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Arizona Lake Fishing Report

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Wednesday, December 13th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 49-52

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTDECEMBER 14, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3672 Water Temperature: 49-52 FLake level is declining rapidly with the increased need or electrical power generation rom thedam. The low steady state release pattern is over and we can expect the lake to decline more thanit has or the past ew years. It will dip below 3670 by the irst o the year. Cold weather has put all ish species into deep winter patterns. The expected winter striper bitewas small and slow. It is possible to graph a ew scattered striper schools in most lake areas. They remain curious and are willing to bite or bump a bait but ull-blown active eeding has notbeen observed during the past two weeks. The normal pattern is to graph a school, drop the bait or spoon and catch one or two ish. Thenthe school disappears. My eeling is that they rest on the bottom and are very hard to detect onthe graph. Speed reeling a spoon with pauses toward the surace oten causes the school toascend part way in the water column. Then they drit away once more and blend with thebottom. I am sure that a short eeding period happens occasionally, maybe at a certain time everyday. I have not ound active ish during the warm part o the day when I have been out.The best approach would be to troll with down riggers at 50-60 eet. The reaction to speedreeling indicates some ish willing to chase while the main group is not eeding. Fishing anchovieswith consistent chumming would be the next preerred method. I will continue to targetindividual ish or small groups with spoons and white jigs hoping to get a quick catch o 4-5 ishbeore moving on to ind the next bunch. Using the standard trout ice-ishing technique withanchovy bait on a small silver spoon may work.Depth is critical. Targeting 50-60 oot depth strata is the most productive, but resting ish whichmay be started will be as deep as 80

Friday, December 1st, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 51-53

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTNOVEMBER 30, 2000By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3673 Water Temperature: 51-53 FWater

Tuesday, November 14th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 57

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTNOVEMBER 14, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.comLake Elevation: 3675 Water temperature: 55-57 FWeather

      Tips: Jigging spoons

Thursday, October 26th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 64

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTOCTOBER 26, 2000By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.comLake Elevation: 3676 Water Temperature: 64-66 FThis has not been a good week or ishing. Storm ronts, cooling water, changing patterns allhave contributed to inconsistent catching. It is not over or the year. Fishing or stripers, willimprove as temperatures continue to drop. Bass ishing will have one more lurry beore winterdormancy sets in. A bass tournament held this past weekend was quite successul despite wet, cold, windyconditions. Participants caught mostly smallmouth on topwater and plastic grubs. Most broughtin 5 ish limits o bass exceeding 12 inches. The winner caught a ew largemouth with hissmallmouth by ishing topwater lures along a tire breakwater near Wahweap Lodge. This earlymorning surace bite along with deep jigging with sot plastic baits during the day will continue tobe productive as long as temperatures remain in the 60's. Then it will get tougher. Stripers are being orced to change habits by approaching winter weather. Boils are a rareexception now. Stripers still try to move shallow each morning to eed but shad are diicult tomove and becoming harder to ind. Stripers can be consistently caught in deep water accessroutes (travel lanes) between shallow lood plains and deep water. Look or submerged creekchannels with ish traces which can be seen on a graph at dawn each morning. Even when noshallow shad are ound stripers are still looking where shad used to be and will bite or the irsttwo hours each morning. Drop spoons, troll crank baits, throw surace lures between 6-8 am orbest results. Repeat the process in the evening.During mid day stripers move deeper and toward winter eeding grounds. Look in backs o bayswhere water depth is 60-100 eet. Fish anchovies at 60 eet even when bottom depth is muchdeeper. Hungry ish come up to eed while resting ish are deeper. Fast trolling with down riggersor leaded line is eective or dormant ish, particularly near Hite.Winter patterns should be productive in Warm Creek, Navajo, Last Chance, Rock Creek, Oak,Rincon, Halls, Bullrog, Good Hope and Piute Canyon on San Juan. While ish are making this transition rom all to winter patterns they eed more at night thanduring the day. Anchor in 50 eet o water and attract shad with bright light. Then ish anchoviesunder shad school or best success. It seems that channel catish are still actively eeding and are being caught in good numbers upand down lake. Fish bait on the shallow sloping sand bottom or best results.
      City: Page, AZ

Thursday, October 5th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 70-73

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: AKE POWELL FISH REPORTOCTOBER 5, 2000By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3677 Water temperature: 69-71 F
      City: Page, AZ

      Tips: Stripers have moved into normal all habits. Their daily cycle begins and ends searching or shad. Ater spending the night in the submerged creek channel they attempt to drive shadschools rom deep water into a short cove. I they can trap a school in shallow water a 30 minuteto one hour boil period ensues. I they are unsuccessul in trapping shad, which happens most othe time, then individual stripers will chase small groups o shad in open deep water. Look orstripers at the back o the canyon where main channel water depth is 50 eet and ish traces can beseen on the graph. Stripers not actively boiling will come to the top to hit surace lures beore thesun

