April 2006

[wayne gustaveson]

April 27, 2006 By Wayne Gustaveson Lake Elevation: 3592 Water Temp: 57-65 F

The bass spawn continues in staggered fashion. Unsettled weather delayed some fish from nesting while others spawned in warm, calm locations. Some bass are building nests while others guard young fry. The end result features active bass that are shallow, and deep, with some in between. All are willing to chase lures. The main action is in shallow water with a deep water escape route close by. Terminal coves near brush are good, but don’t overlook a shallow reef, long point or island in open water. Nests made last week will be deeper and further from shore as the rising water covers more land. Bass are responding well to jerk baits, spinner baits, plastic tubes, grubs and senkos. Fish on nests are very aggressive when eggs are fresh and nervous and flighty when eggs are hatching. Crappie are spawning on the same schedule as bass. Expect them to be in brush pockets with tumbleweeds being the dominant habitat type. Drop a tiny jig into pockets and spaces between limbs and bushes. Gently move the jig up and down to invite attention and to keep the small hook from grabbing a limb. Crappie will be in water 3-10 feet deep. Post spawn walleye are rebuilding their hungry bodies by feeding around the clock as water heats up. Walleye will be in 10-20 feet of water near brush that hides sunfish and shad. Fish jerk baits, and spinner baits near brush in morning and late evening twilight for best walleye action. Slow trolling through mudlines that cover rocky points with wallydivers or live worm harnesses is the best daytime walleye technique. Expect walleye catches to increase daily and peak during May. Striper fishing remains hot in the southern lake. Big coolers of stripers are harvested each day from the dam to the Navajo Canyon. Fishing pressure has spread out as stripers run the canyon walls. Schools are commonly found in the main channel at different locations each day. Try various locations with a run and chum mindset. Have confidence that stripers will respond to chum at your location instead of searching for the one hot spot that others have found. There is an added striper bonus now. With warming water, juvenile stripers have become active and easy to catch on bait. That means lots of stripers will be caught while waiting for schools of bigger fish to come by. The points above the first set of double islands in Navajo are producing lots of small stripers. In the remainder of the lake, stripers are in the backs of canyons feeding near brush with walleye and bass. Troll, cast or jig to schools of opportunity. Find fish on the graph and quickly put a lure in their midst for a chance to catch many stripers in short order. Stripers are fat and strong in the northern lake waters.

April 18, 2006 By Wayne Gustaveson Lake Elevation: 3589 Water Temp: 55-64 F

BASS SPAWN BEGINS!​ The report is early so you can take advantage of ideal fishing conditions this week. A few bass began spawning April 14th before a cold front chased them off the nest. Most bass will spawn during calm weather from April 18-22. Expect bass fishing to be at its peak from April 18-28. Lake Powell is still very clear so nesting bass can be easily seen with polarized sun glasses. Find a bass nest and toss a slowly sinking plastic jerk bait (Senko or fluke) or small suspending crankbait over the nest. Aggressive male bass attack everything near the nest for the first two days after spawning. Catching male bass is easy. Please return nesting male bass so they can protect the eggs and young. Keep the females caught near the nest if a fish dinner is desired. Long casts are preferred since fish can see boaters just as clearly as they are seen. Crappie fishing is peaking and will be better than it has been for a decade. Find a brushy cove with sunken tumbleweeds, tamarisk and cattails. Crappie will make their nests right in the middle of the thickest brush. Drop a soft plastic grub straight down into openings between bushes. Jig it a few times to attract hiding crappie. Retrieve the lure slowly near brush to find females not on the nest. An alternate method is to use a bobber to suspend the jig about 3-4 feet below the surface. The jig then moves in a slow horizontal plane just above the brushy crappie lair. Return jet-black male crappie to protect the nest and young. Walleye have started to bite again following a successful spawn. They will be caught while fishing for bass and crappie. If targeting walleye, add a live worm to the bass lure or troll wallydivers or hot-n-tots across points at 8-15 feet. Walleye are light sensitive and are most readily caught at dawn and dusk. Troll mud lines during daylight to find bonus walleye. Striped bass are ever-present in the southern lake. The main channel from the dam to Navajo Canyon has a seemingly endless supply of 2-5 pound stripers. The best spot is the wall from Antelope Point marina upstream to the mouth of Navajo Canyon. The Power Plant intake current keeps attracting more stripers daily. Drift along the wall, chumming at each point, where stripers seem to stop. Catch as many fish as possible and then drift to the next point and repeat as often as necessary. Harvest all stripers caught in the southern lake as there are many more than the forage base can support. Stripers are feeding with bass in the shallow brushy pockets in the backs of coves and cuts. Find tumbleweeds and stickups dense enough to hide forage fish and stripers will be close by. Use suspending crankbaits with a stop and go retrieve for best results. The same patterns will work lakewide. Use fishing techniques that have worked successfully for you in the past. Fishing with confidence will work anywhere on the lake this week. If fish are not caught at the first spot, just keep moving until they are found.

