We launched at Hite Wednesday afternoon from the primitive ramp. The water was up to the bottom of my doors before the boat would float. There were a couple trailers with double axles parked up above the ramp so I didn't anticipate any issues launching my 18' fish & ski, and had none.
We parked the camper on the beach and had no neighbors the entire time, other than the obligatory German couple in a rental van. They skinny dipped that evening and were gone when I got up the next morning. They left a blue Speedo behind, so I guess they had a good time.
The kids came down over the next couple of days. We fished sporadically for a couple hours each morning and evening using Kastmasters of various sizes and colors, and wake-boarded the main channel in between. The channel was only 20' deep, but with no sandbars outside North Wash and no wood until further down the lake, it was perfect for water sports.
We started fishing Wednesday afternoon at Good Hope Bay and fished slurps in the coves along the east wall between the upper and lower bay. Some slurps stayed up for several minutes and at one point we could see six active slurps. We landed seven nice stripers, all were of the "big and skinny" variety, but made nice fillets.
The rest of the week we fished Good Hope Bay with somewhat less success. Evenings often had wind, sometimes blowing us off the lake. Mornings were much calmer, but not much better fishing. Saturday afternoon we were swimming in White Canyon after doing some exploring, and the fish started slurping all around us. We ended up with another nine stripers, a couple of these being the "short and fat" variety, again making excellent fillets.
We hit White Canyon again Sunday morning and finally caught a couple fish from a single slurp, but nothing like the evening before.
For the trip we ended up with 30+ stripers and saw maybe half-a-dozen other boats the whole time. The main mud line was at the entrance to Good Hope Bay, with a secondary mud line at the mouth of White/Farley. There was quite a bit of wood in the water, starting at Striper City. On Wednesday there were some pretty solid lines of debris between there and Good Hope, but as the week went on the wood become more scattered and there seemed to be less of it. Maybe the wind was just moving it around. I managed to knock off the transponder of my new sonar the first day! Bummer! It's unbelievable how much the lake is still rising, we had to move the shade at least once a day and drove through water to get off the beach and back to the ramp.
All in all, it was great to be back at Hite and was one of my favorite trips to Powell ever.
We parked the camper on the beach and had no neighbors the entire time, other than the obligatory German couple in a rental van. They skinny dipped that evening and were gone when I got up the next morning. They left a blue Speedo behind, so I guess they had a good time.
The kids came down over the next couple of days. We fished sporadically for a couple hours each morning and evening using Kastmasters of various sizes and colors, and wake-boarded the main channel in between. The channel was only 20' deep, but with no sandbars outside North Wash and no wood until further down the lake, it was perfect for water sports.
We started fishing Wednesday afternoon at Good Hope Bay and fished slurps in the coves along the east wall between the upper and lower bay. Some slurps stayed up for several minutes and at one point we could see six active slurps. We landed seven nice stripers, all were of the "big and skinny" variety, but made nice fillets.
The rest of the week we fished Good Hope Bay with somewhat less success. Evenings often had wind, sometimes blowing us off the lake. Mornings were much calmer, but not much better fishing. Saturday afternoon we were swimming in White Canyon after doing some exploring, and the fish started slurping all around us. We ended up with another nine stripers, a couple of these being the "short and fat" variety, again making excellent fillets.
We hit White Canyon again Sunday morning and finally caught a couple fish from a single slurp, but nothing like the evening before.
For the trip we ended up with 30+ stripers and saw maybe half-a-dozen other boats the whole time. The main mud line was at the entrance to Good Hope Bay, with a secondary mud line at the mouth of White/Farley. There was quite a bit of wood in the water, starting at Striper City. On Wednesday there were some pretty solid lines of debris between there and Good Hope, but as the week went on the wood become more scattered and there seemed to be less of it. Maybe the wind was just moving it around. I managed to knock off the transponder of my new sonar the first day! Bummer! It's unbelievable how much the lake is still rising, we had to move the shade at least once a day and drove through water to get off the beach and back to the ramp.
All in all, it was great to be back at Hite and was one of my favorite trips to Powell ever.
The kids caught catfish every night from the back of the boat!!! Lots of them.