Hite Report Nov. 23-25

[BarzArz]

A quick follow up to our Thanksgiving Fishing run to Hite. After a last minute decision to head to Hite based on weather and lack of wind in the forecast. I left directly after work in Albuquerque and our Son left after work in Salt Lake Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve. We met at Hite about midnight and woke up on Lake Powell Thursday morning, with much to be thankful for! All three days fished, were highs of about 68, some clouds and little to no wind, one more thing to be thankful for!

We put in at the camping area about 500 Feet South of the concrete launch ramp, and camped right there where we launched. Not a problem launching! We were the only people in that area, There were 4-5 boat trailers at the South Primitive Ramp and a circle of campers from a group camping together. We saw fairly large deep V boats launch there with no issues.

Based on reports and the fact we always say we are going to fish North Wash, we did fish the shallows and brush all morning with not a bite, we threw about everything we had with no takers.

We fished Farley in the afternoon and caught one Smallmouth, apparently with a death wish, throwing plastics and cranks toward the walls. Gave up at dusk, back to camp for a Thanksgiving dinner, cup of hot noodles by the campfire! lol

My son could not sleep, so strategized all night and woke up with a new plan. We headed down toward 4-mile canyon looking for stripers, but not seeing much, we fished the wall between 2-mile and 4-mile. About mid morning Kenny got it figured out. Find the areas 20 foot deep at the base of the ledges. Throw jigheads with rootbeer with green flake, double Hula Grubs. Throw to the wall work it down to the bottom, then drag it across the bottom. Suddenly its much more fun fishing with small mouth getting aggressive. We hung about 50+ that afternoon, with several just hanging on to the plastics tails so hard we could get them to the boat, but not in the boat since they would pull the grub in two and leave with the back half. That and and abundance of small ones that seemed to really like my line, meant we played a lot more than we got in the boat... Some added fun was the occasional Largemouth as well, with each of us landing a personal best largemouth. We only kept some nice eating fish, and had plenty to filet, even with leaving the majority back in the lake. Back to camp as dusk a quick dinner around the camp fire and to bed, tired, but Thankful!
In fileting we see the smallmouth are full of Crawfish, so the pattern and color makes more sense. All the fish caught were VERY fat and healthy.

We get up Saturday, and go over to the primitive ramp and run into Gem Morris and his two fishing buddys. Really nice guys, a great visit and they give us some Striper tips,,,Thanks Gem! We owe you...

On the water, try the previous day method in Farley's, but most of the area was 30-50 deep, so no luck. We decide to troll some Kastmasters (both Silver 1 oz and blue and silver 1/2 oz) across the main channel at the mouth of Farley's and it was fish on for a while with Stripers hitting. We never saw them on the graph, but they were biting. Again very fat and healthy, and bellies full of about 2" shad.

We spent our last afternoon back at the wall between 2 and 4 mile, the small mouth bite continued, same technique and same bait. We mixed it up a bit with a big fat bright green single tail grub on a jig head casting into corners and land a few nice sized smallies, while Kenny kept pulling more of them up from the 20 foot bottom. The highlight was a 20" walleye nailing the fat grub right at the boat. Great ending to the day, and trip.

Back to camp, filet the dozen of so we kept. load the boat, break camp and head home Saturday afternoon.

After our last two trips to Hite, its nice to have the weather and fish both cooperate this time. Last trip of the year for us, but looking forward to March or April at Halls Crossing.

Thanks to Wayne and all the wordlings for the information and help! It is greatly appreciated! Hope you all enjoyed a great Thanksgiving...

 

[bobco]

sounds like great trip, looks like weather behaved if your wearing shorts! Im sure Gem was shirtless LOL.....

 

[Gem Morris]

It was great to meet you BarzArz, thanks for coming by to say hello.

The fishing was pretty tough, I think all the shad have got them fat and happy and they don’t have to feed regularly. We ended up with about 15 to 20 stripers the entire trip. Usually catch that many in a morning. We also caught three walleye and only one crappie. But as BarzArz said the weather was phenomenal and it was great to be there on Thanksgiving weekend

 

[BarzArz]

sounds like great trip, looks like weather behaved if your wearing shorts! Im sure Gem was shirtless LOL.....

