December 10

January 1, 2009 - Grant Holcomb - Bullfrog Night fishing

My son and I caught 18 fish in less than 90 minutes Sunday night December 28, 2008. We were fishing from the covered marina at Bullfrog.

We caught 1 Walleye and 17 Stripers. The Walleye was a 3.5 pound 21" female full of row. The biggest Striper was a 3.5 pound 22" male. The smallest Striper was 2.5 pounds. Seven of the 17 Stripers were females full of row. The Striper filets were the thickest I have seen for this length of fish. Every fish had a thick layer of fat and long fat deposits in their abdomens. Two of the Stripers had Threadfin Shad (both 2.5" and 3.5" in length) in their stomachs. One Striper's stomach was packed full of Anchovy chunks, which means it was enjoying our chum and snatching Anchovy from our hooks for a while before we caught it. The rest of the Stripers had empty stomachs.

We were using 3/8 Oz Pearl White colored glow in the dark lead head jigs (4 per pack @ $.99). Most of the fish were caught at a depth of 40'. A few fish were caught at 60'. Any sized chunk of Anchovy on the hook worked. No fish were caught above or below these depths. All you had to do to catch fish was keep the jig steady at the right depth and set the hook properly when they "hit".

The fish bite was very gentle. The fish were able to snatch the Anchovy off the hook a good percentage of the time. Due to the small sized hook of a 3/8 Oz jig, if you do not keep the pressure on the fish they get away easily. We lost more fish than we caught. We stopped fishing at around 10:00 PM because we ran out of Anchovy. We only bought 4 bags of Anchovies thinking it would be enough. When the fishing got slow we had to chum to revive the bite. I used nearly two bags of Anchovies for chum over a two hour period.

Fish this healthy at this size are amazing fighters on light tackle. We experienced multiple runs with some fish fighting so hard I thought they were in the 10 pound class. My son had never caught a Walleye of Striper before and had an absolute blast. He is only 13 and acted as if he just got a new computer game!!!

We drove from Park City, Utah to Bullfrog Marina and arrived around 4:00 PM Sunday. We spent the next three and a half hours trying to figure out the best place to fish on the docks. I started by measuring depth. It was only 30' deep by the building when you first enter the marina. Just past the Q and P dock intersection it drops from 40' to 120' over a very short distance. From what I read on the Waynes Words web site I was looking for a depth of 60' to 80'.

We started chumming and fishing after 6:00 PM just past the Q and P dock intersection. We did not get a single bite for an hour. I had brought a fishing light. It was a 3 AAA battery powered 6 Green LED submersible light. It was completely ineffective in the "tea" colored Lake Powell water. I was planning on taking my son back to the Ticaboo lodge because it was freezing - until "Steve" arrived.

Along came Steve just after 7:00 PM. He is a local fisherman with a 4' long florescent Green fishing light with a car sized 12VDC battery. When I looked at his light compared to my light it was a "Crocodile Dundee" moment - "that's not a knife, this is a knife". Having the right fishing light turned out to be critical.

I followed Steve to see where he was going and what he was using for bait. He went to the end of the dock under the last dock light. He dropped in his Green fishing light and caught a Striper on his first cast using a 3/8 Oz jig with Anchovy chunk. I asked him if we could join him. That is when we caught our fish until we ran out of Anchovies. Surprisingly, it is only 90' deep at the end of the dock.

Steve caught a lot more fish than my son and I. He left early because the fishing was too slow for him. He said the night before he caught over 100 fish!!!!!! Three other fishermen joined us before Steve left. They also left before us because the considered the fishing slow from previous nights.

They said the large Walleye was a rare catch from their experience. We did see Shad near the lights, but only individuals not schools. Steve caught one Catfish. Two of the fishermen were trying to catch Crappie with small jigs and small pieces of Anchovy. All they caught were Stripers.

I did not know the water temperature, but our line froze in the spools of our spinning reels. The dock got pretty dangerous. We caught so many fish that the splashed water froze on the dock and made it very slippery. I almost went over twice.

The Bullfrog Marina Defiance House Lodge is closed for the season so the Ticaboo Lodge is the closest place to sleep (if you do not have a house boat or camper). The fish cleaning station at Bullfrog Marina is now closed due to freezing.

A fisherman with a boat, fish finder, and night lights could catch all the fish they want anytime they want at Lake Powell.

I am ordering a new fishing light and going back as often as I can.

January 18, 2008 - Grant Holcomb - Night fishing at Bullfrog

At approximately 3:00 AM on Sunday January 18, 2009 my son Gage R. Holcomb caught a 5 pound 0 ounce 23 inch female Striper. My son is 13 years old.

When the fish was cleaned its stomach was empty and stomach cavity was full of row.

We were night fishing at the end of the dock at Bullfrog Marina. He was using a 4000 series Shimano Symetre spinning reel with a 6 foot Ugly Stick rod using PowerPro braided line. Gage was using a 1/2 Oz Pearl White lead head jig with 1/3 of an Anchovy dropped to a depth of 80 feet in 137 feet of water.

Gage Holcomb

The 5 pounder compared to a 3.5 pounder and other smaller fish.

Yes, it was very cold - ice was forming on the dock.

February 19, 2009 - Marty Peterson - Bullfrog

Steven Leitch of West Jordan, Utah caught this 5 lbs. 4 oz, 26 inch long Striper on Feb. 16th 2009 using a jig with anchovy while fishing out of Bullfrog with Richard Snow and I. It was the best one of the 32 fish we landed over two days.

We started out trying to find Crappie and Smallmouth. No luck. Later picked up a Catfish on a Wallylure. But jig with piece of anchovy worked best.

March 18, 2009 - Marty Peterson Bullfrog Stripers

Fished Bullfrog on Monday March 16th and 17th. Weather was great. Didn’t catch much. Richard Snow caught 4 Stripers Monday and me, one. On jigs tipped with anchovy. In the 3lb range.

Tuesday I landed 3 and Richard, one.

The good- wonderful fillets. Had some today.

The bad- we fished shallows and had fish follow our lures but no hits.

Marty Peterson with a 20” 3lb. 10 oz. Striper ready to fillet.

March 24, 2009 - Dan "Chovycaptain" Jenkins - Bass Buoy 110

	This is Chovycaptain from Grand Jct with a quick report. Camped in Stanton, got on water late Friday, caught 3 SMB's that night. Trolled Bullfrog sat with no success, talked to Goldcup and Capt. Rimrock, good talking to you guys. Nice to put faces with names.
	After that headed uplake to mm 110 area and started fishing in clear water, depth fish caught anywhere from shoreline to 30'. All fish were Very Nice SMB's with no other species caught. Water temp was 60 at surface. Then headed into Cedar Canyon with some results. Was the best day of SM fishing I've experienced.

Attached pics are of my buddy " Zebco 33" which is his new LP call name, who has a new appreciation for"Waynes's Words". All fish were caught on yamo's single tail grubs. Pic of tent/cot is Zebco 33's "Camp". Thanks for all you do Wayne.

Dan "Chovycaptain" Jenkins

April 12, 2009 - Philip Roskowski - San Juan Bass

John Hildebrand and I just spent 3 1/2 days fishing the San Juan around Neskahi. We started fishing Thursday around noon after leaving Grand Junction around 4 am and fished until 10 Sunday morning. The fish were biting Thursday and never really let up. The water temp was from 51 to 55, mostly around 52 or 53. We had one of the best fishing trips ever. This is an annual affair and we have never caught as many nice fish. The overall size and quantity was superb.

We caught several dozen LMB, most 1-2 lbs with a few larger ones. The SMB fishing was great with probably 200 fish caught most 12-15 inches with a few larger and a few smaller. We fished mostly with black jigs and watermelon crawdads. We managed to land a few crappie, all over 12 inches, one walleye and 1 striper. We only fished for striper for a little while Saturday am. We could see them on the graph but they didn't seem to want to hit. Bass fishing being so good we quickly abandoned the stripers to go back to bass fishing.

The mud line was about half way around the great bend.

Keep up the good work.

April 14, 2009 - Nick Wray - Bullfrog to Good Hope Bay - Bass

Just got back from our annual Easter trip to Lake Powell. Fished the Bullfrog area up through Good Hope primarily for SMB's and LMB's. Had the best success using grubs fished slow and deep (probably on average 15-18 feet). We also had some success with spinner baits fished deep. It seemed that all of the fish were super healthy and fat.

Chris Wray with a 3 lb largemouth.

We boated about 40 smallies, 8 Largemouths, 1 walleye, and about a dozen sunfish over a long weekend. Here are a couple of pics. The first one is Chris Wray with a 3 lb largemouth. The other one is my brother in law Danny Rushton, his son Conor and Chris with one of many fat smallies we boated. Thanks for all you do Wayne.

April 14, 2009 - Tedman - Bullfrog

We were fishing Bullfrog Bay near the gravel bars and managed to land 67 fish between storms and Dylan landed his fish striper.

The large mouth were released the bigger one weighed 4 lbs. We also caught a few bigger striper in Lake Canyon. There were 7 between 3 and 4 lbs.

Tedman

Dylan

April 14, 2009 - Cameron Riley - New Gizzard Shad Lake Record

First of all thank you for all you do for Lake Powell and keeping us fishermen excited. My name is Cameron Riley from Colorado. We try and get as many trips to Powell as possible throughout the year.

Recently we were there and was fishing in Halls Creek. We were trolling rapalas and Tom Stevenson landed this giant gizzard shad and I thought you might be interested in seeing a couple of pictures.

Tom Stevenson

We weighed it with a digital scale and the weight was 2.9 pounds and an unofficial lake record.

Waynes note: Gizzard shad are not given UT State Record status due to a change in policy within UT Wildlife. Gizzard shad are not official game fish. That doesn't stop me from making this a Lake Powell Record. Unofficial digital scales qualify as adequate estimators of weights for Lake Records.

Keep catching Gizzard shad. There is a bigger one out there. We got a 3.25 pound fish in the nets. Wayne

April 7, 2009 - Capt. Brian T. Myers - Bullfrog Area Bass

Tuesday March 31st. I was pre-fishing for clients later in the week. I ran from Halls Marina north to the Rincon.
I started out fishing the back of a cut with a rattle trap. The sexy shad pattern was on fire. Within the first hour I had caught 5 smallmouth all around 2lbs and a good 3lb largemouth. I traveled further north to the Rincon to make sure the floating bathrooms were open and started fishing that area and just kept smacking the largemouth and smallmouth on the rattle trap. I then started dragging a green pumpkin tube on a Texas rig. They loved that too. Bass candy. Everywhere I tossed the tube it seemed like the bass were biting. I hope this pattern holds out for Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday April 1st. The Weather was absolutely beautiful. APRIL FOOLS. I thought I could at least get a morning fish in but it was howling when I launched. I ran to Hansen Creek and the wind had to be doing 50+ so I called it a short day and was soaked by the time I made it back to the launch ramp. I had graphed lots of bait and stripers in Hansen though.

