John P Funk
Escalante-Class Member
With beautiful weather in the forecast(mid-70's and no wind) I decided to take my camper, pedal boat, junior fishermen(ages 6 and 9), and camp cook(wife) to Farley for the weekend. No one was camped in our favorite spot by the cottonwood trees, so we set up the camper there Friday night at dark. Took the boat and pickup down to the wash early Saturday to find a camp of two Asian gentlemen(Farley regulars) breaking down their camp. I asked them about their fishing success and they said they had only caught a few smallmouth bass. They asked what we were targeting and I said Stripers and Crappie. Their response was "No Striper, No Crappie". They also confirmed that Farley was separated from White Canyon and the rest of the lake. We carried/drug the boat 4 or 500 yards along the wash as it was too wet to drive in(almost found out the hard way, but was able to back out). We slow-trolled Berkley Swimbaits in a variety of colors up the East side of Farley and brought a single healthy crappie to the boat (I had 2 stripers that got off before they got to the boat). We went to the river end of the canyon to check things out and eat lunch, and somehow while disembarking, my trusty 20 year old Shakespeare rod and reel combo came out of the rod holder and found it's way to the bottom(over a ledge of course). After lunch we made our way back to better smallmouth habitat and started casting/retrieving in shallow water. My daughter caught another nice crappie, and after borrowing my sons rod and reel(my spare rod was back in the truck) and putting on a single tail 3" grub in watermelon flake I caught a smallish Smallmouth. We had had enough pedaling for the day and headed back to camp. Sunday morning was again beautiful, and far better fishing. We slow trolled up the opposite bank toward better habitat(broken rock ledges/points) and I had a striper hooked within about 5 minutes. I didn't take the hint, and we continued to cast to shore for a while and caught a little largemouth, and had a few strikes from smaller fish. We needed to get back home in the afternoon so we started to troll our way back to the truck, and the stripers wouldn't let us make much progress. We caught 4 more stripers in quick succession. My daughter and I had an exciting double going until her fish pulled her knot. I believe we could have caught a lot of fish if we'd had the time Sunday, but real life tends to interfere with fishing life. Anyway, the fish tally was 2 Crappie, 1 Smallmouth, and 5 very healthy 3-4 lb stripers. Oh yeah, we also had a great time in a beautiful place enjoying great weather. Going to keep my eye on the weather for another trip this fall, even if I have to re-winterize the camper when it comes home.