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Have you made a recent fishing trip to Lake Powell?
If you have, please let us know how you did.  Send your fishing report to Wayne Gustaveson (wayne@wayneswords.com) via E-mail.  Please include who you are and where you're from, dates fished, location, tackle used, species and number of fish caught and any other information you would like to pass on to other anglers.

  If you have a photo from your trip or of interesting shot of Lake Powell that you would like to see on this page or the "slideshow" page, please send them to Wayne Gustaveson via E-mail (wayne@wayneswords.com) in a JPEG format.  

Fish Report Guidelines

No pictures are needed but they add to the reports. My goal is to post a basic report that will make it easier for someone else to catch fish in your spot.  Please send the basics with each report - where you caught fish,  what techniques, lures, depth, and what special strategy worked. Our goal here is to save shad by encouraging harvest of striped bass.  If we do that then all fisheries benefit from the effort. 

Keep the reports coming.  Try to limit pictures to no more than 5. I need to have them in jpg format to keep up with the volume received.   I use these pictures for news media releases so high resolution photos are needed of the best photos. A fuzzy photo can be low res and I will still use it for the web but not print media. Be aware that your photo may be used in other locations.

If possible send, first and last name, and hometown. The media likes unusual pictures of kids (include age) and gals. Be creative when taking photos. (see the kid and catfish picture below.) Change poses and backgrounds. Use the flash in full sun to make the face show up under the hat.

Keep the reports coming.  Thanks to all who have contributed because it makes it easier for a new arrival to start fishing with confidence needed to catch fish on this huge lake.

 

If you have a general question try posting on WAYNESWORDS FORUMS.

 
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January 17, 2009 - Marty Peterson - Bullfrog stripers

Fished out of Bullfrog for a few days this week. We had an informal group of anglers including the host of KUTV Roughin it Outdoors. So he had a chance to take some video. Tentatively to show Jan. 23. And also Dan from the DWR.

On Wed. morning two of us started out by heading up to Lake Canyon. Landed 1 Striper. Had to be back to Bullfrog to meet up with others at noon. But delays allowed us to head up to upper Bullfrog Bay. Found Stripers on graph. Caught 10 in an hour on Wallylures. Called other boats on radio and let them know the fish were biting. Picked up late arriving angler and headed back. Had dropped a marker buoy.

As soon as the boat's momentum stopped we lowered our spoons to the fish. All three poles hooked up at once. Then hardly even another bite after that. Of course the two other boats showed up after the fishing slowed.

Thursday went back to the upper bay area. Found several more schools of active Stripers in the morning. Caught 50 or so between 3 boats. Anchovy and spoons both had mixed success. After going in around noon to fillet, one boat headed up to Moki, one to Halls and we went to try out the other canyons. We caught a few LMB and 1 SMB.

Jason
Friday, in the same areas of the bay with the same schools showing up, the fishing was much slower. In the afternoon we decided to try the very top of Bullfrog Bay. Where it is less than 20' deep. Casting rattletraps we picked up a nice Walleye, several LMB and a few more Stripers. Great weather.
 

 

Brad Cutler report:  Before we met up we had six or seven fish from Halls.  Three were caught trolling a Norman DD22 one hundred and fifty feet behind the boat.  A couple on anchovies and one or two on spoons.  We lost a few more trolling.  We trolled less than an hour.  Rex's boat had a few fish on anchovies.


Saturday morning we fished bullfrog until 10 am.  We caught ten fish all on anchovies in 57 to 62 feet of water.  Dan lost a couple on spoons.

I had a great time. We need to do it again soon.
 

January 5, 2010 - Kip Bennett and Shawn Johnson - Wahweap Bass
 

We went out Saturday, January 2nd for our annual fishing trip. We heard from Ron Colby as we were launching that the stripers were biting over by Lone Rock so we headed over there but couldn't get them to bite even though we did see them. We then moved to another location to see if we could get into our favorite target, the largemouth and smallmouth.
We got back into a cove where we had some luck at the end of last year and threw some soft baits along the shoreline letting them sit for a bit. Most of the time we were throwing soft plastics weightless letting them sink slowly to the bottom. Kip threw one of his money baits into about 3 foot of water and busied himself getting his other poles ready.

