mass and were completely out of the water. It was an unforgettable thing to see!

Got a good report from Ray Young yesterday that stripers were hitting bait about 55-70 feet deep in Gunsight. He said they were about even with and 200 hundred yards out from the cut in the butte that separates Gunsight from Padre Canyon. That's the spot where boats can "short cut" between the two canyons when the water is higher. Right now its dry but look for the narrow crack in Gunsight Butte.

He caught over 50 fish there yesterday and I had some relatives visiting for the weekend and decided to take them there for a big time catching stripers. On the way up I changed plans and went to the back of Padre where I have fished before to see if the stripers were behaving the same in the adjacent canyon.

Found the 70 foot deep slot in between the gravel islands and dropped spoons with only one taker. A few fish slurped by only rolled one time on my jumpin minnow. So I put on bait and dropped anchovies into the slot. We chummed and then fidgeted for about 15-20 minutes with only an occasional bite. Then we started to catch a few. We chummed some more and they turned on big time. I did not have time to fish, what with taking fish off, putting baits on, and slamming the lid of the cooler briskly so the occupants didn't jump out. We took 44 in 2 hours.

They behaved exactly as Ray described. They were found at 70 feet. It took some chum and patience to get them started and then they attacked with vigor. These two spots will work for the next week. I am sure there are still fish in Dry Rock Creek as well.

These stripers were about 60 % healthy and 40 % not so good. Catching them on bait selects more of the thin fish. Please catch and keep them all, especially the skinny ones. I took them back to the fish cleaning station and made the final decision on which ones to fillet. The others I fed to the big jaws in the cleaning station. It ate them all.

It has been some time but I just got my photos developed and wanted to send you one of us at the fish cleaning station at Wahweap. Mike (Perk), Ryan (Pitts), Grant (Grandpa), Mark (Cosmo) and I were there in late August for four days from Ely, Nevada and had great fishing success as usual. We ended up with 101 stripers, 20 smallies, 15 catfish, and 3 accidental bluegills. I'm sure we would have had even more but the afternoon storms blew us off the lake (literally) every day. The first day, we were in the Gunsite area along our favorite rock ledge and we waited just a little too long to head back to Wahweap as the "black cloud" was approaching. By the time we got to Warm Creek we were into one of the most severe thunderstorms I have ever had the displeasure of being getting wet in. By the time we got the boat loaded up and back to camp the storm had passed and it was time to go fishing again. We did pay a little closer attention to the travel speed of the clouds after that.

On this trip I was happy to share my boat with longtime Phoenix attorney Dale Marenda. I've know Dale for years and we've fished together a couple times, but this was our first Powell trip together. Hopefully it won't be our last.

We hit the lake around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, the 27th, looking for smallmouth along the main channel. The lake was very crowded due, in part I believe, to the Utah school holiday. I think the added boat traffic had an effect on the fishing. Despite that, we managed to catch about 30 fish between us until we quit at dark. All were smallmouth except for one pretty nice largemouth Dale took right at sundown at the top of Antelope Island. Dale fished primarily a mini-Carolina rig with a variety of grubs, while I used a Series 40 Yamamoto grub on a 3/16 oz. head, a four-inch Hula Grub on a 1/4 oz. football head and a Senko on a drop shot rig.

The next morning at daybreak we were cruising Warm Creek looking for striper boils. Not finding any, I did manage to graph what I believed to be a large school of stripers at 20 to 40 feet over 60 feet of water at the mouth of Crosby Canyon. We spooned and spooned and spooned and didn't get a hit. Just as Wayne surmized in his bulletin board posting, I got frustrated with it and took off after the smallmouth. We again caught about 30 between us fishing the same channel pattern as the evening before, however, we hit a number of different spots than in the previous evening. On Saturday we left the ramp even earlier and headed for Navajo Canyon. Navajo was absolutely beautiful with nice smooth water and solitude (at least for a few hours). It was a typical Navajo smallmouth experience, not as many fish as on the channel but a larger average size. Like earlier this summer, the Navajo fish seemed to have more girth for their length than their channel bretheren - fought harder, too. In addition to the smallmouth, I managed to get a walleye which made a nice addition to our dinner fare that evening. The difficult part of this trip, besides the striper fishing, was getting a clear pattern established on the smallmouth. What worked on one reef or rockslide was totally ineffective on another. On one spot they wanted the Series 40 grub, on another spot the Senko on the drop shot rig while the Hula Grub was best in a couple of places. In some places only a vertical presentation would work while others required casting. Depth ranges varied as well, from as little as eight feet to well over 40. Most fish were in the 30-35 foot range. In addition to the boat traffic, I think the fish might be in transition from summer to fall patterns which may have accounted for the varying patterns.

I will be up again next week and hopefully will figure out the stripers then.

Returned to Padre Canyon to duplicate the big