Thursday, April 2nd. Thank goodness the group I would be guiding was able to change from yesterday to today. It was a beautiful day today and the fish cooperated. We did the exact same run I did on Tuesday and it was spectacular to say the least. Because we had 6 in the boat counting me we had to use extreme caution with the treble hooked baits, so I got everyone flipping tubes and we had at least a 20 bass day. All bass were keeper size to 2.5 pounds. We even got in the back of one canyon and when a client hooked up on a smallmouth and brought it to the boat it had about 10 buddies with him. I told everyone to get there tubes in the water and we whacked them for about an hour. Both smallmouth and largemouth were schooled up together.

Friday, April 3rd. I had 4 in the boat counting me this day and I was going to do the same thing but would try throwing some deeper diving crank bait's in hopes for some striper bites also. Needless to say the stripers were tough on this day. Not a one. We did however change over to tubes and immediately started whacking bass. Smoke tubes also were the ticket as were 5 inch senkos. we caught a real nice 4.5lb largemouth during the day.

www.swbass.com

April 15, 2009- Patrick Milburn - Bass fishing northern lake

	We went to Powell April 5th-12th with my friend Stacie Bater, Buddy Cal Evans on his Houseboat the "Gitzit". It was awesome!!!!!!!!!!! Here is some info.
	We went up lake from Bullfrog and fished canyons from Hansen to Trachyte ended up camping in Cedar and fished canyons up and down from that base and found the best action in that area. Fished mon-sat, weather was good except Wed. very windy had to re-secure houseboat it was so bad we just chilled that day.
	Other days were very pleasant with light to no wind, air as warm as 75? daytime 45-50's at night, water temp 49 degrees at the coldest in the mornings, found water as warm as 58 in backs of canyons.
	Seemed at first fish did not get active until afternoon as water warmed, later in the trip caught fish all day and when we found 53-54 degrees we did well.
	Caught more Smallies than we could keep track of, probably 20+ largemouth, 60+- Crappies up to 14", a couple walleyes, and 3 stripers (we did not really try to target them, trolled a couple up) then decided why waste the good Smallie action so we would go back to that.
	We had good action on Grubs, tubes in Crawfish colors with 1/8 to 1/4 oz. heads, shad colors in Curlytails also worked, we had have some luck on jerk baits and crank, caught fish at depths between 5 and 18 ft in areas that had access to deeper water.
	For Crappies small curlytails and tubes, lighter colors in flooded pockets of stickups. The fish were in excellent shape. They all were very fat and healthy. I can only imagine how good it is going to get when it really breaks loose. Thanks for all you do for lake Powell, it is going to be a great season.......

April 16, 2009 - Kevin Hurdsman and Bret Hansen - Bullfrog - January

	Kevin Hurdsman , Bret Hansen on the big pond 1-31-09 pretty good fishing, pretty healthy stripers.
	Anchovies not real hot mostly trolling wally divers thumbs up in bullfrog bay.
	We hope to have many more good trips this year. GOD BLESS & FISH-ON
	Kevin and Bret

April 23,2009 - CoachK and son Austin. Delta Colorado - Bullfrog

	We were in Bullfrog with our little boat from April 13 and 14th. We had hoped to be there all week but the weather made us come home early Trolled up a couple stripers past the dome rock on a white/blue/chartreuse crank bait in the morning. They were 20" and FAT No shad in them. Only plankton. Austin Kimber
	Headed to Moki around 12:30. Got to the back and fished our way out. Wow are there a lot of 8 inch largemouth everywhere. We caught our fair share of them in the backs and started fishing the rock slides on the way out. Great fun as we caught or had hits on almost every cast for the smallmouth. Most in the 12-14 inch range with on nearing 16"

Day 2 we trolled up 2 more stripers in the back of Bullfrog then the wind came up. We reverted back to our old strategy of fishing off the bank around Stanton creek and behind the fuel docks. We did well with smallmouth and those 8" largemouth and even one big green sunfish.

Thanks again for providing the best fishing opportunity around.

Terry & Austin Kimber

April 28, 2009 - Dave Haynes - Bullfrog/Halls Creek

My wife and I caught several of this caliber (just under 5 lbs.) fish plus many slightly smaller 4/20 thru 4/22.

We fished in Bullfrog area and Halls Creek. We were flipping plastic worms and weightless senko’s.

Great fishing. Catch and Release.

Wayne's Note: Look at the tamarisk stickups in the background. That habitat type is abundant everywhere at the lake this year. That is where you will find largemouth of this caliber.

May 3, 2009 - Jim Romero / Ken Trujillo - Bullfrog/Halls

Dates Fished: April 29 – May 1

Water Temp: 55 – 59

Water Clarity: very clear – visibility 30 feet

Air Temp: Low 80s every day

Location: Bullfrog

We arrived Wednesday morning, set up camp and started fishing at about 11:00 am in Bullfrog and Halls bays. Water temps were on the low side at 54, but we tried to fish shallow areas and flats in the bays near shore hoping for some fish that were getting ready to spawn. The smallies were pretty good sized, and we caught a few up to about 2 pounds. Bigger fish came on jerk baits that would suspend like a Lucky Craft bevy shad. After catching 5-6 fish in the bays, we went up-lake and fished the main channel rock slides, main canyon walls, and in Moki canyon. Fishing was slow, but we caught about 25 smallies all together. We also found some stripers in 35 feet of water. We trolled up a double and thought we were in the money. The larger one was 3 pounds. We caught one more and the fish moved. That was the end of the striper fishing.

Jim Romero

Thursday and Friday, we fished main channel wall, rock slides, and bigger main wall cuts down lake from Halls Bay. Fish were shallow and right up against the walls and rubble in the morning and then were at about 25-35 feet for the rest of the day. They were only 10-15 yards from where the walls or from where the rubble entered the water, but we had to let the jigs get down to 25 feet or so. Fish were piled up in what appeared to be random rock slides. Some places would yield 15 fish in only 25 to 50 yards of shoreline. Other places that looked exactly the same had no fish (or at least none that we could catch). The best baits were twin tailed grubs, rubber worms, and rubber lizards fished on a ¼ oz jig head or Texas rigged. Anything that was green or brown seemed to work. Thursday’s catch: 2 largemouth about 1.5 to 2 lbs, and 80-100 smallies. Friday’s catch: 80-100 smallies.

Ken Trujillo

Overall, we had a fantastic fishing trip. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if the wind hadn’t kept the water temps below 60.

May 4, 2009 - Ryan Mosley - Bullfrog Bass

We launched at Bullfrog on Wednesday afternoon (4/29), set-up camp in
Forgotten Canyon, and departed on Sunday morning (5/3). All-in-all, the
weather was fantastic. We had some storms with wind come through on
Saturday, which cooled the air/water temperature. We fished the canyons
from Crystal Springs all the way up to Seven Mile. Morning water temps
were typically around 58-59F, but warmed to the mid-60s by afternoon.

Fishing was fantastic for bass. We caught bass on classic structure
using Yamamoto twin tailed grubs, Hula grubs and Senkos in earth tones.
Some bass were already on nests, but most of the fish we caught/kept
were pre-spawn. Fishing was best by afternoon, when the water temps
warmed into the low 60s. Much better than two years ago, a lot of the
bass were well over a pound and we even caught a few in the 2-3 lb
range.

We found crappie and bluegills hovering around old vegetation in the
backs of each of the canyons we fished. We did best for crappies using
a chartreuse 2-inch Berkley Power grub, hanging about 2-4 ft under a
bobber. The crappies we caught/kept were still prespawn, but very
aggressive. Once again fishing was best in the afternoons after the
water warmed. The crappies were slabs, ranging from 10-13 inches.

Striper fishing was tough in that section of the lake. We made some
attempts at trolling and jigging, with little success. Some of the
group boated all the way up to the lower end of Good Hope Bay and found healthy stripers while trolling crankbaits in fire tiger colors.

We spotted gizzard shad just about everywhere we fished. It's
amazing to see the size of the schools and individual fish. We also saw
and caught lots of yearling largemouth bass while fishing for crappies
near vegetation.

Thanks for your insight before the trip and I wish I could fish down
there all the time! Hope it helps, Ryno

May 3, 2009 - Jim Maack - New State Record Crappie

There was a new Utah and Lake Powell record crappie caught near the Escalante.

Jim Maack from Wisconsin was the lucky angler.

The fish hit a roadrunner crappie jig.

The fish measured 18.5 inches long, and 15 inches around.

This monster weighed 3 pounds and 5 ounces.

Congratulations Jim Maack

May 5, 2009 - David Leach

We just got back from a great weekend of fishing except for Saturdays wind. This is in reference to April 23 – 26, here is a picture of me David Leach with 2 of the better ones. We did catch some real nice smallies on Saturday, like 16 ½” but did not get any pictures as we got blown off the lake. We were using just about anything but crank baits were the best for us anyway, just go slow.

May 12, 2009 - Drew Cushing - Forgotten Canyon - Crappie and Bass.

We put in at Hall's Creek and camped with several friends. We ended up camping in Forgotten Canyon which was a spectacular place to camp. We had fair weather, one day of rain, one day of rain and 2 perfect days.

Drew Cushing - Light Phase crappie

The smallmouth males were on nests which was neat so see. There were a number of very impressive largemouth lurking around but we could not seem to find anything to entice them to bite.

Wade Cavender

We also got into a pretty fair striper bite one afternoon along the south east rubble field in Good Hope Bay. The stripers were 2-3 pounds and in really great shape.

Knowles Canyon was by far the best bass fishing, but off course it's full of rocky habitat and submerged vegetation. We also did well in Seven Mile, Smith's Fork, and Forgotten. Basically everywhere we fished bass, we caught bass, excluding the main channel. I tried quite a few rigs, but ended up back at the basics: Yamamoto Hula grubs (double tailed, skirted) in both black with silver flake and green with black flake on a 3/8oz football head and Yamamoto Senkos in green with black flake on a 2/0-3/0 offset hook. I used the grubs to fish deeper and while sight fishing beds and the Senkos near brush or to follow-up a miss while jigging. Fish were in great shape, and most ranged from 1-1.5lbs. Ryan Mosley report.

May 18, 2009 - Russ Muir - Bullfrog

	Hi Wayne, went to bullfrog May 12-15. Caught lots of small mouth around most rock slides, or backs of coves and canyons.
	Spent mornings and evenings looking for stripers, fished Moki points and wall. Fish were around 70 feet but would come up with chumming. We had some hot action at times and ended up with a lot of nice fish. Stripers are fat and healthy, most fish were 2.5 to 5 lbs, I caught a nice 8.5 lb striper that about spooled me. Russ Muir
	We were fishing anchovies on small jigs. We had a 5 lb striper take both our jigs, we thought we had a double but both hooks were in its mouth.
	Fished with my brother in law Bill Heder and sons Austin and Brooks and work partner Shawn Hawkins. Thanks for your help.
	My nephew Austin Heder caught a nice rainbow one morning, a surprise to me.
	Crappie were in the brush filled canyons and also caught a few large mouth on top water baits in the evening. Overall a great trip.

