mtnpull
Well-Known Member
Just got home from 3 days on the lake. Our timing was pretty poor weather wise, but any time in powell is a good time.
We Got on the lake about noon on Wednesday. The winds were fairly calm and skies overcast. Water temp was 58. The wind kicked up shortly after we arrived and the water temps dropped to the low 50's. Due to the winds we mostly trolled the bullfrog area on Wednesday and ended up with about 15 stripers. We did take a break from trolling and tried to find some wind sheltered shoreline to throw some jigs and cranks at. We found a couple walleye in the process, but overall very, very slow.
On Thursday the forecast was for wind and rain all day. It ended up being windy but not much rain so we went out and trolled again. Most of our success trolling was in bullfrog bay again. Not wanting to get to far away from the marina in case the winds got really bad we only travelled as far as moqui but had no success trolling or jigging over there. We did hit a couple small coves off from the main channel and hooked up with a couple decenst smallies on cranks.
Friday, was supposed to be calm winds and sunny! However it also was the day after a cold front pushed through and my experience has been that those days are usually really slow fishing and that was pretty much the case. I had a friend with me who hadn't been to powell in 30 years, so with the good weather I wanted to either run up lake to good hope or down lake to the rincon / escalante. I chose the rincon / escalante due to how amazing that end of the lake is. The water down there was super clear. We could see about 20 - 25 ft down. This made beating the shore a litte more challenging, but we couldn't find fish, they weren't in the shallow gravel areas, or in the rocky structure. Water temps were still cold around 54. We found a school of stripers on a 20-30 shelf that dropped off to deep water. The water was so clear we could watch them under us. I dropped some spoons and brought one in, but it seemed they either weren't interesed or didn't like the boat there. We ended up trolling some cranks across it and picked up 2 more before they disappeared into the deep water. We then headed to the escalante for some sight seeing and some hopeful fishing. We ventured back to the very back of a unnamed canyon fishing the shore line with jigs and cranks and not seeing fish at all along the way. At the very back the water temp finally hit 58 and we started to see a pretty congested area of unwilling bass. I managed one Largemouth. It was the only bass caught on soft plastics the whole trip! The water was so clear we could watch the fish check out our lures and swim away. I threw senko's, jigs of all colors and cranks and we couldn't coax them onto our lines. There were even a number of those skinny unhealthy stripers swimming around that we couldn't convince. So around 3 pm we decided to head back to bullfrog and troll up some stripers. We found success in doing so and picked up a striper about every 10 minutes trolling and ended up with about 15 or so by days end.
Overall pretty slow days for Powell fishing and it was very tough to find bass let alone get them on the hook. About the only thing I could catch with plastics were rock fish and a solid walleye. But it was nice to get away and I never complain about being on powell!
We Got on the lake about noon on Wednesday. The winds were fairly calm and skies overcast. Water temp was 58. The wind kicked up shortly after we arrived and the water temps dropped to the low 50's. Due to the winds we mostly trolled the bullfrog area on Wednesday and ended up with about 15 stripers. We did take a break from trolling and tried to find some wind sheltered shoreline to throw some jigs and cranks at. We found a couple walleye in the process, but overall very, very slow.
On Thursday the forecast was for wind and rain all day. It ended up being windy but not much rain so we went out and trolled again. Most of our success trolling was in bullfrog bay again. Not wanting to get to far away from the marina in case the winds got really bad we only travelled as far as moqui but had no success trolling or jigging over there. We did hit a couple small coves off from the main channel and hooked up with a couple decenst smallies on cranks.
Friday, was supposed to be calm winds and sunny! However it also was the day after a cold front pushed through and my experience has been that those days are usually really slow fishing and that was pretty much the case. I had a friend with me who hadn't been to powell in 30 years, so with the good weather I wanted to either run up lake to good hope or down lake to the rincon / escalante. I chose the rincon / escalante due to how amazing that end of the lake is. The water down there was super clear. We could see about 20 - 25 ft down. This made beating the shore a litte more challenging, but we couldn't find fish, they weren't in the shallow gravel areas, or in the rocky structure. Water temps were still cold around 54. We found a school of stripers on a 20-30 shelf that dropped off to deep water. The water was so clear we could watch them under us. I dropped some spoons and brought one in, but it seemed they either weren't interesed or didn't like the boat there. We ended up trolling some cranks across it and picked up 2 more before they disappeared into the deep water. We then headed to the escalante for some sight seeing and some hopeful fishing. We ventured back to the very back of a unnamed canyon fishing the shore line with jigs and cranks and not seeing fish at all along the way. At the very back the water temp finally hit 58 and we started to see a pretty congested area of unwilling bass. I managed one Largemouth. It was the only bass caught on soft plastics the whole trip! The water was so clear we could watch the fish check out our lures and swim away. I threw senko's, jigs of all colors and cranks and we couldn't coax them onto our lines. There were even a number of those skinny unhealthy stripers swimming around that we couldn't convince. So around 3 pm we decided to head back to bullfrog and troll up some stripers. We found success in doing so and picked up a striper about every 10 minutes trolling and ended up with about 15 or so by days end.
Overall pretty slow days for Powell fishing and it was very tough to find bass let alone get them on the hook. About the only thing I could catch with plastics were rock fish and a solid walleye. But it was nice to get away and I never complain about being on powell!
Definitely not fuel efficient. But that was also pushing it at 57 MPH If I kept it around 40 MPH I was using about 15-19 GPH. As far as the wind the boat did great in rough water....it never got too sketchy on us but the boat handled it well. Although trolling with the kicker it would want to wander a little in the heavy wind....if I dropped the big motor it would help to stabalize it a bit.
