It's beginning! The southern lake is starting to boil after a 3 week quiet spell where fishing was very tough. The northern lake has had sustained striper boils over the same period. Now it appears the whole lake will provide excellent fishing. Dark moon in August bodes well for anglers who like topwater fishing.

Yesterday there were sustained striper boils at the dam from 6 to 8 AM. Today we ran a circuit around Antelope Island to see how extensive the boiling stripers were. At 6 AM scattered stripers were seen chasing shad from Buoy 1 to the dam. A rattletrap cranked down would catch an occasional fish. But that wasn't fast enough so we raced uplake.
 

Morris Gem Maxfield with nice smallmouth caught in striper boil.

 
At Buoy 3 we joined another boat fishing the first real boil of the day. Surface lures worked great with these tightly packed fish that were jumping high out of the water  Just cast into or beyond the school for multiple hook ups. This school moved rapidly from Buoy 1 to Buoy 3 in one half hour. They went down and we preceded uplake.

No striper schools were seen in Antelope Marina. Scattered fish started to pop near Buoy 9 but we could only catch an occasional fish on slowly cranked crankbaits. So we continued the circuit.

At the confluence of Warm Creel and the main channel (Buoy 12) a huge boil blew up at 7:45 AM. We caught multiple fish on surface lures and crankbaits. One boil was right in the middle of the travel lane while another one was going on shore. We had a really great time with this bunch and placed multiple fish in the cooler.

We expected all the fish to stay down after 8 AM but made a token run around Warm Creek hoping for one more school. That was a seemingly futile gesture so we headed the boat for Castle Rock Cut and home. With the Cut in sight we were detoured by the largest boil of the day. We finished filling the cooler and headed in at 9 AM.

Boils are even better between Rock Creek and San Juan. The lake from San Juan to Bullfrog is starting to boil as well. Topwater striper fishing will be the big news on the lake from now until the end of September. Most boils in the lower lake are in the channel but there will be many boils in coves as well. Most boils will happen at dusk and dawn but daytime boils will become more common with time.

Don't be surprised to catch bass in the boils with the stripers. As surface temperature drops bass will come shallow as well. September will be the best fishing month that Lake Powell has seen for many years.

Catfish are still prowling the shoreline around camp and bluegill are in the brush but it will be very hard to pass up the boils for the more sedate forms of fishing.