May 19, 2009 - Tim Bagley - Halls Crossing - Stripers

Today we found stripers along the recently submerged island between the Bullfrog Ferry ramp and Hall's houseboat buoy field. The fish are scattered from the bullfrog boat ramp all the way to the last island just going under towards the Hall's buoy field. We trolled at a depth of 15'-20' of water, with a few coming out in the deeper water. We trolled Buck tails and shad raps at 3.5 mph. Together we caught around 30 total for the day.

May 19, 2009 - Leo Heugly - Bullfrog Stripers

Bullfrog Area--weather was great all week which surprised me. Fishing early in the morning did not help--smb fishing was poor compared with previous years--striper fishing was fair at times--only one area provided fish--Lake Canyon right at the mouth on the north side--we tried
Moki area but did not catch a striper so returned to Lake Canyon--learned the secret of catching stripers this year which I have not been
told by anyone that I read--brightly colored jig heads instead of the plain type--luckily I had a few of them and used them my last day which was
Friday--I still only caught ten stripers that three or four hours but that was the best fishing of the week and I was glad to get those--cat fish drove
me nuts for I caught that many of those critters.

May 19, 2009 - ~Joel and Lili Belmont

We were on the lake from May 5th to 13th. Went from Bullfrog to Wahweap the first day, then worked our way back up, as we have never been past DR before.

Overall the smallmouth fishing was the best, though I continually targeted stripers, which unfortunately seemed to have their minds on spawning. I only caught 2 stripers on the whole trip, one on chovies at dusk, one on a crankbait just before dusk. At least they were strong, fat fish.

The photo with the shad circling... this was in the back of middle rock creek. I got bored with poor night fishing, left the light on for half the night, and awoke to find them (kind of expected it to happen, and hoped it would bring in some stripers... which it didn't!) The school had to be in the hundreds.

	I was able to mark schools in the back of middle rock creek, twitchell, and reflection, but could not arouse them after dark, regardless of using a green light in a prime spot close to them, and using copious amounts of chum. Occasionally one or two would zip in and out just as quickly, as was also the case in the small inlet just south and outside of the mouth of Labyrinth. Caught a nice catfish there. If you would like to see exactly where we night fished: http://tinyurl.com/powell09 (The marker locations are exact, though google maps took the photo when the lake level was much lower). The yellow bullhead... I seem to always finesse these out of the woodwork. This is my 3rd LP yellow bullhead. Released, as with the others.
	Reflection had a lot of fat bluegill in the back, though I always feel better about returning them since they are not a dominant species. Interestingly, the Gizzard Shad were spawning in the back of Reflection when we were there. Are they encouraged for harvest? Are they table worthy? Can they be used for bait or are they a gamefish? Or it is best just to leave them alone? They are about the only fish I've seen in the lake that are as fast and agile as stripers, though it's hard to get them to strike at anything.
	The catfish and carp were an interesting occurrence about halfway back in Face Canyon (where the night image was made as well). My wife Lili made a pasta that we didn't end up caring for, and she added it to the food buffet in the lake. Something about the tomato sauce, peas, or pineapple drove these fish mad! They liked the scent in the water, though interestingly enough they didn't eat it.
	The scorpion was a reminder to wear good shoes at night on shore and look where I walk. !!
	There are two prominent points half way back in Twitchell that are covered in SMB and readily took brownish hula grubs, lipless shad colored cranks, and even topwater (chug bugs and buzz baits). It seemed that anywhere there were slightly submerged rock points on the lake, they were covered with fish. The few nice LMB I saw, I couldn't interest them in anything... they would stay in an area, but just cruise the shoreline. Water temps varied from 66 to 75 degrees.

May 28, 2009 - Mark & Sue Rudie - Bullfrog

Wednesday - Sunday, May 20-24

Just thought we'd give you a detailed report from our trip to Bullfrog last week. The rain was with us the whole trip and really cut down on our fishing times. We only had about a day and a half combined of full time fishing. Even with the rain, we were able to catch some fish and had a lot of fun. We even got to the point of fishing out the side of our cover on our boat while trolling. Now THAT made it interesting...especially when the fish would run to the other side of the boat while trying to bring 'em in!

	Wednesday late afternoon we launched and had just enough time to try the back of Bullfrog Bay past the haystack rock. Nothing on the west side and we managed 2 stripers on the east side in 25' of water. We trolled Walleye Assassins in black and silver w/green tails almost the whole time we fished. We trolled with lead line 5 - 6 colors out with a 6' - 10# fluorocarbon leader. It got dark so we headed to a camp spot.
	Thursday morning we were able to get in a few hours of fishing and headed to the east side of Bullfrog Bay and trolled in 25' of water again. We picked up a striper or two and a walleye, then a really nice smallie. Then the bite quit. I moved into 15' of water and we shortened up to only 2 - 3 colors out and started nailing them. We got smallies, largemouth, walleye, and stripers. Great fun wondering what you'd bring up each time we hooked up. I even netted a striper and smallie at the same time! (see pic). The great thing about those Assassins was that anything would hit them. Early afternoon, here came the rain and it never stopped. It rained all through the night and next day. Finally, Friday afternoon we got a break for a couple hours and headed to Lake Canyon. Well, we never made it because of the rain showers ahead of us, so I turned around and started trolling in the main channel along the shore and walls. Just south of buoy 92 on the west side at the wall in the main channel, Sue hooked up while taking a picture of a waterfall. We never left that wall trolling back and forth and picked up at least two fish per pass getting stripers and an occasional walleye with 6 colors out. Fish were on the graph at 20 - 50' deep. We only managed one striper inside the canyons that we trolled.
	Rain stopped us again and Friday we woke up to more rain. We tried Halls Creek Bay on the east side for a few hours after the rain with no fish showing on the graph and called it a day. Saturday was the same with more heavy rain until the afternoon and headed back to the wall at buoy 92. The stripers and walleye were still there, but the bite slowed to only one fish per pass.
	Sunday morning was sunshine!!! We had to leave early so headed back to that wall and caught about half a dozen more nice stripers and a walleye. The stripers all averaged between 19 - 20", 2 1/2- 3 pounds and healthy. The walleye were small but fun, and the smallies were all good size 2 - 3 pounders. The largemouth went over 3 pounds. I tried a little casting with a white spinner bait w/colorado blades and caught one nice largemouth that got off and had numerous hits. We also got about 6 catfish on anchovies while sitting around waiting for the rain to stop.
	Totals were only about 30 fish...not many....but it's better than nothing! Hey, you can't have a hundred fish every time, right? All in all, the rain made it very challenging but we saw some beautiful waterfalls and still had a great time. We don't get to Powell very often anymore with our job, so we cherish the times we get to enjoy the greatest lake in the west. Thanks Wayne for all you do for our fishery and God bless. Mark & Sue

June 1, 2009 - Kbass - Halls Fishing Report

Got down to the lake Thursday 28th. We were planning on going down to the Rincon but weather reports convinced us to stay closer to Bullfrog. Set up camp in Halls Creek Bay.

Fished rock piles and gravel banks using curly tail jigs and 8 inch plastic worms with 3/8 oz lead. Caught several small mouth. The pattern is to get deep and bounce the jig slowly. Every place we fished we caught fish ranging from 8-16 inches.

The second day we decided to boat down to the Rincon. So right at the "crack of six" we headed south. We stopped at gravel/rock pile points and caught fish. I quit counting the caught fish. Didn't try for stripers. Colors that worked: watermelon flake, cinnamon with black flake, chartreuse.

Went back to camp (wind started). No late fishing that day.

Sat. AM started catching fish in Halls again. Went to the marina store at noon started fishing rocks between the store and fuel dock- did well. It was getting hot so we trolled the wall south of Hall's Marina (in the shade). We were using deep divers silver and black deep Deep Thundersticks. My BIL had an immediate hookup- 3 lb striper. We trolled back through- same thing. Another striper. We really got into them around the corner south of Halls about a mile. On the east side is a shelf of 20-30 ft. We caught 4 more stripers, a walleye, but lost several fish. Went back to camp with threatening skies.

We noticed the biggest small mouth (3-3.5 lbs) of the trip was full of eggs (prespawn) and spitting out crayfish. The stripers were "ripe" males 3-4 lbs. Looks like there is still some spawning yet to take place. Water temps went from 68 to 78 degrees. The "magic" depth is 12-25 feet of water. Several fishermen we talked to were not getting that with the lake rising the fish were deep. We told several what and how we were fishing so hopefully they could be more successful. Left Sunday. Had a great time.

June 3. 2009 - Glenn Wall - Iceberg canyon

	My name is Glenn Wall and I am from Colorado Springs. My family and my brothers family just came back from a 3 day houseboat vacation at Lake Powell (wasn’t long enough).
	On Sunday, May 31 Mike (brother) and I went out early morning about 6ish to fish. We were camped at about bouy # 79, so we headed up Iceberg canyon.

	We were using some small silver minnow shallow diving lures. Within 15 minutes we caught 3 nice stripers. We decided to head back to the houseboat and get the kids.
	Carson, my brothers youngest caught a very nice 4lb (estimate) striper. Carson's Striper
	We continued to catch a few more small stripers and several very small largemouth bass for the rest of the morning, all in Iceberg canyon.
	Attached are some of our pictures. I am in the white tee shirt. We all had a great time. We also got in some skiing, rafting, and wakeboarding.

June 5, 2009 - Craig Lindgren - Bullfrog

	We just got back from our trip to Bullfrog from Clearfield, Utah. We Arrived Sunday Morning May 31 and left Wednesday morning June 3. We caught a total of 28 Stripers trolling. The best Lure was an old green red and silver thin fin salt water diving lure. We also had success with a deep diving Shad-Rap and a Thunderstick with similar colors.
	My buddy Jeremy Moneypenny caught an 11.5 lb Striper on the thin fin (I have enclosed a few pictures). Most all of our stripers were caught trolling the Channel walls just west of Hall's creek bay.
	As far as regular bass fishing our luck was ok the water rising didn't help us to much. We caught only two Largemouth, but they were nice ones. One on a pumpkin colored Senko and one on a Booyah red and Green spinnerbait. I (Craig Lindgren) caught a nice 3.5 lb Largemouth on the senko and my friend Jose Bueno caught a 3 lb one on the spinnerbait. We caught around 12 smallmouth using 3-4"plastic grubs. White and green seemed to be the best although no smallies were over 1.5 pounds. We also landed 4 walleye. The biggest was 6 pounds (Jose caught it) which I couldn't believe was caught on the Booyah spinnerbait! The others were small but good eating size. We chummed anchovies a little which worked ok but mostly it was early morning trolling from 5:00 AM until 11:00 AM. that worked best. Afternoons and early evening we didn't fair as well. The big striper had milk in it and some of the fish had eggs in them as well. Just another quick note. While trolling we were fishing cracks for bass, we landed 4 or 5 stripers that way as well and one pitching brush back in a cove behind the marina as well. An awesome trip overall. Great weather and good fishing. Can't wait to come back!