Thursday, September 28th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 71

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISHING REPORTSEPTEMBER 28, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3677 Water Temperature: 69-72 FSummer was literally blown away last week with snow, high winds and cold temperatures overmuch o the West. Water temperature dropped rom 78 to 70 during the storm which is thelargest short term temperature drop in recent memory. Fish were understandably conused by therapid changes and are still lethargic. Striped bass which were regularly eeding on the surace have now moved deeper but remain inthe same general area where they were boiling. Stripers are usually ound in the main channel ormain canyon where bottom depth is 40-60 eet. Look on electronics or shad or striper schools bycruising the last third o the canyon. Fish spoons or bait exactly where a school is seen on thegraph. Use a loating marker when a school is marked. The loat will allow visual reerence whenthe boat drits away rom the spot. Don

      Tips: For more lake Powell ino look at www.wayneswords.com

Thursday, September 14th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTSEPTEMBER 14, 2000 By: Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3678 M.S.L. Water Temperature: 73-75 FThe lake dropped two eet this past week and now has stabilized again. It should decline veryslowly or the near uture. Piute Farms ramp is unuseable. Antelope Launch Ramp is extremelylow and useable only at the boater

Thursday, September 7th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 75

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report:  By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3679 Water Temperature: 74-77 FGot in the boat this morning and went hunting. Headed toward the dam and then up the channeltoward Antelope Canyon. The early morning colors under a partly cloudy sky were so incredibleit would have been easy to miss the irst splash. The boat glided toward the splash as I loaded myrod tip with a jumpin minnow and aimed just beyond the ripples. The lure hit the water and wasinhaled as it started to swim. The striper missed and then struck again 3 times beore leaving italone. I put the boat just barely on plane and continued slowly up the channel. Every splash wasa striper. Pinpoint casting to each separate rise resulted in a striper slashing at the lure. Moststripers only hit once or twice and very ew were hooked but it was a very enjoyable ishing tripto SEE the ish irst and then try to get in range to catch them. That

Thursday, July 27th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76-88 F

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTJULY 27, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3682 Water Temperature: 76-88 F
      City: Page, AZ

      Tips: ************************* STRIPER BOILS ************************The entire lake has early morning surace eeding (striper boils) events happening. It is just amatter o inding out where the boils are and how excited the stripers are to chase shad. Stripersare now catchable on 5 inch surace lures rom Wahweap to Hite.The general lakewide pattern starts as shad begin to orm schools ater a night o randomdistribution. As skies lighten, shad can see one another and orm schools or protection as theyeed on plankton. Each shad tries to get on the outside o the school to eed and then get to theinside o the school when danger threatens. When shad are bunched up by the thousands striperboils may last or hours. With only a hundred shad in one area there is not enough saety innumbers and shad scatter with individuals heading out in all directions. Stripers chase down thesingles with 5-10 stripers in hot pursuit o a ew shad. These small boils only last or a ewseconds but they pop up in the same vicinity time ater timeBig boils are ound rom Nokai to Mikes Canyon in the upper San Juan, and rom Hite to GoodHope. (Caution: strong wind may cause the morning boils to izzle). Smaller boils are oundsomewhere in each canyon and bay. Reports o small boils have come rom Bullrog Bay near thelast gravel island, Hall

Wednesday, July 19th, 2000

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 76-88 F

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Lake Elevation: 3682Water Temperature: 76-88 F ***STRIPER BOILS - HITE and SAN JUAN****
      City: Page, AZ

      Tips: Anglers venturing out rom Hite Marina are reporting boiling stripers in both directions. Look or surace eeding stripers at the mouth o the Dirty Devil, main channel near the ColoradoRiver bridge, Hite launch ramp, White, Trachyte, Farleys and as ar downstream as TicabooCanyons. Some o the boils have been staying up 15-30 minutes. Fish are deinitely catchable butvery ew anglers have been seen. Boils are going all day long. I would suggest ishing during thecooler morning and evening hours.

Saturday, March 18th, 2000

    • By

      Water Temp: 69-78

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: Fished Martinez and several recently opened lakes located o the main river (3/9-3/12). Lots o quality ish in pre-spawn mode. A ew 4-6 pounders heavy with eggs. No sign o an active spawn although a lot o spooked ish in the lats.
      City: Daly City

      Tips: It was tough to develop a pattern. Most o the ish were shallow on wood near tules or on rock walls near lats. They were hitting chart/blue spinnerbaits, purple/blue jigs and a couple on crankbaits dragged slowly through heavy wood cover.

