Anglers Corner
My wife Charlene and I went to the San Juan Arm with brother Carlos and Raquel Dibble. We went to the back of Deep Canyon where one old cottonwood tree is found.
We admired the scenery and ate lunch.
I just happened to have a bag of anchovies in the cooler and tossed out a bit of chum. Then I invited the girls to try fishing where bottom depth was 20 feet at the back of the canyon.
Within 5 minutes the first striper joined us followed by a seemingly innumerable school. Every anchovy piece that hit the water was immediately consumed by a hungry fish.
We only fished two rods at a time to prolong the bite. 30 fish later the bait was gone.
Not to worry! Carlos was willing to share his smoked turkey sandwich meat with the hungry fish.
Each piece of turkey that hit the water was immediately attacked by one striper followed by 3-4 others.
But the turkey soon ran out leaving only bare hooks. Stripers didn’t care - they were already in feeding mode and kept eating the bare hooks at only a slightly slower rate than hooks with bait attached.
If anyone goes to the San Juan in the next two weeks would you please go to the back of Deep Canyon by the only tree there and check on this school? They could use some bait and population reduction.
We appreciate your help.
I thought I would share some pictures of our recent trip up to Powell. I had an outstanding trip with my cousin Phillip Zink and Chris Romero. The first morning we headed up lake I saw you making your way back down lake from the dam. I threw out a wave at you and you tossed on back! Well, that was the start of a very good trip!
We spent most of our time fishing in and around Padre Bay. We would target walleye early and late in the day as you had recommended and target bass during the middle of the day! The fish cooperated and we had our best trip of the year! I have fished Powell for a number of years and I have only completed the grand slam for crappie, walleye, largemouth, smallmouth, and stripers only a handful of times. This was the first trip ever were all three of the anglers in my boat completed the grand slam! Not only did they complete the slam, but they completed it many times over! It was an amazing day on the lake!
What worked.......1/4 ounce 3.5'' tubes for smallmouth and walleye, hula grubs for largemouth, everything for stripers, and small 2'' curly tails for crappie. The walleye were a lot more aggressive this trip and were attacking crankbaits with a vengeance. I talked to Jeff Bierer and he said he was also having excellent luck on the walleyes. I will be back up there with some of my old high school buddies on Sunday!
Well the weather man really goofed up this week. I expected to find bass in all stages of the spawn and I was right when it came to SM bass and it looked like the LM were just moving up. The LM were still hitting the spinner bait and they are all healthy and fat averaging close to 3lbs. I saw 1-2 inch SM bass, SM guarding eggs on beds and SM doing the dance and then another storm came through. The LM moved off and quit biting but the crappies were still in the same area and SM was easily caught on tubes and smallie beavers and even a channel cat could not resist the tube.
On Thursday the storms were moving out, the Henry’s had a white crown and the bass were moving up big time. Usually the water is rising so fast this time of year you only have a couple of shots at catching bass on beds but this was the time to be on Powell to catch everything. Fishing was wide open. Spinner baits, buzz baits, T-rigged plastics and anchovies had their way with LM, SM, Crappie, Walleye, Striper, Channel Catfish, Carp and Bluegill. I think you could have tied a rock to your line and caught fish.
On Friday the LM moved up and if you through the tube anywhere there was shade on the walls or ledges nice LM were caught. Our limit for Friday was pushing 14.5lbs and the bite was steady all day long for LM and SM. The jerk bait bite had gone away but I did watch a nice LM come up to the bait and bite it right between both treble hooks?
Monday was “EPIC” said one of my anglers and it was without a doubt one of the best day’s I have ever witnessed on Lake Powell. The “Grand Slam” would have been easier if the walleye would not have come unbuttoned on the swing in the boat. However, the area we were fishing was still giving up crappie, LM and SM until we finally landed the walleye. We also picked up a carp and a bluegill on the tubes to go with the “Grand Slam” that day. We still needed a striper. So at 2:30 pm it was pushing 95* when we pulled up under the shade in the front of Lake Canyon and began chumming anchovies and in about 10 seconds it was non-stop for an hour and a half and caught about 30 stripers from 2-7lbs.
Tuesday took me south to meet a houseboat and it was the girls half the day against the boys for the other half. I was a little nervous because I had not been able to pre-fish the area so I just went to areas that resembled Halls and Bullfrog and they were there. Again, we had lots of SM to about 2.5lb with some violent buzz bait action on the surface. We even picked up stripers on the buzzbait and spinner baits. I could see lots of striper roaming the banks for food. When all was said and done the girls won. They boated 23 fish to the boys 21.
Our fishing trip started early this morning under a beautiful sunrise.
The first fish was a decent 3-pound largemouth caught on a carolina rigged Yamamoto green tube.
But it was walleye that really liked the free floating tube. We caught 6 from one cove before the sun hit the water and shut off the walleye bite. 
When catfish started to hit the bass grubs we knew it was time to go to work. We broke out the bait and caught a bunch of stripers. The catfish were really active. We saw a dead gizzard shad floating on top surrounded by a school of catfish feeding on the surface like boiling stripers. 