That is dead on! lol
Friday was a real nice day, high of 68 and little wind, but I still had a sweatshirt on.
We see Gem and his friends trolling near Trachyte, we get closer to ask how they are doing...and he does not have his shirt on! We got a good chuckle out of it.
Apparently that is not uncommon...

He and his party were really nice to visit with and very helpful with fishing tips, we really enjoyed them!
It was a beautiful three days, we were in shorts all three days...pretty amazing for Thanksgiving!

 

[bobco]

Ha ha , we ran into gem a few years ago on thanksgiving weekend, about 50 degrees and he was soaking up some rays! Lol

 

[Ryan]

Nice report. The fish look good and fat.

 

[wayne gustaveson]

Thanks for the report. It helps the next anglers coming to Hite to know what you did and how you did it. Great looking fish in the photos. See you next year.

 

[BarzArz]

Thanks for the report. It helps the next anglers coming to Hite to know what you did and how you did it. Great looking fish in the photos. See you next year.

Thanks Wayne, for all you and your team do, and this great site.
We have met a lot of really nice people on here, and feel like we have friends that we have yet to meet, lol. And have actually met a few of them at the lake which has really been neat, its like running into old friends. It has given our family more confidence to venture a bit further from camp and try new things, after seeing how others do it and that there are people "we know" in the same area. We were on Powell five times this year, a minimum of three days each, largely due to reading the reports and getting excited to go! I think Preston's videos are the deal closers...we see one, we have to go! Now, if I could only learn to fish like Preston...or Nixon!!!
Anyway, we have really enjoying being a part of the Word-ling family and really enjoy the people and information on this site!
Thanks for making this possible!

 

[T L]

We left Albuquerque Thanksgiving day about 10pm, & Camp at striper city, fishing was slow caught 18 striper, 10 walley, 10 bass, & some cat fish
6th trip since summer.

 

[Flipper]

The wife and I were up in that area also, and although it was warm I was surprised to see one of three guys in a larger cab over boat that appeared to be shirtless. We were looking for walleyes on the humps and ridges that are 20 feet deeper than last year. The walleyes were pretty much a no show, but there were a lot of fat stripers scattered around that humps and flats in 25 to 30 of water at striper city. They were not stacked up like they do normally, but groups of what looked like 10 or so all over. Found the same thing over toward the back of Trachyte. Tried spooning for them, no takers, but they would hammer any lure that you could troll deep enough over them. We were up there for a week. Spent most of our time trolling for walleyes, only caught 9 for the trip. Switched over to smallies and had better luck. Lots of 13 to 15 inch fish. Caught a double limit of crappies night fishing under the green light 13 to 15.5 inches, and a lot of catfish. Was not fast fishing, took 7 nights to get our limits. Caught some really nice cats under the lights also, largest was 8 pounds. Its odd how the fishing changes from year to year. Last year we caught 200 walleyes, several strippers of which about 30 % were thin and very few were really fat in 2 trips and no crappies in Oct and Nov. This year we had 24 walleyes in 2 trips lots of fat stripers with only 4 or 5 skinny ones and limited out on crappies. Same areas - 20 more water.

 

[Not Yet You Bet]