June 12, 2009 - Mike Larsen - Salt Lake City - Bullfrog/Halls Creek - Bass

Amy Gainsford and Mike Larsen	I took a group of six young friends down to the lake who had never fished Lake Powell. In fact, for several of our guests this was their first trip to the lake. We spent June 11-13 on the lake and fished primarily in the Bullfrog/Halls Creek area due to windy conditions most of the trip. We did make a run down to Slick Rock and Iceberg Canyons (which we paid for on the rough ride back north) and picked up fish in those areas as well. We caught fish pretty steadily whenever we could find a notch or corner out of the wind. Large mouth were plentiful and really went after anything we threw on top water. Small mouth also were active and healthy, and were caught both on top water and deeper in rough conditions. Green gitzits worked well along sharply dropping slick rock areas in 12-18 feet of water, producing some nice small mouth bass.
Rachael Cardon	Fortunately, the fish were all responding on cue as time after time I would show my young guests where to throw and it would produce that wonderful explosion of water, fish and lure as a large mouth attacked from its hiding place in the backs of coves. Great fishing! Healthy fish! I appreciated the fish cooperating. Exciting to watch these folks catch their first ever bass. I should note that Patrick Svedin, our photographer, was so busy catching fish and taking photos we failed to capture him and some of his nice fish with the camera, but trust me, he caught some, truly he did. I am not lying.
	Justin Osmund and another nice top water catch
	Steve Thurman picked this prize up with a green gitzit.
	Kim Bake and friend.
	The Crew--Mike & Teresa Larsen, Kim Bake, Amy Gaisford, Rachael Cardon, Justin Osmond, Patrick Svedin and Steve Thurman

June 23, 2009 - Shaun and Brenda Sandoval - Larkspur CO - Moki Boils

	We spent June 17-21 in Moki and had a great time. This was the first time since we started going to Lake Powell (5 years) to experience striper boils. What an addicting event. We spent hours cruising Moki looking for boils / slurps. Some were small others were thirty feet deep and fifty feet wide. Our most productive lure was a storm rainbow minnow but, as Wayne has said if you get the cast just right anything worked.
	I found that if I did not get the cast right I would reel as fast as I could for a few seconds slow the retrieve for an instant then speed it up again I would get the fish on the edge to break and chase the ”fleeing bait fish”. When we got to Moki the boils were in the back quarter of the canyon, every day the boils would move further toward the main channel. When we left the boils /slurps were in the middle of the canyon. We ended up catching close to 60 stripers and a dozen catfish. This equated to 30- 40 lbs of fillets. Shaun Sandoval
	Brenda Sandoval

July 2, 2009 - Vanez Wilson - Fly Fishing for Stripers

Wayne: Thanks for all the "words" over the past many years. My wife and I have fished Lake Powell for 26 years. We returned today from our House-boat at Bullfrog. The fishing around Bullfrog and Hall's is great.

Having fished for bone fish, we thought a similar approach to stripers may be productive. Use a 6-8 wt rod and floating line - a sink-tip works also. The angler needs to stand on the "casting platform" with 50 or so feet of line striped out and ready to cast. The boatman uses an electric trolling motor to approach a boil. A long cast to the leading edge of the boil frequently leads to a hook-up. After the cast a few long, fast strips are needed. A strip hook- set works as does a lift set. A single feeding fish can also be caught with a lucky cast - that is a cast in front of the fish. On occasion you can see water movement ahead of the fish and judge his direction. When the shad are small - a small dark streamer or bugger works well. As the shad get bigger a larger fly is better. A 18-24 inch striper on a fly rod is a great fight and much better to eat than a bone fish. You can catch more fish with a spinning rod and a A Spook or a popper - but for a fun change of technique - try striper on the fly.

July 6, 2009 - Tom and Fran Brown - Bayfield, Colorado - Bullfrog stripers

-July 1st -3rd.

Fran and I fished on Thursday, Friday and Saturday using our houseboat at Halls as a base. We fished up as far as Hansen and down to buoy 92 just past Halls Creek during the three days.

The Striper pattern for those three days was boils a half hour before sunrise and just before sunset. The duration for the boils was about a minute. Most of the boils occurred near the shore after the Stripers apparently trapped the small 1" shad larvae schools.

We managed to run into some sporadic boils to and from Hansen, in the first 400 yards into Halls Creek, and even near the Halls Marina. The boils at Halls Creek were the largest and lasted the longest.

We found that 3/8 and ½ oz solid chrome, chrome with a blue back, or smoke Rattletraps worked the best in the boils. We used 10 lb monofilament which proved to be plenty strong. That combination of lures and line allow you to cast the farthest in order to get where you need to catch the quick moving schools of stripers. As has been stated previously in other reports, get close enough to the boil to cast past and ahead of it, start cranking hard and fast. After the boil has stopped, continue to cast in the direction that you thought the boil was headed for about five minutes. In addition, you might have another rod baited with a half anchovy to drop down on the fish you are bringing in as the stripers usually have other fish following them in.

We tried fishing at off of the back of the houseboat with lights in the water until midnight with zero luck. There were literally clouds of shad larvae swimming in circles around the lights but no stripers.

We ended up with 30 stripers and 19 lbs of fillets. Now we can announce our 3rd Annual Striper Fry.

July 8, 2009 - Ed Rajki - Fernley NV - Bullfrog Stripers

1. Al Beaty with his first striper of the trip	I've just returned home from a 10-day fishing / houseboating trip to Lake Powell (June 27 thru July 6) and thought I'd pass along a report on how we did. To begin with, I'm primarily a black bass fisherman, and I've only fished for stripers once before, in the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta. That trip was with a guide, and we spent the day trolling broken-back Rebel minnows. Consequently, your website was an absolute wealth of information for tactics on Lake Powell. I would research your website almost every night for the week prior to our departure. Not only did the information help with the fishing, but I was also able to have my boat prepared for the QM inspection prior to launching it, and it passed with flying colors. The inspector was impressed that I had taken all the necessary precautions in advance, and I credit your fine website with providing the information I needed to insure compliance.
2. Sharon Beaty with one of our morning hauls	Now, on to the important stuff... We launched out of Bullfrog on Saturday afternoon, June 27, and tied up our rental houseboat in the north end of the front cove of Halls Creek Bay, with my Nitro bass boat tied up across the back of the houseboat. (we could see the main lake channel from our anchorage). As evening approached, we started seeing individual fish surfacing, so I stepped off the houseboat onto my boat (still tied up to the houseboat at this point), clipped on a shad-colored rattle trap and started casting in the vicinity of the splashes. My third cast produced the first striper of the trip. As the fish activity increased around the cove, myself and Al & Sharon Beaty launched the Nitro and probed the backs of the small coves in the bay. We never saw any big boils (that would come later in the week), but we managed to catch 5 stripers that first evening.
3. Me with the only largemouth of the trip	For the duration of the trip, we never traveled more than a couple miles to fish...most of our time was spent in the front cove and the entrance to Halls Creek. We ventured over to the coves between Halls Crossing Marina and boat ramp, mostly in the mornings. In the cove behind Halls fuel dock on our third morning out, we saw our first big boil of the week. Once again throwing rattle traps and shad raps, everyone managed to catch fish. During lulls in the striper activity, I'd tie on a Spittin' Image (similar to a Zara Spook) and work it parallel to the shoreline, and caught several smallmouth (no real size to any of them), and a nice 4.5 lb. largemouth. I even managed to nail a nice striper on the Spittin' Image, but for the most part, we exclusively threw Rattle Traps & Shad Raps. It appeared that color didn't matter, as we caught them on everything we tied on (personally, I felt the shad imitations did the best job - Al preferred throwing anything with gold in it).
4. Me with a few, the morning of July 4th	As the week progressed, the boils in Halls Creek Bay progressively moved further out of the cove and into deeper water toward the main lake. Boils would fire up starting at about 5:45 AM and last for about 2-3 hours, then start again at around 5:00 PM and would last for an hour or two. The morning of July 3rd produced the most incredible boil of the week...it stretched practically across the entire cove (approximately 150 yards wide) and lasted a good 2 minutes. Fishing continued to be excellent in the mornings, and fair to good in the evenings, weather permitting (lightning and wind forced us off the water two evenings). Our best morning produced 18 fish in 3 hours for the 3 of us, and the best evening produced 10 fish. I can emphatically state that if we'd had a landing net (we lost a lot of fish right next to the boat) and had used heavier line and been able to "horse" the fish more during the fight, we would have done much better, but I'll tell you, those fish were a blast to catch on 8 lb. test line!
5. Partial results of our last evening on the water	On July 5, we moved our houseboat over to Bullfrog Bay in preparation for our departure the next day. We fished that evening between the Bullfrog dump / pump station and boat ramp. We saw plenty of boils, but they were widely scattered throughout the entire area...we spent a lot of time chasing the fish, but still managed to land 16 of them. The following morning we fished the same area. We never saw an actual boil, but there were plenty of fish breaking the surface here and there, and Al and I caught 17 fish in 2 hours by making random casts in the area of the activity. We ended our trip with well over 100 stripers in the freezer (we actually lost count somewhere around the 7th day)...even had a few for dinner one evening. Ever try them marinated in Italian salad dressing, then cooked on the barbeque? Delicious! One interesting side note on something we noticed...as we continued making random casts following a boil, we would consistently pick up several smallmouth, even out in deep water. I'm guessing they follow the striper schools and pick off any injured shad the stripers leave behind. In closing, let me thank you again for furnishing such valuable information on your website...it certainly provided us with a trip to remember!

July 13, 2009 - Coachk and Austin - Bullfrog Boils

Wow you guys are right about the addictive nature of striper boils. We got to Bullfrog Thursday Night 7/9 and drove down to Stanton to scope out a place to camp the next day. Saw some boils pop up so we ran down to the lake and caught 4 right off the bank.

Need to be on the lake early now as the boils are most active around 6am and 8:30 pm.

Austin Kimber

Friday morn cruised in our little boat back down to Stanton and was not disappointed after catching a couple in small boils a huge one came up on a cove and lasted about 20 min. You were so right about everything going wrong with your lines when it is like that. We laughed afterwards at your insight. After that we went to the back of Halls fuel dock and they started up there and caught plenty more.

This pattern worked all 3 days. Rumor had it a boil in Halls bay came up about 7:30 Saturday evening and went for over an hour about 200 yards wide. Sunday morning they were practically jumping in the boat we were in the middle of them when the boil broke out. Talk about exciting.

We used Kastmaster 1/4 oz with the white tail on it and some topwater lures to catch most of the stripers. I used some swimming shad and big spoons occasionally also. Best was the Kastmaster and the top water bait.

