Marko
Member
I spent the first week of July at Lake Powell, and while I am usually someone who just reads the discussions I thought I would share my experience in the hope that it helps someone have a great time. We parked our houseboat in Last Chance Canyon and did most of our fishing in that canyon.
First of all, I had never used a Ned rig (and never heard of them before I started reading these discussions before my trip) and I was hesitant to try them base solely on the cost. I don't know why fish love them so much more than other soft baits, but they sure seem to! And they are nigh indestructible. I used one for two days and despite repeatedly being chewed and pulled on by bass, it kept its shape and kept catching. Amazing. If I could find a shelf about 20-30 feet deep I would just bounce it over the ledge and it would get picked up more often than anything else I tried. It was a great tool for teaching kids as well..."Cast it out. Let it sink like this. Now twitch it and reel in the slack. Do that again. And again. Now you have a fish on!" My hat's off to the makers of the Ned rig.
I was fishing some rocky structure one morning and a small slurp came up about 30 feet away. I cast the ned rig past it, and rapidly jerked it back through the slurp, picked up a nice striper. Otherwise our greatest success on slurps was had by those who kept a spinning rod rigged with a kastmaster close by. When the slurps came up, they were always out of range, unless you were throwing a kastmaster. They cast farther than anything else and stripers seem to hate them. Most slurps that were invaded by a kastmaster gave up a striper.
Once the boaters were up and about, we still had good afternoon/evening success on stripers with the tried and true method of chumming with half a dozen chopped up anchovies. Nothing fancy there. Just put a 1/4 or 1/3 of an anchovy on a 1/4 oz. lead head jig and either cast it out and let it sink and jig it back up, or countdown the depth of the deepest part of the school, and jig for a bit and work your way back up through the school. It was effective early in the day as well as late. Drop the anchovy deeper than the school and you could very well catch a decent catfish. The striper schools we found at 40-50 feet would come up to 30-40 when the chum got to them and we caught them at that depth. Mostly right on vertical canyon walls and points especially.
I confess that for a month prior to coming down to Lake Powell (I travel from southern Idaho) I read lots of discussions on this forum, but never have I read any recipes. I found myself reading the recipe discussions and some genius posted a simple and wonderful striper recipe I had never heard of. Filet the striper, chunk it into 1 inch pieces, and boil it in 7Up for 2 mintues. Dip it in butter and you will think you are eating lobster, so he said. He was RIGHT! I used Sprite on our boat, but it worked beautifully. I didn't dip the meat in butter, I had quite a mound of it (about a pound or pound and a half) that was boiled all at once in 2 cans of sprite, and then I drained it, put it all on a plate, poured melted butter over the whole pile and invited everyone to try it. Not a scrap of "Strobster" was left. A big thank you to whomever came up with that idea! It was so popular we had to get some more striper to do it again another night.
I also spent years releasing every catfish I caught because I thought their flesh was "mushy" and not very good. My son came home from a mission in North Carolina telling me he can make catfish and I would love it. Also a very simple recipe...go to the store and buy a box of Zatarain's Fish Fri. Filet the catfish, coat it in the mix, and drop it in hot oil for a couple of minutes. It was crispy on the outside, tender but firm flesh, and quite tasty. Super easy, so it will be a staple of our trips going forward. We used that on smallmouth filets as well, equally good. I share those ideas because they are easy, they are good, and they are crowd pleasers. Just what you want at Powell!
Last comment: I had the good fortune of meeting Wayne and his delightful wife Trish in Page before we headed out on the water. He is every bit the gentleman I imagined, and his wife was equally gracious. Thank you Wayne, for helping me have productive fishing trips for 20 years plus with your website!
First of all, I had never used a Ned rig (and never heard of them before I started reading these discussions before my trip) and I was hesitant to try them base solely on the cost. I don't know why fish love them so much more than other soft baits, but they sure seem to! And they are nigh indestructible. I used one for two days and despite repeatedly being chewed and pulled on by bass, it kept its shape and kept catching. Amazing. If I could find a shelf about 20-30 feet deep I would just bounce it over the ledge and it would get picked up more often than anything else I tried. It was a great tool for teaching kids as well..."Cast it out. Let it sink like this. Now twitch it and reel in the slack. Do that again. And again. Now you have a fish on!" My hat's off to the makers of the Ned rig.
I was fishing some rocky structure one morning and a small slurp came up about 30 feet away. I cast the ned rig past it, and rapidly jerked it back through the slurp, picked up a nice striper. Otherwise our greatest success on slurps was had by those who kept a spinning rod rigged with a kastmaster close by. When the slurps came up, they were always out of range, unless you were throwing a kastmaster. They cast farther than anything else and stripers seem to hate them. Most slurps that were invaded by a kastmaster gave up a striper.
Once the boaters were up and about, we still had good afternoon/evening success on stripers with the tried and true method of chumming with half a dozen chopped up anchovies. Nothing fancy there. Just put a 1/4 or 1/3 of an anchovy on a 1/4 oz. lead head jig and either cast it out and let it sink and jig it back up, or countdown the depth of the deepest part of the school, and jig for a bit and work your way back up through the school. It was effective early in the day as well as late. Drop the anchovy deeper than the school and you could very well catch a decent catfish. The striper schools we found at 40-50 feet would come up to 30-40 when the chum got to them and we caught them at that depth. Mostly right on vertical canyon walls and points especially.
I confess that for a month prior to coming down to Lake Powell (I travel from southern Idaho) I read lots of discussions on this forum, but never have I read any recipes. I found myself reading the recipe discussions and some genius posted a simple and wonderful striper recipe I had never heard of. Filet the striper, chunk it into 1 inch pieces, and boil it in 7Up for 2 mintues. Dip it in butter and you will think you are eating lobster, so he said. He was RIGHT! I used Sprite on our boat, but it worked beautifully. I didn't dip the meat in butter, I had quite a mound of it (about a pound or pound and a half) that was boiled all at once in 2 cans of sprite, and then I drained it, put it all on a plate, poured melted butter over the whole pile and invited everyone to try it. Not a scrap of "Strobster" was left. A big thank you to whomever came up with that idea! It was so popular we had to get some more striper to do it again another night.
I also spent years releasing every catfish I caught because I thought their flesh was "mushy" and not very good. My son came home from a mission in North Carolina telling me he can make catfish and I would love it. Also a very simple recipe...go to the store and buy a box of Zatarain's Fish Fri. Filet the catfish, coat it in the mix, and drop it in hot oil for a couple of minutes. It was crispy on the outside, tender but firm flesh, and quite tasty. Super easy, so it will be a staple of our trips going forward. We used that on smallmouth filets as well, equally good. I share those ideas because they are easy, they are good, and they are crowd pleasers. Just what you want at Powell!
Last comment: I had the good fortune of meeting Wayne and his delightful wife Trish in Page before we headed out on the water. He is every bit the gentleman I imagined, and his wife was equally gracious. Thank you Wayne, for helping me have productive fishing trips for 20 years plus with your website!
