Good Hope - Labor Day Weekend - Fishing Report

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BarzArz

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We made a whirlwind Labor Day weekend fishing trip and it did not disappoint...we had wind storms, lighting storms and rain storms... and fish!:)

I drove up from New Mexico overnight Friday with the boat and met my son and granddaughter from Salt Lake City at Bullfrog Saturday morning early.
We launched at Bullfrog, it was busy, but most everyone was well behaved. Made it up lake to set up our tent in Red Canyon in Good Hope Bay, pretty much due South of the Castle Butte. Fished a few hours in the afternoon locally, then survived the overnight lightning, rain and wind storm, heavy on the Lightning and wind!
Up early Sunday, fished 8AM till 2:30 PM in Red Canyon. Never ran the big motor all day, just the electric trolling motor. Then with clouds building again, break camp, load up, rough ride back to Bullfrog, retrieve the boat, get a mussel inspection, a frog burger at the Lodge, gas and drive all night to arrive home Monday morning at 9:30 AM. short trip!

Water was 77 to 78 Saturday and up to just shy of 80 in the shallows by Sunday afternoon. Water clarity was such that I could see the trolling motor and prop, but hard to tell if it was spinning, so I call it about 2 foot visibility in most of the area we fished. Generally 5-15 MPH winds changing directions often. In the roughly 10 hours fishing, we lost track, but estimate just shy of 100 fish, all released. Majority SMB, but a good percentage, maybe 25-30 LMB, one striper, several bluegill and sunfish, one carp and one walleye. Mostly smaller fish with a sampling of nice sized bass along the way to keep it interesting! Many of the SMB would hang on so tight and aggressive to the plastics we were throwing that you could play them, get them to the boat, then lift them out of the water and they would open their mouths and fall off into the water. It was pretty nice actually since we were not keeping them, lol. We had so many tails pulled and bitten off the plastics it was amazing. The SMB were really aggressive! My son caught the most with my 10 year old granddaughter not far behind. We had a few doubles and sometimes caught fish three casts in a roll. It kept it interesting! My granddaughter keeps pulling them in and kept saying, I was not even paying attention and caught another one! lol I finally had to tell her to quit saying that as I am paying attention and not catching as many! lol

Her dad is an avid fisherman and she is quite the angler as well. She is only 10, but has been fishing since she could hold a pole!
Anyway, the lake was not too bad once you got away from the crowds, even with stormy weather, it was beautiful...as Powell always is.
We got some bad mussel cuts and also lost lots of fish to line breaks, due apparently to all of the mussel razors everywhere, best advice we learned the hard way, (when my son saw the estimated 5 lb. LMB breakaway, right at the boat)... retie often.

Oh, about forgot. successful fishing with small green watermelon, or pink and brown Ned rigs. Solid yellow curly tail jigs (my granddaughter caught everything on these, even the Walleye), and a clear with blue flake paddle tail plastic, shad shaped on a 3/8 jig head. Caught a few on drop shot and wacky rigged as well. Presentation was all over the board. Generally, cast to ledges and let it fall, if not hit on the fall, work it on the bottom, this was in 8-15 foot walls Conventional cast and working it slow near the bottom in 2-8 feet of water was very effective as well. As was rapid retrieve about 6-8 feet below the surface in the coves.

Great fishing, great to be with family...and great to be back home. Particularly after such a short, no rest trip! My wife and I plan to be back in mid October.
 

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