We filleted over 70 stripers and 3 smallmouth over the weekend and had a great time. I will be back to do that again. All fish are between 3 and 5 lbs. Our biggest was 24 inches and a fat 24 at that.

Thanks again for your site and all the wonderful things you do with that fishery. Maybe you can teach the people in Colorado to do the same.

July 13, 2009 - Marty Peterson - Bullfrog Boils

Leonard Iversen on the front lawn of his house. While taking a break from filleting Stripers caught out of boils on July 9th.Leonard saw many boils in the channel around the Rincon.

Richard Snow and I caught about 95 Stripers out of slurps and boils in the Bullfrog Bay area. All between 2 and 3.5 pounds. Although willing to attack about any lure, the one that worked best for us was a 3 in Wild Eye (soft body) shad. Night fishing very slow. .

July 14, 2009 - Chet Garling - Bullfrog Boils

Fish report 7/11/09 - 7/13/09.

Arrived Saturday late to Halls Creek Bay and headed to last reported striper boil reported at the Haystacks near Stanton that early evening around 7:30 P.M. . Found nothing happening and headed back to Halls Creek Bay around 8:30, ran into boils that proved real difficult to get a fish out of, very spooky with the big engine and moving too fast for the electric to keep up, of course lot's of boat traffic is also detrimental to fishing shy stripers. One SMB for the day.

Sunday morning headed back to Stanton area after talking to Rich and also checked upstream of the Halls buoy field, found a boil in the ferry ramp area, pulled a quick seven out of it and headed back to the houseboat to pick up a couple of friends. Got back to boils just in time for them to stop and headed into Coyote creek to fish for green bass, at 8:00 the cove exploded with stripers, we could cast 360 degrees and hook up. We ended up with seven out of that boil.

The rest of the day boated all of Lake Canyon, Moki, and headed up past Tapestry Wall and did not see a boil. Went back to Ferry ramp that evening to nothing. Ended up with a few stripers out of boils in Halls Creek bay. Monday morning headed back to Coyote creek and managed 3 stripers, chased some others to no avail and got one out of a boil just inside the entrance to Halls Creek Bay.

July 15, 2009 - Sidney Smith - Bullfrog Night

	Sidney Smith Currently living: Bullfrog ,UT Caught Fish: Bullfrog Bay, Halls Bay, Lake Canyon
	The stripers are still boiling for the first few hours of light, especially in Bullfrog and Halls bay. In fact the stripers were boiling only feet off the shore. Afternoon tends to slow down especially when the wind picks up was only able to catch 2 small mouth using a pink grub worm. Because of the full moon the fishing got hot at night. Used a Wildeye Virbrotail Jig by STORM LURES. At night trolled with this lure until we got a hit, then returned to that spot and landed 9 stripers within a hour.
	Night fishing can be safe with the proper equipment and another pair of eye watching out for rocks. Temp is a lot cooler, you don't have to worry about drunk kids skiing over your line and the Bullfrog cleaning station is well lit throughout the night.

July 20, 2009 - James Urry - Halls Creek Bay Boils

	We just got back from a week in Halls Creek Bay. We had good success early morning with top water lures on small boils and huge boils mid day.
	Stripers were not as boat shy as I have seen them in the past.
	We would just spot and stalk the big boils all day long.
	In two days we caught 10 each and had a great fish fry.

July 21, 2009 - Tim Richard - Elizabeth CO - Escalante Stripers

We were at Lake Powell from 7-10-09 until 7-16-09. My first chance to fish came on 7-11-09 and we had set up our house boat in Slick Rock Canyon. I used a wave runner for my mobile fishing vessel and on the morning of 7-11-09, I left Slick Rock canyon and crossed the main channel straight out of the canyon and found a lot of “slurp” action. Took me all of 30 minutes to tie 5 good striper on the stringer using a ½ oz. silver Kastmaster with a white tail. I simply quit fishing after I had 5 fish, because at the time, I had never eaten striper, and I didn’t want to clean a bunch of them if I didn’t like to eat’em. I should’ve kept fishing!!!

Tim Richard

That afternoon, we moved down the lake into the Escalante River arm. The morning of 7-12-09, I again used the wave runner and went to the mouth of the Escalante and the main channel, and there was not nearly as much “slurp” action here as there was back in the main channel at Slick Rock. But, by using the “patience, cast accurate” method, I was still able to catch three more good striper that morning. And this was the method that I used for the rest of the week. No boils, but feeding fish non-the-less, so it was all about being patient, and casting accurately to fish that surfaced with-in casting range. I ended up catching 19 stripers, all on the ½ oz. silver Kastmaster with a white tail and all from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.. I didn’t do any afternoon fishing.

Also, whoever posted the simple recipe of marinating the filets in Italian dressing and grilling them, THANKS!! Delicious table fair, and very simple to prepare.

July 27, 2009 - Jasen Decker - Slick Rock Stripers

Just thought I would drop a few pictures from our trip. We took the houseboat down to a canyon across from Slickrock Canyon and found a good camping spot. At the break of dawn the stripers began boiling in the canyon and along the wall to the north. My father (Tim), my son (Keedan age 5), and I would use the electric to motor over to the boil and the fun was on!

Keedan Decker

We had three rods rigged up each, two with shallow running x-raps, two with intermediate bombers, and two with large silver spoons. We would start shallow and hook up a fish on the x-rap, then hand it off to one of the kids or the rod holder, and then depending if the school was still up use the bomber or cast the spoon and let it go deeper to the remaining fish (10+ feet deep).

We also found the jetski to be a great fun way to attack the stripers, you can get up enough speed heading toward the boil and kill the engine about 30 yards away from the school and coast into casting range without spooking the school. In total we caught 60+ stripers, 20 smallmouth, 5 small largemouth, and the kids caught too many cafish and bluegill to count. We had a great trip despite generator problems in 105 degree temps! Thanks for the site and all the great info!! Attached is a picture of Keedan and his 4.1 lb. striper (the biggest he has ever caught), and Tim and Keedan with the first stripers of the trip.

Jasen Decker

July 28, 2009 - Ty Mannion- Mid Lake Boils

We got to the big pond on Friday (7-24) evening at Bullfrog and headed down lake to the Escalante River arm (that is after a quick dip in the lake to put the drain plug in once we were launched, I still haven't found my sandal in the mud). We had planned on going all the way that night (about 6) but stopped at lake canyon after the other groups boat took a giant wake and let them cool off with lake water. We fished for large and small mouth bass in the back of lake and caught about 4 between 4 of us.

The next morning we headed out to beat the traffic and after the first corner we found a great boil it lasted about an hour and we caught around 40 between the four of us. Fishing in the Escalante was really slow. So the next morning we headed back out to find more boils and start working our way back. Found one 20 minute boil about 1 mile into the Escalante and picked up another 10 fish and a smallie. We didn't see any other boils until that evening and found the mother load of all boils.

They trapped shad into a little cove just down from lake canyon and this one lasted well over another hour. The group camping next to this cove suddenly noticed two bass boats catching striper after striper and one gentleman waded out to his chest and joined the fun. We found a few more scattered boils that night but only one or two were caught out of each.

So Monday morning and the trip back we found another great boil just north this time of lake canyon and the whole main channel came alive we caught another 40 or so and it would have been more but the trolling batteries were almost dead. That boil lasted about an hour and a half. Our groups two boats and another enjoyed the last and best boil of them all. Overall the large and smallmouth fishing was slow. But the boils saved the fishing trip we estimated we caught around 150 stripers 5 smallmouth 2 bluegill and a 20 largemouth. We found the best lures to throw at the boils, were white crankbaits, white spinnerbaits, white chatterbaits, and Gary Yamamoto swim baits.

July 28, 2009 - Mike Slater - Hansen Creek Boils

I just wanted to send you a quick report on my fishing near Bullfrog this last weekend. My wife and I and the four kids camped near Hansen Creek Canyon just off the main channel to play and fish for over the Holiday weekend. Wow! it was awesome. I haven't had a striper fishing trip like that before.

We typically go to Powell and end up doing a whole lot more swimming and skiing than fishing but Thurs. evening the 23rd we ran into a boil just inside Hansen Creek Canyon while skiing and had to stop because the fish were boiling everywhere. We fished the boil for about 2 hours 5:30-7:30pm. The fish were still boiling when we finally left and headed back for camp. We were all catching fish with Zara Spooks. I took the 1st hook off to allow us to handle the fish quicker and get the line back out there. After that all the kids wanted to do was go fish again rather than ski.

However, to our disappointment the next evening was very windy and we never saw a boil. Saturday morning we found them boiling in the mouth of Moki but didn't do as well there. We had to follow the fish around a little more there and they were more spooky. Saturday evening in Hansen Creek Canyon around 4:30-5:00pm the boils were back but we only got about 30 minutes in until the wind picked up. We then had to leave the lake even though things calmed down a little later in the evening when I'm sure Hansen was going again.

Anyway the fishing was awesome and the kids loved cooking the fish over the camp fire. We'll be back to do that again for sure!

August 4, 2009 - Andrew Garchar - Lake Canyon boils

Andrew is lucky enough to work at Lake Powell. He has learned to catch boiling stripers while working for UT Wildlife at Bullfrog. He was very excited when he caught 2 fish out of his first boil early in the year. Here is his recent catch of 57 stripers from boils at mouth of Lake Canyon.

The whole family is excited about fishing now. Their previous experience in other years has been catching stripers on bait.

They agree that boil fishing is more exciting and rewarding. Andrew has also improved in his ability to fillet stripers with an electric knife.

Andrew Garchar (right) and Family

August 9, 2009 - Garrison Genschorck -Bailey CO - Lake Canyon

We were at Powell from the 21st of July through the 31st of July. Fishing was hit and miss. Some days we only caught 5, some days we caught none, but on two separate days we caught 32 and 46 respectively. Both times were right outside Lake Canyon. One was in the morning at about 7:30, while the other was at night around 6:30. Both times there were boils going for over an hour. But, I have to say those are the only two times we saw tight, consistent boils. The rest of the time the boils were very loose and sporadic. I am attaching pictures of our loot!

Garrison Genschorck and family

We used mostly Cast Masters and Rattle Traps. Occasionally we used Top Waters and we all enjoyed watching the Striper hit those as well.

We brought home 122 Striper and caught a total of 180 fish.

August 23, 2009 - Brandon Genereaux - Grand Junction Spooning stripers

8-20 8-23 fishing.

Buddy and I spent the end of the week between Bullfrog and Escalante. Caught lots and lots of small mouth on rattle traps and tube jigs everywhere, morning, noon, and almost night.