Fishing was excellent but it was still hard to concentrate with the distracting views of the awesome scenery surrounding Lake Powell. 
A great day. We almost made it back in before the wind came up - but not quite. 
11 guys launched out of Antelope point marina in 3 boats Thursday morning (5/9/2013) and headed to Padre Bay. Camped on the beach and fished for stripers at locations on the map all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning before heading back to the marina Saturday afternoon (5/11/2013).
We caught, kept and filleted somewhere around 500 stripers during the trip. We probably could have caught ten times that if we didn’t have to run back to camp constantly to process the fish and lick our wounds. Keep in mind we spent lots of time (maybe half our trip) fishing for small mouth, large mouth and chasing the elusive walleye. Striper fishing was absolutely outstanding! 
Striper holes #1 & #3 were East facing cliff walls with 50’ – 60’ bottoms. Stripers were mostly caught with anchovies but once they started feeding, they would come up to 20’ – 30’ and could be caught with whatever lead-head plastic bait you could get in the water.
Lessons learned:
You probably get a million reports, but I thought I’d send you another from our trip.
After getting a camp set up, I thought the kids might enjoy catching some catfish from shore. I tossed out some cut-bait and waited. I only waited about two minutes before the rod started bouncing. Mardi grabbed the rod and gave a good jerk. The fight was on, but it wasn’t a catfish. Striper #1 of the trip was soon on the beach. I thought it was a fluke. We tossed the bait back out, and it wasn’t long before striper #2 was landed. We didn’t catch a single catfish, but we ended up with 8 stripers from the beach before it got dark. Not a bad way to start to trip!
The next morning, being Mother’s Day, I decided to let the girls sleep in. So, once again, I tossed out a rod from the beach at camp to see what might bite. It didn’t take long before I landed a pretty nice channel cat. I woke Mardi, because she was dying to see a catfish, and showed it to her. We then tossed out the rod again, and that was when the stripers started biting again! I actually grabbed my fly rod and started throwing a big articulated streamer off a sinking tip, and I started catching stripers flyfishing while Mardi caught them tossing a jig head tipped with cut-bait. We ended up catching two channel cats, one walleye (12”) and numerous stripers right in front of our tent! I honestly debated whether we should even take the boat out to go find some fish!
Eventually we decided it was time to load into the boat and go head towards Buoy 25. We started trolling the southern shoreline across from Gooseneck Point. There were 3 different points that we could pick up a striper on each pass. After getting a few in the boat trolling I found one particular spot (50ft) with lots of fish on the graph (20ft). I spent the next couple hours unhooking fish for my wife and daughters! They had a blast, and my fingers and hands are paying for it!
I don’t know how may fish we ended up with. My back is sore from filleting!
Mark, Charlene and Wayne Gustaveson went fishing on an early Mothers Day trip. Our goal was to capture the big 5 gamefish in one day.
Next we stopped at Buoy 25 and put 10 stripers in the boat in 15 minutes. We chummed with anchovies to get them going but then caught them on tubes and crankbaits. Fish number one was accomplished.
Then we ran to Friendship Cove where Mark caught the big largemouth of the day on a tube. Fish number 3 was in the bag.
Mark finished the Grand Slam by taking a nice sized smallmouth (fish 5) making the day complete. The Lake Powell Big 5 game fish are a ton of fun to catch. May is a good time to do that as all are willing to bite all month long.
We cast for bass, crappie, and walleye around Good Hope Bay. Bass were pretty active and we did really well sight fishing them while the wind permitted. Upon sighting a bass, we flipped Senkos (red/black laminate and shad color) close by and the bass couldn't resist. We saw both largemouth and smallmouth bass on nests and many of these shallow bass were sizeable fish. Crappie eluded us for the most part, but we saw a few bedded in the same areas as bass. The crappie we did catch were caught on jigs (Yamamoto grub in "watermelon w/ black/red") along rocky points and breaks in about 20 ft of water, but they were few and far between. We also caught quite a few walleye in the same habitat and depth, but most came on a 3" Berkley Ripple Shad in "firetiger" with a slow retrieve.
The exciting part, at least for me, was trolling for stripers and walleyes. We went to the top of the reservoir (literally) and fished at the mouth of White and Farley's canyon where main channel depth was only about 40 ft. There was a distinct mud line and many of the fish were caught moving through this transition. Using planer boards, we trolled 4 rods and several different types of crankbaits to determine what was most productive. The most productive baits were Rapala Taildancers in "chrome" and Wally Divers in "orange peel" running about 13-14 ft. We caught several stripers, some walleye, and even a large crappie in just a couple of hours. The stripers were 3-4 lbs, very healthy, and fought all the way into the livewell. 
We also graphed a lot of fish on a large flat along the eastside of the main channel at the mouth of Red Canyon, and decided to give it a try before calling it a day. There was another transition here, from green to clear water. Using the same techniques as uplake, we caught several walleye and stripers until the livewell was full. Some of the stripers were yearlings, which like yourself I feel provide the tastiest striper fillets! Trolling speed at both locations was about 3 mph.
