BarzArz
Well-Known Member
Well, our planned weeklong vacation became much shorter due to some last minute issues that came up at work. Therefore, we did not get away until late Wednesday night and drove over night to get to the lake Thursday (July 19) morning. We did work in breakfast at the Twin Rocks Café in Bluff, one of our favorite stops along the way. First ones in the door as they opened. Jackie’s favorite is the Fry Bread French Toast, not always on the menu, you have to ask for it. The Twin Rocks take on Biscuits and Gravy is pretty spectacular as well! Well worth the time if you can work it into your stop as well as a great view and nice place.
Next up, Blanding, Utah to fill up our 60 gallon tank in the boat with some 91 octane no ethanol fuel. $3.95 a gallon and the pumps are open full-time in Blanding at Hunt’s, on the south end of Main.
On to Halls Crossing, pay for our camp space, top off our coolers with six dollar bags of ice, LOL! and set up camp. We have a slide in cab over camper with electric jacks so does not take too long to take the camper off the truck, set up an awning, hook up utilities and ready to go. It was 105° plus or minus each day we were there with evening sand storms and wind storms off and on... we do not have an air conditioner on the camper but have started giving it some thought LOL.
We still had enough time to try the boat out Thursday afternoon, the first time we’ve had it on the water since purchasing it a couple of months ago. It’s a 2005 Crestliner Tournament Series 202, 20’ 3” long and 100.5 inch beam with the 225 hp Honda four stroke and 9.9 Mercury kicker, we were crossing our fingers.
After a rough and windy run from Halls down lake to Lake Canyon with a few stops to fish along the way we determined it to be seaworthy and not too hard to load unload so back to camp with it in preparation for our first full day.
Friday morning, July 20, we started a bit later than intended but we were on the water by 7 AM and headed up lake to Good Hope Bay. The water was fairly choppy and we watched for boils the entire trip, but we never saw any sign. Very little boat traffic and very few people in Good Hope so we spent some time touring around from the floating restrooms on up past the horn and all the way to the confluence of White and Farley Canyon. The mud line was about halfway between Trachyte and 2-mile Canyon and getting shallow quickly… 83.5 degree chocolate milk. We trolled through that area with no takers and ended up fishing both sides of the main channel between 2-mile and -4 mile Canyon a good part of the day as well as much of 2-mile canyon with not a single bite. Hot, windy and disappointing.
Saturday morning, July 21, a bit disillusioned but on the water at daylight none the less. Still a bit windy, but we had a beautiful ride up to Lake toward Good Hope. We met or passed an occasional house boat but pretty quiet. Just north easterly of Cedar Canyon, On the big band before the floating restroom at the south end of good Hope we decide the rocks and structure look too good to pass up right then and are still in shadow. We drop the trolling motor and start fishing. Jackie throws her white Whopper Popper she had tied-on in case we found stripers… and it was on!!
Blue gill, sunfish, LMB and SMB are all hitting top water. We were getting 2-3 strikes per retrieve. One fish hit my Yo-zuri Pencil ghost surface lure so hard it flew about 18” out of the water. Way more strikes than hookups, by what fun! Not many big fish, we released all that managed to get into the boat, about 20 SMB in a short time and a nice LMB and some of the thickest perch I have seen. About 20 minutes and the surface action just stopped, then it was root beer with green flake double Hula grubs on 1/2 oz jig heads, yum green crawfish plastics and chartreuse single tail grubs, all seemingly equally effective. With strikes from near shore to about 10 feet deep, slow retrieves. Great morning. clear water, 82.5 temp, lots of rock with depths running 10-20 feet. All in less than a thousand feet of shore line and in 5-10 mph winds. What a fun morning. It’s was so hot we had to quit fishing and keep finding swimming holes and looking for stripers to no avail. We only fished mornings, as it was so hot and windy in the afternoon with localized storms, so we just shaded up afternoons.
Our last morning, we left Halls ramp at day light and one again started up the lake on an incredible morning, very little wind and sun just starting to light of the walls... and finally a small slurp!
We came in too hot and put them down… and were sitting there being irritated with ourselves when we notice something on the graph.... 3/4 oz kastmasters dropped and we were both hooked up at the same time at about 30-40 feet deep in the middle of the channel. We got 6 of them in the boat ( three each ) and it’s over... but we were smiling!
Went another mile up lake to yesterday’s SMB spot, and not a bite.
So sightsee a bit, we are tired and sunburnt and need to get home. So back to Halls, clean the stripers at the station, get our boat
decontaminated, get the camper on the truck, hook up the boat and we are New Mexico bound by 6PM...and home before 6AM!