The wife and I were up in that area also, and although it was warm I was surprised to see one of three guys in a larger cab over boat that appeared to be shirtless. We were looking for walleyes on the humps and ridges that are 20 feet deeper than last year. The walleyes were pretty much a no show, but there were a lot of fat stripers scattered around that humps and flats in 25 to 30 of water at striper city. They were not stacked up like they do normally, but groups of what looked like 10 or so all over. Found the same thing over toward the back of Trachyte. Tried spooning for them, no takers, but they would hammer any lure that you could troll deep enough over them. We were up there for a week. Spent most of our time trolling for walleyes, only caught 9 for the trip. Switched over to smallies and had better luck. Lots of 13 to 15 inch fish. Caught a double limit of crappies night fishing under the green light 13 to 15.5 inches, and a lot of catfish. Was not fast fishing, took 7 nights to get our limits. Caught some really nice cats under the lights also, largest was 8 pounds. Its odd how the fishing changes from year to year. Last year we caught 200 walleyes, several strippers of which about 30 % were thin and very few were really fat in 2 trips and no crappies in Oct and Nov. This year we had 24 walleyes in 2 trips lots of fat stripers with only 4 or 5 skinny ones and limited out on crappies. Same areas - 20 more water.

I was wondering if you could give more information on the night fishing for crappie. Where did you fish, what did you use, and how did you fish (on the bottom or suspended, and what with). I want to learn how to be more successful night fishing. Thanks for any detail help you might be willing to share.

 

[Flipper]

I won't tell you where we were, but I will tell you how we were catching them. Every canyon above Bullfrog has catchable numbers of crappies in them. It is just hard to catch very many or any of them most times of the year. I have found that the best time to catch them is when the water is between 60 and 65 degrees. The further north you go the more crappies you will find along with all the other fish as well. I look for a spot about half way back a canyon that has good anchorage for the houseboat and deep water off the back. I think you need at least 40' of water and 60 to 80 feet is better. Large boulders in the area is a plus along with shallower areas with brush nearby. The houseboat has 4 LED lights off of the back which I use along with a 4' Green fishing light hung 5 or so feet below the back of the fishing boat. I fish out of the fishing boat so I can use the fishfinder - livewells and seats. The houseboat has a solar system so we don't run the generator. It does not take long to start pulling in the shad, which brings in the other fish. I think that the lights will pull fish from quite a distance. The secret to catching the crappies is to use shad for bait. This is were the tricky part comes in. You would think that with around 50,000 shad swimming under the lights that you could catch a few for bait. Ha Ha! I spent as much time trying to catch bait as I did fishing. I have a 5' bait casting net which I can make a good throw with about once in every 37 try's. I also have a 9' extendable crappies landing net with 1/4" mesh that I used to catch most of my bait with. Caught them in water as deep as 50 feet and a few right under the light. The deeper you fished the bigger the crappies on average, but you also caught about 5 catfish for every crappie. One night we caught I bet at least 40 catfish. Most of them were to small to keep even if I had wanted them, but we did catch 4 that were 5 to 8 pounds. These were the biggest cats that I had ever caught at Powell. We would also catch 5 to 10 stripers each night. About half of them were skinny which is typical when bait fishing. Found the best overall depth for the crappie was 12 to 18 feet. Averaged 10 to 15 crappies a night in 3 to 4 hours of fishing each night. Culled them back to 13 inches or better. Did have a couple at 15" and one 15.5" which weighed 30.5 ounces. Took us 7 nights to catch our 40 good ones. I don't usually fish at night during the fall. We can usually catch all we want during the day and I am busy cleaning fish most nights, but for some reason it was a little slower that the previous years. I also wanted to try this method just to see if I could catch a few. Halfway through the trip we moved down lake to a different canyon with similar conditions and were able to repeat our success. I am sure that you could use the same set up and chum with anchovies and catch more stripers. Our rod set ups were our smaller crappie rods that have 6 pound fluorocarbon leaders ahead of 2/10 power pro, using a #4 bronze Aberdeen hook 18" below a small split shot. I did catch one crappie using a Berkley gulp minnow, and 2 using night crawlers, but all the rest were caught using the shad. I am fairly sure that we would have done better 3 or 4 weeks ago when the water was a little warmer. It was 57 to 58 when we where there. Good luck

 

[Flipper]

One thing that I forgot to mention is that the bite was really light. I rarely felt them hit the bait. The line would either go limp or start moving sideways. I would pull up the slack and if I felt weight, a light tug to set the hook. Another odd thing was that over half the ones we caught at 40 feet or better would fight like a wet boot, and their stomach would be up in their throat similar to fish caught at depth in the ocean.

