SJ or GH for a quick trip?

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Dworwood

Dworwood

Keeper of San Juan Secrets
I hate to ask this question but I am. For 1 1/2 days of fishing there isn’t that much difference in time between the two. Which should be better for bass and walleye this weekend? I don’t want to tread on Dungee if I can help it and I think he is headed South as well.
Wayne do you have a gut feeling? Yours is probably data based. Because I only have one full day it will be in one of those spots. I will report next week on which one I fish.
Thanks for any input. DW
 
Dworwood said:
I hate to ask this question but I am. For 1 1/2 days of fishing there isn’t that much difference in time between the two. Which should be better for bass and walleye this weekend? I don’t want to tread on Dungee if I can help it and I think he is headed South as well.
Wayne do you have a gut feeling? Yours is probably data based. Because I only have one full day it will be in one of those spots. I will report next week on which one I fish.
Thanks for any input. DW
Click to expand...

San Juan
 
Dworwood said:
I hate to ask this question but I am. For 1 1/2 days of fishing there isn’t that much difference in time between the two. Which should be better for bass and walleye this weekend? I don’t want to tread on Dungee if I can help it and I think he is headed South as well.
Wayne do you have a gut feeling? Yours is probably data based. Because I only have one full day it will be in one of those spots. I will report next week on which one I fish.
Thanks for any input. DW
Click to expand...
It’s a big lake, and personally I like having someone I know in the area, especially this time of the year. I prefer the San Juan but for a quick trip it is more about the fishing time so I would do GHB. Either way I am jealous, have fun.

TR
 
TR. said:
You can add another 18 to where I would start fishing. Although Cha has really good fishing and not that far.

TR
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Yep. I think Cha is about 10ish. But I don't fish the mouth of GHB, so there is a little distance there too.

My fishing boat is slow. Running back and forth to GHB in a day is around 3 hours of total travel time. And that is if the weather is good. One trip back from the North end took me close to 3 hours (ran out of daylight) when the weather turned.

I really like the SJ, but without more horsepower, the fishing would have to be really good for me to make the run. Heck, GHB is probably too far.

People are probably better off just staying near the marina.......;)
 
Ryan said:
Yep. I think Cha is about 10ish. But I don't fish the mouth of GHB, so there is a little distance there too.

My fishing boat is slow. Running back and forth to GHB in a day is around 3 hours of total travel time. And that is if the weather is good. One trip back from the North end took me close to 3 hours (ran out of daylight) when the weather turned.

I really like the SJ, but without more horsepower, the fishing would have to be really good for me to make the run. Heck, GHB is probably too far.

People are probably better off just staying near the marina.......;)
Click to expand...
Got ya I believe it is way safer staying in the marina bay! Not as many monsters there. I can run 45 and have 65 gallons on board so I can finally go where I always wanted to! Only been there in pleasure boats in the past, now it’s my turn to go when I want to. I have always been restricted to close to camp in my little tracker so I am excited to spread my wings! I appreciate those of you willing to share, I have held those “spots” close to my chest in the past so I do appreciate the comments and sharing from you guys. I will report and I hope it is a good one. Thanks everyone, we leave early in the morning. May you have enough.
 
Reporting on the weekend trip. Wish we had some TRD with us but we didn’t. We ran to GH on Friday stopped at the mouth of Moki for about 20 casts and caught 3 strippers, not fat but not eels either. They were on hook up tube baits, same pole one guy. Left and ran to GH. We started at the mouth of red and worked all around the main bay and river both sides. Water temp when we left at 6 PM was 59.7 degrees, it started out at 57 around noon, water was colored with about 3 to 4 feet visibility. We did not do very well. We caught a couple more strippers, 4 sm and I believe 3 walleye. All were in shallow water 3 to 15 feet. I never saw a school of strippers anywhere we went. Saturday we let the tournament boats get out of the way and then we headed to the SJ. We started at piute wash area, lots of structure, stained water and the starting temp was 59.8 and it went up to 63.9 before we left. Definitely not a seasoned Powell fisherman, LOL, fishing was slow and spotty for us. We fished what I thought was excellent structure, gravel bars, Rocky outcroppings, points and what I thought were gravel flats. We caught a nice crappie, 6 walleye, 8 SM, 6 strippers. Some on crank bait rattle traps & shad raps but most were on hook up tube baits. It’s the closest thing to a Ned’s rig that I had. The slower we could fish them the better but wind had a say in that at times. The picture of the mussels on the rocks was in the SJ as were the burrows. The mussels on the wall are in the back of Moki Sunday morning. I did catch one walleye in there on Sunday.255CCCC8-173E-4A99-B6B1-B2437BB3ADB2.jpeg9B9A99BA-F3B4-4F2C-A41B-A85B4309D430.jpegC08023C8-65FC-40F7-8F9B-A3ED72887F1A.jpeg
 
Love the burrows. The other two photos, not so much.

Sounds like a good trip, even if the catching wasn’t as good as you might have hoped for.

How much travel time did it require to get to GHB or SJ? I’m toying with upgrading my boat, but need to figure out how much more HP I need to make a significant difference vs my current boat.
 
GH was just under an hour I think 45 to 50 minutes, SJ was close to two hours from ramp to Piute wash area. We did stop a couple of times and I was running about 37 mph instead of full throttle which is around 43 MPH. I made both runs without fueling which was what I had hoped I could do when I bought this boat. I have the Merc diagnostics on my motor and I was running an average of 4 MPG. Technology is so cool sometimes even for an old geezer! I wish I would have kept better track of travel time, with all the gadgets we have I didn’t think about it until we were under way. We were only concerned about getting back before the restaurant closed! LOL and not running out of fuel. I blew it going down because we stopped at Llewellyn and fished for a bit, wasn’t sure how long so I blew that run too. We never made a full direct run without stopping some where before we got to our destination. Sorry I am not more help. I am pretty sure I can do the SJ run in 1 3/4 hours straight thru to Piute wash and maybe quicker now that I have been there.
 
You are right Ryan it was a good trip! I hope I didn’t sound disappointed because I had a great trip. And thanks to all of you who gave me input and shared your knowledge with us.
 
@Dworwood , would you remind me the details of your boat? Size and HP?

Mine is a 16' Lund with a 60 HP 4-stroke. It will run about 30 WOT (which I am OK running all the way up to GHB at WOT - maybe I shouldn't be). I can make it all the way as far north as I want, fish all day, and run back to Bullfrog on less than 12 gallons of fuel.

I'm more concerned about time than I am fuel costs, so trying to see how much HP I need to really make a change worth while. Right now my gut feeling is that I need to be able to run 40 + comfortably.
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It is 21 feet and has 150 hp on it. Was conserving fuel because I had never had it on the bottom half of the gauge and did not know how fast it would drop. I have seen the bottom half really be a quarter of a tank. I agree, I think 40 is a comfortable low end for top end speed. I would think Lund or someone who has one like yours can get you close to hp and desired speed on Powell. Wish I could be more help. My boat is the one on my profile picture.
 
Ryan, just for comparison, I have a 18’ lund pro-v with 90hp Honda. My top speed is about 38mph but I really don’t like running the boat wide open for extended periods of time. 32mph is about where the motor sounds happiest so that’s usually where I run it. Fuel mileage is sooooo much better at the 32mph cruising speed. I feel a 115 on mine would be optimal
 
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