Caught lots of stripers from 6:30AM to 9:00AM on the shaded banks of the north side of the entrance to slick rock. Don’t just hunt for boils they are a good indicator for finding fish and of course fish can be caught but if you know what to watch for on a fish finder you can haul 3x more fish vertical jigging cast masters or fast sinking jigs. The boils only lasted for about 40 minutes but we caught fish for two hours after the boils ended by dropping jigs into 50 feet of water and reeling quickly up about 20 feet and then dropping back down, drop, rip, repeat. 1 – 1.5 ounce cast masters had the best success due to their quicker drop, silver and gold. Also caught a bunch of fish Sat evening in slick rock canyon, the wind made things extra challenging but the two of us put 40 fish on the deck droppin and rippin on steeper south bank mid canyon. This method also worked great on the east shores of bull frog bay south of the boat ramp at noon Sunday! An awesome boil popped up as well right at mid day while we were jigging in 40-50 feet of water! If you saw two guys with constant double hookups on the front of a pontoon boat that was us.

Also beware the fish police are on the prowl at night! Got checked at midnight outside Slick Rock canyon while anchored on the wall night fishing. Night fishing is hopeless by the way. Also made a trip to the entrance of the Escalante and it was barren Friday evening and Saturday morning, was rather disappointing wish we would have stayed around slick rock but can’t beat the scenery. Caught an endless amount of small mouth on the eastern banks at the upper part of the bend midday, fished a small mouth boil in the back of a cove!

August 30, 2009 - Capt. Brian T. Myers

Lake Powell, Aug 18-20
I had clients coming in for a houseboat trip that would take them south to the Escalante. I began scouting out old haunts from years way past in the Rincon. WOW! I have not fished Powell for what seems like a dozen years when the water was up this high. I began in the north cut of the Rincon with a buzzbait over the flooded salt cedars where rocky points fell off into deeper water. I caught several 1-2 pound small mouths and I was amazed at the amount of shad in this cut. I have never seen the shad like it is now. For the past few years the shad population in areas that I have fished has exploded.

I then began scouting the Rincon area seeking striper boils but they never materialized. I then ran further south to an area a friend took me too when I first started bass fishing. We call it the shady wall because you can keep out of the sun until early afternoon. It has lots of big chunk rock and usually held all species of fish. I caught several smallies on drop shot senko's and crank baits and got to watch a pair of Peregrine Falcons hunt what looked like canyon wrens.

I started back north to another area we refer to as the pockets off of the main channel. I found several 1-2 pound small mouths and large mouths on crank baits. I spied another cut across the channel that looked interesting so I ran across and on the first cast caught a 2 pound small mouth that had about 30 in the school with him when I brought him to the boat. As I moved towards the back of the cut I could see a large ball of shad that the school was feeding on. It was like watching the Blue Planet on Discovery channel. The water was so clear and you could see bass from 4 inches to 2 pounds feeding and chasing the bait onto the bank. I went to a drop shot senko and a Texas rigged tube and I was catching bass on every cast no matter where I would cast the bait.

I then headed back to Iceberg and ran clear to the back where every cut was full of shad in the flooded salt cedars. I could see some good large mouths cruising but was unable to get them to eat anything I served up. I was able to catch several 8-10 inch large mouths on spinner baits.

Next stop was Slick Rock. I fished a hump in the middle that came up to 12 feet and had several bites on the tube. There was a lot of traffic in there so I went to the back and found the same 8-10 inch large mouths on spinner baits. As I was leaving Slick Rock a striper boil on the front point erupted and I caught several 3-5 pound stripers on a zara spook.

I then ran into Lake Canyon and found the same with the largemouth bass in the very back. The shad in the backs of these canyons is just unbelievable. It reminded me of the the lakes in TX and OK. The next day and ran into Halls Creek and started working a wall I usually catch nice small mouth's on with a tube. I caught a couple of small fish and a blue gill. As I worked my way to the back of the cut I could only scrounge up 6-10 inch small mouth. Then I heard this noise and looked out to the front where the cut met the main channel in Halls and it was one of the largest striper boils I have ever seen. I ran to the boil, picked up a zara spook and went to spanking 4-6 pound stripers on every cast for an hour and a half. I literally wore myself out. This boil was over water that was 30-50 feet deep and the sonar was just covered with bait and stripers. One of the boats from shore came out next to me with a fly rod but I never saw them hook up. The zara spook was hooked up every cast into the boil.

I then ran to the very back of Halls where the main creek came in looking for some big largemouth. The creek channel went back about a half of a mile and was wall to wall shad. I flipped jigs into cover on the banks, I through spinner baits but could not find any takers. With all the bait fish and heavy cover it is hard to even no where to start to find the bigger fish. The grebes in the back of Halls all had their babies with them and there was a pair of Osprey in the back that was also fishing.

That night before at the Halls RV Park I shared some information with some other anglers staying there and they said that the striper boils had been slow up north but on the way back they found a good boil in the middle of the day at Tapestry wall. So I headed north to check it out. Once I got there I was graphing huge schools of stripers on bait in about 60 feet of water. I thought this would be a good time to try out the downrigger. After about 20 minutes of trolling I saw a pontoon boat pull up on point where Tapestry wall goes into Warm Springs. Then I saw them run back into Warm Springs. I pulled up the rigger and ran back to find the stripers boiling on the shady side of the channel. I picked up the Zara spook and went to spanking the stripers again for about an hour on every cast. The stripers were all fat 3-6 pounders and I wore myself out again.

The next morning I would pick my clients up at 5:30am. I was hoping the striper boil in Halls would return. After a quick safety orientation we ran to Halls and explained to my clients that we need to make sure they needed to know how to work a bait caster and walk the dog with the zara spook. We had about 45 minutes until the striper boil would appear. At 7am I started idling the boat over to where the boil was the day before and the same boat with the fly fisherman was already waiting also. We then had another boat show up and several stripers were starting to hit the surface. Unfortunately the group of anglers in the boat that showed up would not turn the motor off and the stripers would only boil for a few second and scattered. Finally after that boat left I could see the boil inside the cut where we started. We ran back there and for about an hour my clients went to hammering the stripers. The stripers had the bait fish pushed up on the bank and the bank fisherman got to enjoy the moment also. One after the other I was removing treble hoods from stripers releasing them and turning to reel another.

We then ran north to the original client spot #1 where all the bass were. The school of shad was still there and the bass were in trouble. After watching bass feed on the bait ball and catching numerous small mouths we ran across to the pockets and my client hooked up on a crank bait with about a 1 pound largemouth that had 5 bigger small mouth's trying to take the crank bait out its mouth. You just can't make this stuff up when everyone in the boat is also seeing it.

We then ran to the Rincon and worked the area in the middle of the day with a buzz bait and pulled a few of the smallmouth I was catching a couple days earlier. Then the super bonus of the day happened. We were just fishing, minding our own business when a B1B Stealth bomber dropped out from over the cliff above us and buzzed the inside of the Rincon all the way south down the lake and went supersonic straight up out of the canyon. That woke up the neighborhood. I love those guys!

September 4, 2009 - Scott Stelmach

Here's a report from the Captain who had the pleasure of taking 6 ladies out on our houseboat last week!! We pulled out of Bullfrog slips around 12:30 pm on Friday Aug 28 and headed straight down to Slickrock Canyon. Found a nice quiet beach to ourselves and set about anchoring and preparing appetizers. About the time we had retired to the back of houseboat to relax(maybe 6ish) a boil exploded across the entire channel!! The easiest thing to untie was a jetski so I leaped off the back deck with rod in hand and shot out to the boil. I had not thought much about what rod I grabbed and that was my first mistake. The first cast near the boil and the rod bent immediately. Unfortunately, I was throwing a Lucky Craft Sammy 100 on fairly light fluoro line (6 lb) so really had to play them to get them in. And of course in my haste to mount the jetski I hadn't grabbed any kind of hook removal device. Well I did manage to pull one hook out of my index finger so that I could continue to fish the boil after I had gotten the first fish aboard the jet ski. After that a little more care was taken to pull each fish into the trough of the jetski. The boil maybe lasted 15 minutes and 3 were successfully landed (already enough for a fish fry).

On Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of single splashes so this time I was READY. The Boston Whaler was loaded with rods ("Are those all yours?" the ladies had inquired the night before). Off I shot in the boat and started casting single splashes/shore structure with mild success. This kept me occupied until around 6:45 am when the bay again exploded with a boil. This time I put down the Lucky Craft Sammy that I was using for shore fishing. Smallies and started throwing a single hook swimming shad. It was easy fishing and each cast brought in a Striper. The single hook made it so easy to just drop the fish in the back and chuck the lure into the boil again. Well, unfortunately, I had left the Sammy floating out near the shore instead of reeling it in when the boil started (amazing how many bad choices a boil causes!) and now that rod was about to fall out of the boat while I had another Striper on the rod in hand. Luckily my foot caught the rod before it jumped out of the boat but I heard a snap and the $15.00 Sammy was now a delightful piece of jewelry for a Striper. By the time all was said and done I might of had 8-10 fat fish before the boil dissolved. After the boil I spent some time casting the shoreline with another Sammy and was amazed at the size of the Smallmouth. Still caught numerous fat 12-14 inchers but then there'd be a 2.5-4.0 lb fish interspersed. Headed back to the houseboat to fillet fish for dinner and noted that at least half of the Stripers had nothing in their stomachs while the other half had one shad. Makes me wonder if the shad are becoming sparse in Slick Rock area?

Saturday afternoon we watched a movie with the air conditioning on and all the shades closed. That evening not a single boiled appeared but we had a delicious fish fry and had so much left over we took it to two houseboats parked in the canyon with us. In talking to people aboard the other houseboats we discovered there was a huge boil during the afternoon while we were watching the movie! They had wondered where I was during the explosion.

Sunday was an odd day and very few fish showed themselves so we all just floated and relaxed.

Monday a.m. again had boils moving through the canyon and I repeated the same system with great success. Monday evening was the "girls gone wild" night so I spent time chasing boils up and down the canyon while the ladies were my spotters from the top of the houseboat. Literally the canyon would resound with 6 woman screaming "BOIL!!!!!" at the top of their lungs so that I could keep track of where the fish were coming up next. Fishing boils is exciting enough but to have an audience made it even more thrilling!
That evening I gave 7 stripers (and two swim shad lures) to a boat that hadn't had much luck.

Well that's it for this year...thanks for all the info you help pass on to us all. Please tell Sonny (with the DWR) that I met at Bullfrog ramp that I did send a photo in poor resolution. The metal stringer broke right after the photo on Saturday morning.

Long live the lake

September 8, 2009 - Scott Barclay - Bullfrog Bass

Fishing this weekend was spectacular for small mouths and large mouths. I could not find the stripers. The small mouths were hitting spinner baits, rattle traps, shad raps, and plastic worms. The large mouths were hitting the same lures. My brother and I fished for two days. Saturday and Sunday, and we caught 75 small mouths and 15 large mouths.

