We spent last week checking adult fish abundance and condition with gill nets at Good Hope Bay and Rincon. We had some really good volunteer help with Maureen and Dave Brinton, Gary Foell, Richard Hepworth and Mike Hadley assisting at Good Hope. Mike Milburn and Will saved the day at Rincon. Thanks to all for the great help.
There are more stations to do next week but we found a consistent pattern. All fish are numerous, healthy and in prime physical condition. We saw an abundance of bass, stripers, walleye, and gizzard shad in the northern lake. Also well represented were crappie, catfish, and yellow bullheads. We have seen a single species dominate the survey in the past but this year I was impressed with the wide variety of many different species represented in equal number. I would characterize the fish population as balanced and numerous. Really fish populations in Good Hope Bay are as good as I have ever seen them.
We expected an easier time in Rincon where less fish were found in the clearer, less productive water. The species mix was less diverse and stripers were only there in token numbers. But smallmouth bass made up for it in a big way. There are tons of fat little bass in the rocks around Rincon. We caught them in record numbers.
We do the San Juan and Wahweap stations next week.
A quick fishing trip at Red Canyon produced good catches of stripers on top water lures on Monday evening. They did not boil but were guarding the brush line where the canyon depth first reached 25 feet. This pattern is common over the length of the lake. We tossed Jumpin’ minnows and Pop-Rs to the tree line to find 3 pound stripers anxiously awaiting their arrival. It was great fun.
Fishing for bass at Rincon was slower but productive with top water lures in the evening. Did not have any stripers blow up on top from Bowns to Iceberg. The bigger bass were caught on top with plastic grubs fished deep being more productive on smaller bass.
