I'm not one that usually brags but my mother keeps telling me to send picture's of my Striper to you from our recent trip to Lake Powell, so in the interest of keeping the piece with my mother here is a few pictures of my fish along with a little story on catching her........
We finally got under way to Knowles Canyon from Bullfrog in the house boat around 8am on Friday Aug.26th knowing it would take awhile to get up there. This is my Second trip to Powell but its been around 20yrs so. It's been so long it seems like I'm here for the first time. My parents are part owners in a house boat and have been here 4-5 times in the last few years and use it as a get away as often as they can. They invited my wife and I to accompany them on this trip to give us some time away form the every day grind. Now as we all know house boats don't exactly get up on plain and move quickly, so at a whole 8-9 mph we are heading up-lake to Knowles canyon to spend 5 days. Now my dad has always been and avid fishermen and has done some amazing things while fishing and he him self has caught a trophy Striper in Lake Mead (36lbs 46") in the Mid 80's but nothing of trophy size out of Powell yet.
So as we are "cruzing-uplake we start talking about all the different types of ways we have caught Stripers. Then is occurred to us that usually we have trolled for them around 6 mph. So I slowed us down and he rigged two rods, one with a white Reef Dancer and on with a White 8" Kalins Curly Tale Jig (He was at the Ocean the week before and had this Jig handy) attached some rod holders and Pow! we were trolling for Stripers.
Now, as we all know when most people go buzzing by a house boat they don't expect to see it trolling for stripers so I'm sure there were a few boats that passed buy shook there heads and yes we didn't really expect to hook-up anyway so we really didn't pay that much attention to the rods.
Know as my dad and I are switching off and on stearing the boat we would check the rods, or if my wife and I would go up top I would every now and then eyeball the rods. I mean, really are you going to hook-up on a fish?
So it's hot and I mean HOT! As I walk back to get a drink I thought, well I'll check the Rods. As I walk out I look at the one with the Reef Dancer, looks good. I turn around and look at the one with the big jig, and as I do....BAM!
I grab the rod and yell....Fish-on, Fish-on!
My wife comes back and notice's I have a fish-on and yells it again...Fish-On, Brian has a fish on!
I look at her and ask here to tell dad to stop the boat and as she turns around to tell my dad he's coming through the door way saying he has stopped the boat. I couldn't tell the boat has stopped because the fish was running and taking line. I told my dad "I think is a Big one, or I'm stuck on bottom"." Bottom? Not in 200ft of water son". he replied.
Then about 50-60 yards out it hit the surface and we both laughed and said "OOOHH, It's Big one". So he jumped in the small boat and grabbed his landing net as I fought. As this is going on my mother and wife were snapping of pictures over the 20 or so minutes of the fight. As the fish got near the boat my dad and I both new that we would only get one or two shots at landing the fish and with the 12 lbs line and a fish this size anything could happen. So all the years of fishing and all the years of netting large fish I laid her out along the boat. My dad was ready and Scoop! Just like Pro's nad on the deck she lies. As I turn to look at my wife she was screaming and running in fear back into the cabin saying "AHHH, It's the biggest fish I ever seen!". Wow, I didn't expect that, but hey it is a Big fish.
"How big dad?" I asked. "Wow son....Big" he said." Maybe bigger than mine, lets see get the yard stick".
As I hold and he measures,"Nope....6" longer than the yard stick".
"Lets try girth with some rope". So my mom locates a piece as my wife is still unsure if the fish going to eat her for lunch.
"Well?" I ask. "He's 22 1/2 girth". my mother said.
"Wow, who would of guessed....trolling of the house boat" my dad laughed........
So, It was the only fish caught that day, but we did put the rods back out and trolled the rest of the way into the canyon.
So here are a few pictures I hope you can use for your wonderful Web site. We didn't get to weigh it but with the measurements I put them in and it came up 32-37lbs. Oh and buy the way when we were done camping we DID troll back to Bullfrog....At 6mph with large white Kalin's jigs........
Brian Shaw
Boise ID