Wednesday, March 8th, 2000

Friday, June 18th, 1999

    • By

      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: This is a test o the automatic report cgi
      City: San Jose

      Tips: lets hope it worksFishing Reports or Lake Martinez

Thursday, June 17th, 1999

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 65

      Water Clarity: Stained (2-4 foot visibility)

      Report: This is a test o the automatic report cgi
      City: San Jose

      Tips: lets hope it works.Fishing Reports or Almaden Reservoir

Date Unknown

  • Yuma County
    • By

      Water Temp: 91

      Water Clarity: Muddy (0-2 foot visibility)

      Report: Caought some donkey ish, just chillen though no need to spank, but wanted to any way, 721 nice cruppiessss but let them go
      City: Denver

  • Kane County
    • By

      Water Temp: 56

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTApril 11, 2002 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3647 Water Temperature: 56-64 F
      City: Page, AZ

    • By

      Water Temp: 68-70

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTOCTOBER 19, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.comLake Elevation: 3676 Water Temperature: 67-70 FReturn o stable weather has pushed back the ishing calendar. Conditions are now similar toevents beore recent storm ronts. Days are warm, nights are cool and ish are packing in thegroceries while they still can. The good news and bad is that ish are bunched up. Find the bunchand you

    • By

      Water Temp: 77-80

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: LAKE POWELL FISH REPORTAugust 31, 2000 By Wayne Gustaveson Home Page: www.wayneswords.com Lake Elevation: 3680 Water Temperature: 77-80 FStripers are still hungry but shad numbers in open water are very small and decreasing daily. Boilsare becoming much less numerous. The best time to see a boil is rom mornings irst light until 8am. Big boils are past with single ish and small striper pods more common. Good boils mayhappen anywhere shad and stripers come together. The best chance to locate a boil is near CopperCanyon in the San Juan, White Canyon near Hite and within 5 miles o Wahweap Marina. Large striper catches are still very possible with a slight modiication in technique. Search or boilsin early morning light. When a single striper or small group is seen cast surace lures to the swirls. Then as soon as the stripers leave the surace use a jigging spoon or large (hal ounce or heavier)white marabou jig and thoroughly work the bottom and water column in the vicinity o the boil.Many more ish can be taken rom the bottom than the surace while stripers are still activelysearching or ood. The search mode lasts rom irst light to 9 or 10 am. When stripers enter their resting mode they can be seen on the graph as stacks or individual ish indeep water (40-70 eet). Resting ish can be started by chumming anchovy pieces and ishing cutanchovies near bottom. When a school starts to eed than the spoon can be used to catch ishquickly in short bursts. Trolling will take stripers, as well, but ish in this phase spend more time ontop and bottom and less time in the water column where trolled lures are eective. Fishing thesurace and bottom is more productive. .Smallmouth bass ollow the same activity patterns with surace eeding in the early morning, activesearching later in the day and deep rest periods at mid day. Use surace lures early, shallowrunning crank baits mid day and sot plastic grubs or the remainder o time. Smallmouth and green sun ish were very active rom God Hope to Hite early in the week, evenbiting with regularity during the windy periods. Sot plastic grubs worked well on rocky points,talus slopes and shoal areas. Bass were more likely to hit when the grub was close to the bottom,Fewer ish were seen chasing grubs in mid water this week than last. It was better to let the grubhit bottom, rest and then hop it along the bottom. My best success came by dropping a greensingle tail grub directly below the boat to the most productive habitat while driting with the windacross rocky points. Fish were airly shallow at 8-15 eet in Good Hope and White Canyon earlierthis week. Primary points were 10 times more productive than long rocky shorelines and coves. Catish were very active. Some were caught on sot plastic grubs while bass ishing. Walleyewere taken on jigging spoons while probing the bottom or resting stripers.
      City: Page, AZ

    • By

      Water Temp: 67 - 70

      Water Clarity: Clear (4+ foot visibility)

      Report: Stripers are at the end o a ive year cycle where they have eliminated the bait ish (shad) and are starving. Catches are all small and skinny. Best site is Antelope Pt. intake station or power plant. Smallmouth bass bite is excellent. Hitting grubs, white, chartreuse, pumpkin, whatever. Also lizards and worms. Largemouth bass are in various stages o spawn, pre, post and doing it. Many seen on the nest. Best ishing is in "green" water, where visibility drops. At ends o canyons with water inlets, creeks, etc. Worst is in "muddy" waters. We caught smallmouth almost repeatedly, mostly throwbacks. Some keepers. Largest largemouth was 3.0 lbs., but action was good. Overall, Powell is excellent or ishing right now. Many large stringers o largemouth being taken and smallmouth up to 3.0 lbs. Stripers are small, around 2.0 lbs. and hard to come by. Reports o stripers being in the San Juan up by the big bay as well as "big" largemouths being taken up there. Weather has been hot.
      City: Chula Vista, Cali.

      Tips: We used up a couple bags o white Yamamoto grubs, single tails. Also, chartreuse, pumpkin and watermelon grubs. Bass hit on a black 6" worm rigged Texas style. Best ishing or spawning and prespawn bass was a method called Inside Line, where you rig your lure to be weedless and toss it onto the bank. Let it sit there 30 seconds, then bring it slowly to the waters edge. Then reel as slow as you can into the water and retrieve it. S-L-O-W-L-Y. Bass protecting the nest will concentrate on the threat coming rom the bank and some ishermen were reporting as many as three bass attacking the lure simultaneously as it entered the water. TIP: I no hits within irst 5 eet, let the lure rest on the bottom or another 30 seconds. Then raise the rod tip slowly and retrieve slowly, letting the rod tip rise, then all.