 

Kip Bennett
 By the time he got back to his pole he figured he'd let it set to long and it was hooked in the weeds. He raised his pole and felt the ugly tug of what seemed to be a nice logfish, which are quite plentiful in our lake. But as he pulled up again he felt the pole wiggle in his hands as though something live were on the other end. Sure enough there was a 3lb Largemouth on the other end that didn't put up much of a fight but looked plenty healthy.
We tried a couple other spots around Sand King that were about 30ft deep and Kip was able to land a 1lb Largemouth and Smallmouth on slowly sinking soft baits. Lookin' forward to another great year on the lake and many more great fish stories.
 

January 4, 2010 - Ron Colby - Warm Creek Stripers

Ron went to Warm Creek and harassed the stripers again.  This time he caught 3 over 5 pounds ,  The largest was 5.75 pounds.  Some 3 pounders were caught along with more 2 pound fish.

 

Spoons fished in pods of fish seen on the graph is the recommended method.

The key to catching fish is to get out early.  They seem to bite in the morning until 10 AM. Once they shut down it is very difficult to get a bite until about 2 PM in the afternoon. 

December 22, 2009 - Loren Unsworth & Mikey Keller - Price, Utah - Bullfrog stripers
My brother and I headed out late on Friday and started fishing on the slips.

We had about two bites and heard that bassman, rimrock, kbass, and goldcup were doing well. We went over to see what they were doing, and they took us under their wing and showed us the ropes.



Fishing was so fun, we drove back to price that night, picked up our dad, and came back Saturday night to fish with their crew again.

Loren and Mikey

 
We didn't knock them dead, but its the most I have ever caught on the docks. The three of us landed 20 and I don't know how many they ended with.

Big thanks to you fellas, I would love to go with you any time you headed down.

Oh yeah, the weather was great.

December 22, 2009 - Gold Cup - Bullfrog stripers

K-Bass, Rimrock, Gold Cup and Bass Man fished the Bullfrog slips Friday and Saturday night. Catching 62 nice stripers on Friday night and around 40 Saturday night with a little some help from our new friends from Price.

Fish were sitting between 40 and 75 feet. Most the fish we caught were spitting up shad as we landed them. All pleasingly plump with full fat stomachs.



Bass Man
Shad would come into the light about one hour after dark with some breaking the surface as the evening went on. We used a ½ oz white glow jig head with 1/3 of an anchovy, dropping it into the hook-up zone at fifty feet and dropping and / or lifting from that depth until we found the hot spots.

Fish would start to bite around 1/2 hour after sunset. All fish came with an attitude,

were fat and sassy and put up a good fight. (even snapped the end off of GoldCups rod.)

K-Bass
Most fish were around 3 lbs. with a few in 4 to 4.5 range. We may even have had one or two at or near 5 pounds. We had a blast watching football and catching fish.

We had our fill quitting both nights around 10:00 pm.

Nights were warm around 40 degrees.



 

Other Gold Cup friends

We did not take the boat, but there was a big boat trolling around the tires that was catching stripers. Don't know what they were using but they had a big bunch of stripers hanging off the back of the boat.

*On a side note to Bass Mans report, we caught an additional 40 plus on Sunday night,

not keeping but only a few and selecting from the biggest. Total for the Weekend about

150 give or take a few.

We all had a great time catching fish in the middle of December.

Who would have thunk it? What great winter fishing.

December 6, 2009 - Marty Peterson - Bullfrog

Fished Upper Bullfrog Bay Friday and Saturday. Graphed many schools of fish. Found one school that had fish we could catch. We had lowered spoons to many before finally having a bite. Then both spoons and anchovies worked. Just after noon on Friday. Produced ten. Heaviest just over 3 Lbs. All fat.