April 13, 2006 By Wayne Gustaveson Lake Elevation: 3588 Water Temp: 54-62 F

Lake Powell is rising and water is warming. It’s bass fishing time, but do not go without your thermometer. Each spring water warms unevenly. The sunny side or calm side of a cove may be as much as 7 degrees warmer than surrounding water. Fish feel that warmth and move. The only way for an angler to know is to check the temperature. Find the warm spot and fish will be there. Bass will spawn this weekend IF the weather stays warm. More likely one more front will come through delaying spawning until April 17 to 20. It really can not be delayed much longer than that. The bass spawn this year will put our new super-sized large and smallmouth bass in shallow waters where they can be easily seen and readily caught. Expect some really big bass to be caught in the next two weeks. If a male bass is caught on the nest please while sight-fishing, please return that fish to guard the young. Smallmouth up to 4 pounds and largemouth to 7 pounds have already been taken. Expect more of that action. The lake record for smallmouth is 5 pounds 2 ounces. That record may fall this year. Bass and crappie will be in the backs of coves around brush. Use tiny plastic or marabou jigs for crappie. Toss near flooded tamarisk or tumbleweeds and retrieve as slowly as possible. Crappie will come out of the brush to hit the lure. Creel limit on crappie is 10 fish. Return the rest for another time.Use spinnerbaits, suspending crankbaits and plastic jigs and tubes for bass. Throw into the tumbleweed/tamarisk piles for largemouth bass. Work rocky points and drop-offs adjacent to shallow water for smallmouth bass. Remember to find the warmest water when searching for bass and crappie. Stripers are feeding on shad in the northern lake upstream from Bullfrog. Graph these schools and drop jigging spoons directly on the school for best results. Trolling was not as good. Fish for bass until a striper school is seen and then quickly drop the spoon to get the best fishing experience. In the southern lake bait fishing for stripers is hot. The dam is not the place to fish anymore. Striper schools are traveling close to the walls of the main channel from Buoy One to Navajo Canyon. Use lots of chum and drift along the wall until a school is located. Then hold in position with an electric motor or tie to a rock outcrop on the cliff wall. Morning feeding periods have been consistent but schools can be located anytime of day. I prefer to move along the wall actively searching for a school instead of waiting for a school to come to me. The power plant intake wall is a good bet. Also look in Navajo on the first two points upstream from the double islands. Stripers are getting more active in the backs of the canyons in the southern lake. The only thing that can slow fishing now is a bad weather day. Fishing will be excellent for the next two weeks.

April 6, 2006 By Wayne Gustaveson Lake Elevation: 3588 Water Temp: 50-55 F

Lake Powell water levels have stabilized and will not go much lower this year. Unsettled Spring weather is warm one day and cool the next. The weather forecast calls for lows in the 30’s with highs in the 70’s for the coming week. One of the bass spawning triggers is day length, the other is temperature. Days are long enough but the temperature is lagging. The time is now right for bass to spawn so they have to be moving to the shallows despite the weather. Both large and smallmouth bass will be lurking on the deep water edge of suitable spawning substrate. Largemouth bass seek shallow rocky rubble areas with a bush overhead. Smallmouth bass want the same rocky ridge or flat but they do not need the bush. It is common to see both species nesting on the same shallow rocky structure. Cast to the bush to catch a largemouth and to the rock pile to catch a smallmouth bass. Expect bass fishing to get very good on each warm afternoon. Do not expect bass to bite in the morning after a night of cold temperatures. Murky water warms more quickly than clear water so spend time in the warmest water available to maximize your catch. A good fishing strategy for Bullfrog/Halls is to troll for stripers in the backs of the canyons in the morning using deep diving crankbaits. Troll as fast as possible to get a reaction strike from fussy stripers. It seems slowly trolled baits are being ignored in the northern lake where fish are fat and forage is plentiful. Then in the afternoon go bass fishing with spinner baits, shallow running suspending crankbaits and standard plastic crayfish-imitating jigs. Morning strategy in the southern lake out of Wahweap/ Antelope is to fish stripers with anchovy bait along the steep walls of the Colorado River Channel from the dam to Navajo Canyon. There is a good early morning bite followed by a mid day feeding spree from stripers running the canyon walls. In the afternoon, head to the back of one of the canyons to fish for bass. Bass behavior will be the same lakewide. Crappie will be suspended in the backs of canyons near brush. Fish for them by trolling slowly with an electric motor using a small plastic grub or tube. Line length behind the boat will determine depth of lure in the water. Experiment until the right depth is found.