Wayne, I want to thank you for replying to my post as quickly as you did. I was able to open it just before I launched onto the lake Friday Morning and helped solidify where we were going. You are a both a great man and angler! Now to our weekend.
We decided we would head up Navajo and camp there because of the beach for the kids to play on and the good fishing. As we came through the cut at approximately 0900 I was surprised to find some slurps about 400 yards into the Warm Creek side. We threw a few lures but did not catch anything. We then made our way into the main channel and towards the mouth of Navajo. To our surprise, we hit 3 separate slurps/ soft boils between Warn Creek and Navajo. I call it a soft boil because I found that about a quarter of the stripers were actively jumping and blasting the shad out of the water, while the remaining stripers were actually slurping. This soft boil allowed my wife to accidentally throw her lure into the boil instead of ahead of them like Wayne and I recommended to her and still connect with a willing and hungry striper. We played with those groups for about 30 minutes and then headed up Navajo. As we came to the double island we found another fairly large soft boil. We fished that group for about 20 minutes and then headed to set up camp. As we came back down the channel we found the same group at the double islands and then found another group about 5 corners west of the double islands. Between the two groups we fished them throughout the day every time we passed by. Friday was a great day.
After putting the stripers to bed I figured it would be a great morning of fishing. As we went to bed I noticed the large bright full moon which seemed to keep the earth lit up like a glow stick. We woke up about 0530 and headed down the channel in search of the stripers. Well that never panned out, and we cruised from Navajo, through Warm Creek and then up the main channel with out seeing a group slupring. At the area of the Haystack in Warm creek, I noticed there was about 50 stripers working a football field sized area but could not get any of them to hook up with our lures. They appeared to be working independently of each other without a care of what the other fish were doing. Its really is crazy how the full moon changes the way fish behave on the consecutive day especially since they get to eat good all night long.
They most exciting part of the weekend came from my beautiful four year old daughter. She got her first fishing pole this last Christmas and her only desire was to catch her first fish on her very own pole. Despite reeling in all of my wifes and my fish, it did not count because it was not on her pole. So after getting to reel in 20 stripers and one cat fish she was getting used to see what the stripers looked like. Well Saturday morning we set up on one of the points in Navajo and after my wife and I caught a few stripers her pole finally began to bend and started stripping line. It was not like the other 2-3 lbs stripers we were catching and which were good fights for her, it was clearly a BIG fish. I quickly checked the drag and found that it was set appropriately, my wife helped hold onto the pole and I told them to let the fish tire himself out and play with it until they could start reeling it in. As they reeled it in, it seemed like my daughter would bring in five feet of line just to have the fish take ten back out. After about five minutes of fighting they finally started bring it in. I figured she finally caught "Walter" which I had been looking for in Lake Powell for for the last 38 years but had never caught. As the fish came up to the surface and I caught my first glimpse of it, she had caught about a 12-15 lbs carp. I told my wife what it was and she quickly grabbed the camera to capture the moment. The great part is that she had not seen the fish yet, and was used to seeing me lift a stripped silver fish out of the water. I quickly netted it and as I brought it up in the net, my daughter got her first glimpse, which we captured on camera and is attached to this post. Her reaction was priceless. She was stunned at first and then quickly lept to the other side of the boat in fear and said "holy crap". She refused to touch it and wanted me to get rid of it as soon as I took the hook out of its mouth. These priceless moments are the reason I have a boat and will raise my family on vacation at Lake Powell, as I was raised by my loving parents.
All in all we caught about 20 very healthy stripers, a cat fish and one beast of a carp. We spent more time on the beach playing in the sand and building structures than we did fishing. It was a great weekend. Wayne thanks again for all you do for this lake and those of us who visit it.
Jeremy
