Fished the Trachyte area from 9/16 - 9/19 with my friend Timmy.
Fishing was fairly tough, we saw handfuls of intermittent small boils that were difficult to reach before they dissipated. This was the first time I have seen boils in pretty windy conditions (15-20 mph) and many people drove by without noticing as they were very hard to see. We picked up a couple fish off the top in each boil and spooned a couple more if we were lucky with the Kastmaster before they dissipated. Also had intermittent catches while spooning deeper for small schools, but not a lot. The schools seemed to small where we were fishing. Pattern seemed to be surface activity becoming earlier each day, with most consistent activity as the evening shade was about to hit the bay, after that the switch seemed to be turned off. We caught fish on the surface at 12, 3, and 6 o'clock.
We made the trip down past the Horn on Saturday and fish activity appeared similar down lake, with sporadic single striper activity on the surface, but nothing else despite amazing water surface and continually searching with the binoculars. We made the choice to spend all the rest of our time in between White and Trachyte because it was the only spot we saw any real boils and this was consistent with multiple boats who told us they had ran all the way up from BF without seeing surface activity. Ran into a nice fellow camped on the horn and he said evening surface activity had been similar there, limited activity and difficult to get to the fish in time.
We went after black bass with limited success as well. Tried drop-shotting small flukes and shad shaped worms, white curly tail jigs, tube jigs, and different shad raps without tons of success, but picked up fish here and there. We trolled at least 8-10 hours hoping to find the striper schools, but only picked up one that way, and probably 8 SMB. We ended up with 36 stripers and ~20 SMB plus a few sunfish, and one catfish total for the trip.
The Hite ramp was busier than I had imagined with ~10+ campers and ~20 boat trailers, nothing like last time I was there when there was only one other boat trailer. Sorry if we woke anyone up late, we picked up two stranded "canyoneers" on the side of the road around midnight and ended up begrudgingly hauling them all the way back to Hanksville.
Boat traffic was fairly busy where we were as everybody seemed to be running up and down lake looking for the big event. It's hard to sit around when you know the stripers are probably having a feeding frenzy just around the next corner
!
Our last night we pulled up to the last small boil we saw, only to have two other fishing boats literally pull high speed INTO the fish and immediately put them down. It is hard for me to comprehend what their thought process on this was. I am interested in starting a new thread on fishing etiquette to gather thoughts on this. It was beyond frustrating, but I refrained from yelling any obscenities or casting into their boats to let them know they were out of line. I guess a good start would be understanding its against the law to come within 150' of our boat while going >wakeless speed. To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien, "A fisherman should know better!"
Overall, another great trip to LP. May go back for the next two weekends and stay on the houseboat in BF this time, camping on the beach will wear you out quickly.