We fished near Bullfrog bay and Halls Crossing. We fished the north edges of the main channel between the bay and Moki canyon. We also fished Moki canyon but didn't have as much success. Again, we did not see a single striper boil or catch a single striper. We did catch one walleye. We caught mainly small fish but about 10 of the smallmouth were over 2 lbs. Largemouth were fun to catch and a little bigger than most of the smallmouth. Most of the fish were caught on spinner baits.

We tried the green lights at night as those have worked well in the past and the shad would come to the lights in huge schools (the shad sure are bigger this year) however, the strippers never showed up. We really wanted to catch the strippers. If you could tell us where they are we might go back down this next weekend and try to find them.

August 27, 2009 - Tim Kelley - Bullfrog Boils

Chris and Dave	Halls Fishing Report 08-24-09 Tim Kelley, Hot Wheels, Chris, Dave, Wayne & Kathy Headed to Halls on 8-19-09 with Chris and Dave from Flagstaff to meet Hotwheels, Wayne and Kathy Dorsett. We arrived at 2:00 p.m. and Hotwheels had left me a phone message to meet him up at Tapestry Wall. Chris, Dave & I arrived at the wall, and were hailing Jack, but know reply. I told Chris to head a little farther north, and about 1 mile north on the east shore a big boil was already in progress. We glided in on the boil and had a triple hook up right away. We were pulling stripers in left and right for about 20 minutes, when Jack hailed us on the radio. I told him to get his buns over there as we had a boil going around us. He pulled up with Wayne and Kathy on the boat with him, and said that they were in a long afternoon boil in Warm Springs canyon, so they couldn't hear our radio. They caught a couple out of this boil, and said they had no more room in the cooler, so they were heading back to the cleaning station! (Can you imagine leaving a boil because your 160 quart cooler was already full?) Too funny!! We fished it till it subsided and ended up with 32 fish. What a way to start the trip-we were pumped. Got into a small boil in a little cove on the right before the ramp on the way back, stripers and small mouth together caught a few more.
	Thursday morning we started early in the Halls houseboat field, and they were already going when we arrived. Boils everywhere, just cast and catch! This went for about an hour and a half, and Hotwheels and I had the magna cooler half full!! After that we went to Tapestry Wall just before there we caught a few from the channel, and then we went to the wall and started catching them right on the wall. They were cruising the wall and if you got close to the wall and then started casting parallel to the wall you would get a hit or catch a fish every cast. Wayne and Kathy were there along with Chris and Dave in Chris's new Lund. We worked the wall all the way to Warm Springs Canyon, and caught quite a few off of the points at the mouth, and in between the points. We went into Warm Springs Canyon and filleted the fish in the shade, another giant cooler full. I think I died and went to fishing heaven. Wayne Dorsett
	Friday morning we went back to the Halls houseboat field, but nothing. Wayne Dorsett saw a boil erupt across the bay to the right of Stanton on the shore line. We screamed over there and started getting into them big time. They were busting shad clear into the tamarisks. That boil lasted for about 30 minutes and then dispersed and turned into small groups feeding out into the channel. We went from there up to Tapestry wall and fished the rest of the day to fill the cooler again. Saturday morning we got into the tail end of the boils at Stanton, and headed up the channel towards Tapestry wall. Kathy Dorsett and Dakota joined Hotwheels and I on the boat as the Dorsett's had some friends come up to fish with Wayne on their whaler. About two mile south of Tapestry wall the whole channel was lit up with dispersed feeding, but what we found out was that fish were packed in there all throughout the channel, and all you had to do was fan cast the channel and catch stripers. Jack Herrin
	Several boats were on this pattern, and Topcat and Denn showed up too. We fished this channel most of the morning with numerous double and triple hookups all morning long. It didn't take long to fill the cooler. The stripers ended up moving towards the west shore line along the sloping rocks, and it was a blast tossing top waters to the shoreline for numerous hook ups. Lures of choice were large saltwater poppers, super spooks, sammys, and walking sticks. Spent the afternoon filleting fish, and pulling Chris around on water skis. We heard the National Weather Service severe storm warning so we headed in early, and we were glad we did. It wasn't as severe as what hit the southern end, but it was pretty windy. Kathy Dorsett
	Sunday morning the storm must have knocked down the boils because there was nothing happening early in the morning, however a big boil came up over by the haystacks and ferry cove later in the morning. We went up to Tapestry wall and fished most of the morning up there. Hotwheels and I caught around 30 stripers, before we had to head back to get everything packed, and removed from the pontoon for the trip back home on Monday. What a great trip, with good friends, and spectacular fishing. Tim Kelley

September 10, 2009 - Rich Tolway, Tony Lunato and Ed Elefante - Knowles Canyon Boils

	After a slow day in Bullfrog and Halls Crossing the friendly game wardens informed us we should move up North to Tapestry Wall and Knowles Canyon to fish. We moved the houseboat to Knowles Canyon on Saturday afternoon and found boils all over the bay between the wall and the canyon. Silver spoons, Kastmasters and Crippled herring were producing large stripers all Saturday evening when cast into a boil. The full moon had been covered by cloud cover all Friday night. All the stripers were 3-4 lbs. A couple of bigger ones were lost at the boat (of course). The boils were large and fast moving. One striper had 21 full grown shad in his stomach. Rich Tolway
	Tony Lunato (Eastlake, Ohio)
	Ed Elefante (Phoenix, Arizona)
	Sunday and Monday the boils were hard to find. The full moon had been out all night and we could hear them feeding all night. The wives had a large boil in Knowles next to the houseboat for awhile while we were at Tapestry wall. We switch to trolling and found Chartreuse deep running shad plugs at 20 feet caught a nice mixed bag of Walleye, smallmouth and stripers. With the moon waning, I can only imagine the fishing will get better. The schools were there.

September 14, 2009 - Sherm and Letts Fish from Anglers Corner Bullfrog

fished 11th 12th and morning of the 13th
first day we fished up lake and at buoy 119 got into the fish big numbers all on slab jig with a few on lipless crank bait, there are large numbers of shad in the area. Really good fishing in this area for small mouth bass using crank bait and spinner bait

On the 12th we hooked up with Howard and chased boils around bullfrog bay until 9:30 am you need to be on the water before the sun comes up and if it is white or shad colored it will work, after the boils go down you can also add some fish to the live well with a lipless crank bait. Stay in the area and keep casting after the bullfrog morning fishing we headed down lake and slabbed up some more at the point at lake canyon.
SPEED REELING WAS THE ONLY WAY They would not take the slab any other way it had to be flying.

13th fished until 11:30 am fished boils in bullfrog with Howard once more, there was only one but it was a good one then we slab jigged up some more in the same area as the boil.

Letts Fish

Took my friend Steve on his very first Lake Powell fishing trip. Happened to be his birthday. Also my first trip in the summer/autumn to look for boils. So we're rookies. Got there Friday at 9:30am and by 10:30am we were at the mouth of Knowles Canyon. Marked fish, and Steve's first drop with a spoon and he yells FISH ON! First trip, first cast and first fish - about a 4 lb. striper! We just happened to be on a school and spooned up about 6 nice fish before they moved.

Friday eve we saw a boat with a WW Flag and met Howard in Bullfrog Bay and got into a brief late boil at about 7:30pm. Again real nice fish up to 5 lbs.

Sunday morning we happened to meet Sherm and Shelly and their friend Bobby early at the ramp and when we saw them scream by at about 7:00 am - we saw why - a nearby boil was started and as we got there, it just exploded near shore! Fish flying everywhere!

If I never see another boil, that one will stay in memory! It didn't last but a few minutes, but it was about 100 feet wide of shoreline violence - an amazing site.

Steve called this fish hunting. Other than the very late and very early boils, graphics were everything. Speed reeling on marked fish with a heavy silver spoon was the ticket. You can't reel fast enough.

Rookie lessons learned:

*Use 15 lb spider wire or other line.
*Find short(2"or 2.5"), but very heavy, slabs.
*Use large hooks and sharpen them.
*Retie lures after each morning/afternoon.
*Bring multiple rods and lures.
*Look for Grebes - they somehow sense even deep shad schools and accompanying stripers.
*Get all the info you can from other fishermen.

Thanks to all who shared their knowledge to let us have a great trip. Those attending the shad rally should have a great time, next year we'll try to attend.

September 25, 2009 - Bill Miller - Silverthorne, CO - Stripers in Knowles

Sorry no pics, I was fishing by myself.

I fished from Bullfrog north to Knowles last weekend. On Saturday I was able to vertical jig some Stripers up in Hall’s creek with a ¾ oz silver and blue Kastmaster with a white dressed treble. I spotted them by looking for Grebes and then finding the school with the electronics suspended between 20- 40 feet. I only hooked two, but they were nice fat fish in the 3# range. I fished the shore by Hall’s buoy field and the back of Crystal Springs canyon until dark and caught a lot of 10” smallies and a few large mouths, but nothing bigger than 2#. They liked green 5” double tail hula grubs on a 3/8 oz football jig or a White 4” single tail Yamamoto grub on a ¼ oz stand up jig.

Sunday morning I went cruising north looking for boils at dawn and tried to hit a few isolated striper rings with top water baits to no avail. I headed for Knowles and arrived about 7:45 AM to discover the whole entrance bay filled with striper boils. It was pretty incredible top water action until about 9:00 AM and I filled a big cooler with stripers all in the 2-4# range. There were several other boats in the bay having some success although they arrived late to the party. I used two top water baits: Lucky Craft G splash in a shad pattern with a white dressed tail treble and a Sammy in a ghost minnow pattern. The larger noise of the G splash seemed to do a little better, but anytime I could get a cast near a splash ring there would be a hook up. What an exciting treat to catch stripers on top water baits for that long!

Thanks to you and your advice and all of the other reports, my fishing on the Lake has improved dramatically over the years. I have fished the Lake for 25 years, but this season was the best for me.

September 28, 2009 - Chuck and Colleen - Boulder, CO

The wife and I arrived at Bullfrog Sunday and got the boat into the water and over to the marina just in time for the big thunderstorm. The winds broke all connections to the beach and the floating dock began to float away while the ramp disappeared underwater. The ramp was reconnected Monday and power restored on Thursday. I believe sewage was still out at week's end.

We fished Monday through Thursday, totally skunked. We tried around Bullfrog, the lower end of Hall's, and the Moki Wall and canyon. Silver spoons, Kastmasters, curlytail and feathered jigs, wacky-rigged worms, drop-shotted plastics, and spinnerbaits were all losers. On the day at Moki we didn't observe a single catch on the 6-8 boats around us. Some marina staff told us that they hadn't observed a boil in 2 weeks. Water temp was 75 with good visibility. Maybe it was a high pressure weather system of the wrong moon phase, but we gave up and left 2 days early. Maybe next time.

Wayne's Note: Striper boils are very specific. The only ones that can be counted on occur at first light and last light. There is a random boil during the day but it is not predictable. The location is midway or all the way back in canyons. There are no open water boils to speak of now.

The good news is great bass fishing around trees that hold shad in the backs of canyons.