 
Nightfishing was slow. A striper each and a walleye. On anchovy. Plus several small catfish. Cold. Iced up our fishing poles.

Saturday started out cool and windy. Spooned up nothing but a catfish. But had lost all Wallylures to snags. Will have to order more. Wind would blow us into submerged stuff. Tried for crappie and smb. No bites there either.

Still, kind of fun.
 

December 2, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Warm Creek Stripers
We did another round of battle with Warm Creek stripers today. You can see my November 24 report below.  I also went out on Thanksgiving Day but there is no report. On that day each son caught one and I got none. We caught fish at 9:15 - 9:30 AM.  (More about that later)

We again went to mouth of Crosby - 45 feet of water but  marked no fish. Then we ventured out to 60 feet with the same results. Well, if they are not shallow and not at normal winter depth (60 feet) they must be deeper.

Sure enough as the graph marked 80 feet we saw a school on the bottom. Spoons were dropped and fish were caught. There was a twist however. These fish were "cold" and hugging bottom. The trick was to drop the spoon on the bottom, lift it up 6 inches and then just hold it there. A striper would then pick at it a bit and we could set the hook to catch the fish. Crazy spooning - but very similar to an experience we had at Lone Rock a year ago in December. Dead sticking spoons - interesting. Striper size ranged from 1.5 pounds to 4.5 pounds.

We wondered if bait would work in these conditions? But not having bait that will have to be answered another day (probably by someone else).

My thought is these fish would have been suckers for a 1-ounce marabou jig or a plastic swim bait. So many options - so little time...

The common thread here is that fish seem to bite best about 9 AM... or more correctly by the time the sun comes up, the boat is launched, we travel to Warm Creek and finally graph a school of fish the time is 9:15 AM. That first drop on a school is quite good but after that schools are hard to find and harder to hook.

Next time I go out, launch time will be 7 AM  (Brrrrr).  After a cold run the sun will come up and we will thaw. But I think the morning bite starts at first light and lasts until 9:30 AM. I think we are missing the best fishing times by waiting for it to warm  up and calm down before heading out.  Next time I predict we will have 20 plus fish in the boat between 8-9 AM.

November 24, 2009 - Wayne Gustaveson - Warm Creek Stripers
Headed out fishing this morning at 8:30 with Warm Creek as the destination. Last time there a few weeks ago stripers were 60 feet deep on a drop off near the back of the canyon. We started looking there and found nothing. So the recent reports we have received about Warm Creek proved accurate.

Next we went shallower toward Crosby Canyon. At 9:15 a promising school showed on the graph at a depth of 45 feet.  Spoons went down and just like clockwork stripers came up.  Action was fast for about 20 minutes as a dozen stripers came aboard.  Fish were very nice with one almost 5 pounds. 

Most of the fish were on bottom and responded to spoons hopping on the bottom but when a fish was hooked, a little speed reeling got some of the onlookers involved in the action.   

When that school played out we searched further into Crosby. I saw lots of suspended fish so we tried trolling.  The deep divers swam well but no fish responded.  (We later found at the cleaning station that smaller stripers were eating plankton so they were likely the suspended targets).

We went shallower and looked for shad in the trees but found none.  Topwater and flukes did not work in the shallows.  So we headed back to the first spot where we had left our marker. About 300 yards before we reached the marker a huge school of bait appeared. We dropped the spoons and yearling stripers responded.  It may be that the gigantic bait ball was actually 14 inch stripers. Regardless, we welcomed them aboard.  When we got through with that action a dozen fish were laying on the deck.  We put them in the cooler and headed home with 28 stripers.

Wallylures, Sebile Fast Cast spoons, and a homemade slab spoon all worked about the same.  When fish were on the graph but not hitting my spoon I quickly snapped a new one on just to give them a different look.  That often worked with one more hookup. Spoons worked well when over an active school.  Trolling and casting were not effective probably  because the fish were at 45 feet.

It looks to be a good winter for spooning. I expect this to last up until at least Christmas.

 

Weather was cold and calm today.