It was a short break, hot and windy, but beautiful and we caught a few fish, life is good. It may be September before we are back, but we are looking forward to it! Thanks to Wayne and all you Word lings for the inspiration and reports that are helping us to make a little progress on the “fishing” thing!
Next up, Blanding, Utah to fill up our 60 gallon tank in the boat with some 91 octane no ethanol fuel. $3.95 a gallon and the pumps are open full-time in Blanding at Hunt’s, on the south end of Main.
On to Halls Crossing, pay for our camp space, top off our coolers with six dollar bags of ice, LOL! and set up camp. We have a slide in cab over camper with electric jacks so does not take too long to take the camper off the truck, set up an awning, hook up utilities and ready to go. It was 105° plus or minus each day we were there with evening sand storms and wind storms off and on... we do not have an air conditioner on the camper but have started giving it some thought LOL.
We still had enough time to try the boat out Thursday afternoon, the first time we’ve had it on the water since purchasing it a couple of months ago. It’s a 2005 Crestliner Tournament Series 202, 20’ 3” long and 100.5 inch beam with the 225 hp Honda four stroke and 9.9 Mercury kicker, we were crossing our fingers.
After a rough and windy run from Halls down lake to Lake Canyon with a few stops to fish along the way we determined it to be seaworthy and not too hard to load unload so back to camp with it in preparation for our first full day.
Friday morning, July 20, we started a bit later than intended but we were on the water by 7 AM and headed up lake to Good Hope Bay. The water was fairly choppy and we watched for boils the entire trip, but we never saw any sign. Very little boat traffic and very few people in Good Hope so we spent some time touring around from the floating restrooms on up past the horn and all the way to the confluence of White and Farley Canyon. The mud line was about halfway between Trachyte and 2-mile Canyon and getting shallow quickly… 83.5 degree chocolate milk. We trolled through that area with no takers and ended up fishing both sides of the main channel between 2-mile and -4 mile Canyon a good part of the day as well as much of 2-mile canyon with not a single bite. Hot, windy and disappointing.
Saturday morning, July 21, a bit disillusioned but on the water at daylight none the less. Still a bit windy, but we had a beautiful ride up to Lake toward Good Hope. We met or passed an occasional house boat but pretty quiet. Just north easterly of Cedar Canyon, On the big band before the floating restroom at the south end of good Hope we decide the rocks and structure look too good to pass up right then and are still in shadow. We drop the trolling motor and start fishing. Jackie throws her white Whopper Popper she had tied-on in case we found stripers… and it was on!!
Blue gill, sunfish, LMB and SMB are all hitting top water. We were getting 2-3 strikes per retrieve. One fish hit my Yo-zuri Pencil ghost surface lure so hard it flew about 18” out of the water. Way more strikes than hookups, by what fun! Not many big fish, we released all that managed to get into the boat, about 20 SMB in a short time and a nice LMB and some of the thickest perch I have seen. About 20 minutes and the surface action just stopped, then it was root beer with green flake double Hula grubs on 1/2 oz jig heads, yum green crawfish plastics and chartreuse single tail grubs, all seemingly equally effective. With strikes from near shore to about 10 feet deep, slow retrieves. Great morning. clear water, 82.5 temp, lots of rock with depths running 10-20 feet. All in less than a thousand feet of shore line and in 5-10 mph winds. What a fun morning. It’s was so hot we had to quit fishing and keep finding swimming holes and looking for stripers to no avail. We only fished mornings, as it was so hot and windy in the afternoon with localized storms, so we just shaded up afternoons.
Our last morning, we left Halls ramp at day light and one again started up the lake on an incredible morning, very little wind and sun just starting to light of the walls... and finally a small slurp!
We came in too hot and put them down… and were sitting there being irritated with ourselves when we notice something on the graph.... 3/4 oz kastmasters dropped and we were both hooked up at the same time at about 30-40 feet deep in the middle of the channel. We got 6 of them in the boat ( three each ) and it’s over... but we were smiling!
Went another mile up lake to yesterday’s SMB spot, and not a bite.
So sightsee a bit, we are tired and sunburnt and need to get home. So back to Halls, clean the stripers at the station, get our boat
decontaminated, get the camper on the truck, hook up the boat and we are New Mexico bound by 6PM...and home before 6AM!
It was a short break, hot and windy, but beautiful and we caught a few fish, life is good. It may be September before we are back, but we are looking forward to it! Thanks to Wayne and all you Word lings for the inspiration and reports that are helping us to make a little progress on the “fishing” thing!