October 8, 2009 - Brian Myers - Bullfrog

	Lake Powell Fishing Report 10/1 - 10/5 Water temp: 72-75 Thursday I got on the water at about 2:30pm. Because it was late I would only run to Halls Creek. Started on a spot where I catch nice smallmouths. Picked up a tube and on the 4th cast caught a 3lb smallie. I'm out of there. I will save it for the Bullfrog open. I threw rattle traps, spinner baits, crank baits and flipped jigs. I was only able to produce small fish and lots of bites that did not hook up. Friday I was on the water before safe light and headed south. The moon was bright so I was able to get a good head start on the day. The boat ride was incredible. I pulled into the first canyon I wanted to fish only to pull up on a striper boil in the shallow brush next to a houseboat. Zara spook, SMACK! Again and again and again. Ok let's try a tube. ZOWIE! Largemouth after smallmouth after largemouth. Oh boy is this great!
	After a few hours of chasing schools of largemouth, smallmouth and stripers I was off to another spot. When I got there it was the same. It was mostly schools of largemouth and smallmouth chasing the shad in this cut. I started flipping a tube into shallow brush where shad were being chased and it was largemouth after smallmouth after largemouth. I then ran into Ice Berg clear to the back only to find nowhere near the shad I had found in the other canyons and the fish I caught were small. But Ice Berg is always worth a look. It is one of the most beautiful canyons on the lake. I will fish the previous spots with my clients tomorrow. Zara spooks, buzz baits, drop shot senko and Texas rigged tubes ruled the day and the fish. Most bass were 1-2lb with a few larger and the stripers were 3-6lbs and fat. Everything is fat and still feeding.
	Saturday This was a fishing trip to remember. Four long time friends on Lake Powell, and we were catching. After the 1.5 days of pre-fish, I had a plan. We would start south towards the Rincon. Our first stop would be the back of the canyon where I found the striper boil the morning before and as a guide you couldn't ask for a better start to the day. I stopped the boat and picked up a spinning rod with a drop shot senko. I showed them how to flip the bait out towards the bank using the rod tip so four anglers are not casting sharp hooks overhand and told them to let it sink to the bottom once the bait was in the water. As I am showing this to them a fish hits the bait so I set the hook and ask an angler to hold the rod for me and reel. WHAM! Largemouth #1 was in the boat. 20-30 largemouth's and smallmouth's later plus some nice stripers on light tackle but before 11am, we were just getting started. We started with 2 different set ups. The drop shot senko I mentioned prior and a Texas rigged tube. Schools of largemouth, smallmouth and stripers were feeding in the backs of canyons where shad were. They were all chasing shad up on the bank and into the shallow salt cedars. I was worried that the full moon would slow down the feeding fish but there was something in this moon that triggered the fall bite. We didn't see as many boils this day but once we found the bait balls, we would just flip our baits to surrounding cover and BANG! Fish on.
	At around 11am we headed for the Rincon and stop #2. When we got there fish were busting on shad everywhere and it was hammer time. We realized after about a dozen bass that the drop shot senko was out catching the tube. We pulled up on a beach to eat lunch and re-rig all spinning gear to the drop shot. If you put on a robo worm, nothing. If you put on a lizard, maybe one fish. If you put on the senko, BANG! 20-30 more bass later with many doubles and a triple it was 2:30pm and time to head in. The day was warm with a slight breeze. Good friends with great commentary all day. The fishing and catching was one of the best I ever had on Lake Powell. It was perfect. I can't wait for tomorrow. Sunday: Blown off the lake. Last night the winds came up howling. High wind advisory, 25-35 with 45mph gusts. It was every bit of all that all night and all day today clear into early evening. Bummer! Monday: I picked up Mike and his wife Kathy at the Bullfrog launch ramp. They had flown from Saint Louis to Vegas and rented a vehicle to see the west. Welcome to the most beautiful, desolate place on earth. I would stick to the same plan as Saturday and head south. The winds were gone and it was going to be another great day as long as yesterday's winds didn't blow the fish out. When we arrived we immediately started hooking up to largemouth. It was a little slow at the first spot but I could see boiling in the very back so off we went. The fish were schooled up on the shad in the very back. The drop shot was working them over. I picked up the Zara spook and hit the boiling water in the brush on the bank and every striper in the boil was blowing it out of the water until one finally hooked up. Mike never let go of the Zara spook the rest of the day. Kathy was cleaning up the fish under the boat with the senko while Mike was picking them off the top with the Zara Spook. The fish did not have a chance. We were catching more smallmouths today and even a school of 2 pounders came through and couldn't resist the dog a walking. Nice fat 3-5lb stripers and even one mean 5" largemouth that ate a 6" lure. The feed is on. This day would end at noon and we still caught plenty of fish throughout the 1/2 day trip. The water is so clear you can watch the schools of fish come in after the shad. Another awesome day on Lake Powell.

October 10, 2009 - Steve

Fished the last two S/M/T, going back in the morning for another 3 days. Found more LG Mouth's than in the last few years, though only up to 2 1/2 lbs. Fished Slickrock (Backend), main channel sloping banks up to 25' and single Stripers ( 3-5 lbs. ) on Zara's. Caught over 100 (variety) each trip, jerkbaits good for Smallies and 4" - 6" shakey head worms for Largies.

Also fly fished (Poppers) and had Topwater bite early or cloudy. Overall, great trip when out of the wind. Swamped Gambler at 3am. Entire back of boat up to windshield under water. Bailed out in morning, cranked engine and fished last two days. Pretty scary night, batteries, gas tank, oil tank and all compartments under water. Was amazed that we started back up and fished and got back to Halls. Taking friends Skeeter this time.

October 12, 2009 - Bent Rods - Escalante

Spent Oct. 7-10 up Escalante and had a great time. water temps were 68F (compared to 65F in the main channel). Only encountered one boil of yearlings before sunrise on the 8th. I wasn't able to graph a school that would hang around long enough to have success spooning. We did troll up a couple 3-pound stripers but trolling wasn't very productive. I had a really hard time keeping 9-11" smallmouth off even large lures. Just outside of the brushlines about every other cast resulted in a hook-up. I filleted a dozen or so for dinner one night along with the stripers. I'd never eaten a smallmouth before. They were actually really tasty.

If you've got kids, go anchor in some submerged brush in 6-8' water and hand out rods with single-salmon-egg sized hooks. The 5-8" bluegill action was non-stop. My kids (all under 10 years old) probably spent 15 hours fishing for bluegill this trip and never got tired of it. I think more time was spent taking fish off hooks and re-baiting than waiting for bites.

October 12, 2009 - Mike Larsen - Rincon Bass

	When the case you are scheduled to try settles and all of a sudden you have some free days on your hands, there is only one thing to do: GO FISHING! And that is exactly what John Wilson and I did last week at Lake Powell. When the case settled, we grabbed our gear, some groceries and our spontaneous wives and headed to the lake. We arrived on Wed. afternoon, Oct. 7th and once situated on we headed out for some evening fishing around Halls Crossing marina and surrounding areas. Fishing with white and green tubes we picked up lots a nice small mouth bass and an occasional large mouth. Fish got more active and aggressive as the sun started to dip in the west. Not surprisingly, points on open water were most productive with the backs of notches less productive, except for an occasional large mouth hanging out in the back of a nice cut. Mike Larsen
	We were staying on a boat I keep in a slip at Halls Crossing so early Thursday morning found us fishing the cuts above Halls Crossing and Bullfrog, again with good, steady success using white and light green tubes or grubs. Calm winds also allowed us to throw some top water lures with limited action and generally smaller fish. John Wilson
	After a very good morning, we collected our wives, packed a lunch and headed south for the rest of the day. After a relaxing lunch in a beautiful cove, we got back after the fishing while the girls read and napped. Occasionally we begged them to ohhh and ahhh at our fishing skills. Mostly they just rolled their eyes and went back to reading their books! We fished the Rincon area again with steady, good fish, particularly on points for small mouth and recessed notches for some nice large mouth. Occasionally a school of stripers would slip under us and a well placed gig produced a few stripers although we were not really going after the stripers--the bass fishing was just too much fun. The middle of the afternoon on Thursday introduced lots of smallish bass messing with our lures, mixed with some solid fish. As evening fell the quality and pace of the fishing improved significantly. Every other cast was producing a nice fish for us. We were treated to a beautiful sunset to go along with great company, a lovely fall day and some great fishing!
	Friday morning found us again down in the Rincon area. Conditions seemed ideal for some topwater action and John picked up a couple of fish but generally fishing was slower on Friday morning than it had been on Thursday evening. Tubes in whites and various shades of green seemed to work best, with the bigger fish holding in deeper water 8 to 10 feet away from the shore and on the points. All in all, another great time had a Lake Powell. Mike Larsen SLC, UT

October 20, 2009 - Galen Landon - Highland, UT - Bullfrog Bass

Fished upstream from Bullfrog October 14 – 16, Air Temp in upper 70’s to low 80’s, water 67-69 degrees.

We fished primarily for LMB & SMB and tried for a few Stripers but unable to get any hookups. Bass action was steady with most being caught using a 3” brown/green tube jig, Carolina rig with Gulp worm and a few on spinners. Largest fish was a healthy LMB in the 3 ½ - 4 ½ pound range (didn’t have time to weight it) with several others pushing the same size. Great time at Powell with some of the best bass cover I’ve seen.

Only downside to the trip was due to the recklessness of other boaters as a cabin cruiser came within 50 feet of my houseboat causing the huge waves to break my other boat away, wrapping the tow rope around my 12 yr olds leg pulling it really tight. He’s lucky he was wearing pants and it didn’t break his leg but did cause some serious tissue damage… Please boaters, obey the no wake rules! Obviously didn’t have time to get the other boat’s info to report the incident and thanks to the other boater who stopped to help us out.

October 31, 2009 - Marty Peterson and Richard Snow - Bullfrog

Tried the night fishing at the Bullfrog covered slips on 10/29. Cold temps and windy. Landed one catfish. Fished off the back of the houseboat for three hours and that was the only fish. There are new signs posted that state that no fishing is allowed from the dock or walkways. And that only owners and their guests are allowed past the signs.

The morning of the the 30th was below freezing but with reports of stripers being taken trolling in the back of Bullfrog Bay we started out early. Did not pick up a striper until about noon and that was out of a small boil near shore. We then landed another twenty spooning out of moving schools using Wallylures. All in less than 30 foot deep water. Right at dark activity increased and so we anchored in expecting some good night fishing. But no shad and no striper. Nearly full moon. Calm wind.

Lake Canyon sunrise

We had half a day the 31st to find more fish. Decided to try Lake Canyon. Found no striper schools. No smallmouth or largemouth either. Caught one striper on topwater and one on a jig.

Average striper was around three pounds. Our largest 3 lbs. 7 oz. Good fighters. Air temp Saturday morning 33. Water 57. By afternoon: air 60, water 64.