Lake Mohave Striper Pics
- Thread starter SDPJ
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SDPJ
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We got most of our fish in the mornings or evening on main points with flats that rolled off into deep water.
How do the mussels look in Mohave and what is your assessment of striper fishing now compared to 5 years ago?
SDPJ
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I never saw anything close up that was covered in mussel but I did bring them up on some of the hooks a few times. Other than when I was a kid in the 90's, this is the first time I've fished Mohave.
Based on experiences at Powell, Mead and havassu, I would say the bite was a little off this trip. Supermoon weekend. We did manage 4-5 of those bigger grade fish as well as a mix of 2-5lbers. Water was 68 and there were no signs of fish anywhere. I did not see 1 shad (other than in stomachs) or any spots of crashing striper. I was expecting to find stuff balled up in the coves. Fish may be transitioning as we experienced fishing quite different than what had been reported for the few weeks prior. We had no finder. I think once it cools off a tad more, I'll be able to check it out again and hopefully find a full speed hit. Not 100% but I think schoolies at Mohave range 2-10 lbs
SDPJ
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I fished a morning from shore at Mohave on the 23rd. Fished just before sunrise till about 9.
4 stripers 1 smallmouth. All but 1 on topwater in 5' or less of water. I had several slurps, large 3' swirls and blow ups that did not connect.
I also spent a little bit of time at Mead which was anti-climatic after that. Mohave definitely seems to hold clout as far as a good fishery is concerned. Not much web resource or forum talk about what goes on out there as we've been spoiled with WW. I plan to keep exploring
Mead is 95% barren. All the people catching fish the other 5%.
SDPJ
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M
Mead has a lot of potential. There's just a lot of smaller fish there.
The small stripers in Mead without a lot of big ones is indicative of a lack of shad forage which could easily be attributed to mussels. Young stripers are able to maintain small size by eating plankton.
Mohave is different in that the upper end of the lake is near the tail water of Lake Mead and it maintains cool water in one zone where most of the big trophy stripers are caught. The big ones used to be fed stocked rainbow trout so they had forage to allow them to grow to large size.
I keep watching to see what will happen at Lake Powell. Thanks for your updates and real time additions to my assumptions.
Mohave is different in that the upper end of the lake is near the tail water of Lake Mead and it maintains cool water in one zone where most of the big trophy stripers are caught. The big ones used to be fed stocked rainbow trout so they had forage to allow them to grow to large size.
I keep watching to see what will happen at Lake Powell. Thanks for your updates and real time additions to my assumptions.
SDPJ
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There were lots of shad in the southwest corner of mead. Las Vegas bay, where the wash flows in, there were thousands, probably millions back there. Birds dipping and diving over a 2 square mile area. Threadfin balls as well as young gizzard balls. It seems like every fall the shad end up in that corner of the lake. The mean striper size is 1-2 lb. I'm pretty sure there's a good amount of 3-5's around but with all of the little stuff it takes a few to weed em out. Last November I saw plenty of 3 lbers but they all seemed to come from areas other than where the meat concentration was. My observation is that mead is at about <1-2 lb average from Powell.
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