Lake Powell Fish Report – September 21, 2016
Lake Elevation: 3611.26
Water Temperature: 73 – 75 F
I made it back on the water this week after successful knee surgery. My doctor suggested using the knee as much as the pain would allow. I thought I should do more to hasten healing, so I incorporated my own plan for “fish-ical” therapy. I can highly recommend my techniques for improving knee strength and movement which include: trolling while sitting down with the knee elevated. (I also iced the knee while the cold rain came down and soaked the ace bandage.) Standing straight up and casting top water lures toward shore. This also works for spooning striper schools in deep water and bass on drop-offs near shore. I tried sitting down while bait fishing but I had to keep standing up to land the fish. I have to improve that technique and will report back next week.
The last report said to fish with the technique which inspires the greatest confidence in catching. Therefore I choose techniques that give me complete confidence in catching fish. I was not disappointed.
Bait Fishing: The first stop was at Warm Creek Wall. Previously cut chum was tossed in the water where the Warm Creek Wall ends at the entrance to Wahweap Bay. It took 5 minutes for the chum to settle and then stripers started to hit regularly as the bait impaled on a ¼ ounce jig head descended to 30-50 feet. We spent 20 minutes there, caught 10 fish and then moved on. Bait fishing still works at the normal spots.
Other bait spots include: Padre Canyon, Rock Creek (close to the mouth of the canyon).
Trolling: The second stop was near Gregory Butte where stripers reportedly boiled last week. They were seen on both the east and west shorelines but the surface activity decreased as the full moon got brighter. We trolled a shallow running rattletrap and a deep running walleye lure. Both lures got ticked but the rattletrap caught a healthy young striper. I was constantly searching for deep resting schools of stripers that could be caught on spoons. Unfortunately, the graph did not show anything but a blank water column. So we moved on.
We stopped at West Canyon mouth and repeated the trolling pattern. We caught two bass and another striper but saw no spooning schools. So we moved on.
Top Water: We moved into Dove Canyon which was dead calm and stopped midway back in the middle arm and cast topwater lures to the brushy shoreline. It was fun to see large and smallmouth bass blow up on the surface lures and follow them to the boat splashing all the way. These were curious fish that needed to improve their targeting techniques as only one largemouth bass was actually hooked and landed. I really enjoy the experience of seeing bass and stripers strike surface lures. It is very exciting.
The dead calm water then succumbed to the weather front and strong winds blew for a short time followed by light rain. We used discretion and returned to Stateline Ramp and called it a day. The report summary is that all techniques tried, worked. The full moon and weather front had a negative impact on fishing success but each technique caught fish. Lake Powell was beautiful on a calm overcast morning. I am thankful for the opportunity to be back out on the lake enjoying what I love to do best.