 

[Not Yet You Bet]

One thing that I forgot to mention is that the bite was really light. I rarely felt them hit the bait. The line would either go limp or star moving sideways. I would pull up the slack and if I felt weight, a light tug to set the hook. Another odd thing was that over half the ones we caught at 40 feet or better would fight like a wet boot, and there stomach would be up in there throat similar fish caught at depth in the ocean.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond with great detail. I really appreciate your help. Sounds like I need to get a casting net and learn how to throw it. Think I have the other items that I need. Now I need to get down there and give it a try.
Thanks again for sharing the information.

 

[bobco]

I won't tell you where we were, but I will tell you how we were catching them. Every canyon above Bullfrog has catchable numbers of crappies in them. It is just hard to catch very many or any of them most times of the year. I have found that the best time to catch them is when the water is between 60 and 65 degrees. The further north you go the more crappies you will find along with all the other fish as well. I look for a spot about half way back a canyon that has good anchorage for the houseboat and deep water off the back. I think you need at least 40' of water and 60 to 80 feet is better. Large boulders in the area is a plus along with shallower areas with brush nearby. The houseboat has 4 LED lights off of the back which I use along with a 4' Green fishing light hung 5 or so feet below the back of the fishing boat. I fish out of the fishing boat so I can use the fishfinder - livewells and seats. The houseboat has a solar system so we don't run the generator. It does not take long to start pulling in the shad, which brings in the other fish. I think that the lights will pull fish from quite a distance. The secret to catching the crappies is to use shad for bait. This is were the tricky part comes in. You would think that with around 50,000 shad swimming under the lights that you could catch a few for bait. Ha Ha! I spent as much time trying to catch bait as I did fishing. I have a 5' bait casting net which I can make a good throw with about once in every 37 try's. I also have a 9' extendable crappies landing net with 1/4" mesh that I used to catch most of my bait with. Caught them in water as deep as 50 feet and a few right under the light. The deeper you fished the bigger the crappies on average, but you also caught about 5 catfish for every crappie. One night we caught I bet at least 40 catfish. Most of them were to small to keep even if I had wanted them, but we did catch 4 that were 5 to 8 pounds. These were the biggest cats that I had ever caught at Powell. We would also catch 5 to 10 stripers each night. About half of them were skinny which is typical when bait fishing. Found the best overall depth for the crappie was 12 to 18 feet. Averaged 10 to 15 crappies a night in 3 to 4 hours of fishing each night. Culled them back to 13 inches or better. Did have a couple at 15" and one 15.5" which weighed 30.5 ounces. Took us 7 nights to catch our 40 good ones. I don't usually fish at night during the fall. We can usually catch all we want during the day and I am busy cleaning fish most nights, but for some reason it was a little slower that the previous years. I also wanted to try this method just to see if I could catch a few. Halfway through the trip we moved down lake to a different canyon with similar conditions and were able to repeat our success. I am sure that you could use the same set up and chum with anchovies and catch more stripers. Our rod set ups were our smaller crappie rods that have 6 pound fluorocarbon leaders ahead of 2/10 power pro, using a #4 bronze Aberdeen hook 18" below a small split shot. I did catch one crappie using a Berkley gulp minnow, and 2 using night crawlers, but all the rest were caught using the shad. I am fairly sure that we would have done better 3 or 4 weeks ago when the water was a little warmer. It was 57 to 58 when we where there. Good luck

Were you down 30 thru 2 Dec, in alumacraft? Think we saw you, was wondering what was going on in area we saw you fishing lol now I know , secret spot is safe . Is that a alumacraft trophy ?

 

[Gem Morris]

In my defense, it never really gets cold at Lake Powell!

 

[Flipper]

I was in a tee shirt, but I had a jacket with me. As long as the sun is shining and the winds not blowing is feels warm even when it is in the 50's. My wife had on her sweats and a winter coat with a blanket over her legs. When I pointed out a guy on a boat that was shirtless she shivered.