Where are the 12-20 pounders?

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ARIZONA GAME AND FISH OFFICIALS THINK UTAH'S SMELT PLAN SMELLS

A Utah plan to stock Lake Powell with rainbow smelt is netting opposition from Arizona Game and Fish officials. The Arizona Game and Fish Department says introducing the new type of fish into Lake Powell might cause more problems than it would solve.
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KEEPING SMELT OUT OF LAKE A WISE MOVE

Even before officials of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources could make public its proposal to introduce rainbow smelt into Lake Powell this month, the National Park Service turned them down. Good.
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PBH said:
Yes -- Look no further than the name of Dan Kellar's boat parked up behind the bunk house at Wahweap:
Osmerus Mordax. That's rainbow smelt for those that don't speak Latin.

But -- they really aren't a solution. You have to remember that introducing non-native species into this system isn't easy. Heck, even gizzard shad were denied for introduction by the Feds. Ironically, it was the Feds failure that resulted in gizzard shad showing up in Powell.

Wayne named that boat the Osmerus Mordax purposefully in spite of not being able to introduce a species that would be better suited as a prey base for stripers.

We also have to consider that maybe the prey base isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is simply an Atlantic Ocean fish living in a man-made lake in the middle of the Desert in Utah.

If you want 20lb stripers, I'd recommend a trip to Cape Cod. But even that isn't a garauntee.
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What makes a lake like Beaver lake in Arkansas different? My understanding from being there is they also are feeding on shad similar to lake powell. The only thing that comes to mind is lake depth.
 
The big ones are essentially deep when most of us fish Powell... they're definitely there, as you can see by the lake record and fish reported every year.

The only time I've hooked a big one on my boat was slow trolling lead core line in the main channel with a deep diver and 10 colors out. Catching a giant is on my list of things to do, but you gotta get time on the water, during the right seasons or have a ton of luck.

Pro tip... if you get one, don't let your trolling plate cut it off when you get it to the boat!
 
the butte did have a great striper fishery, peaked
~ 1985-mid 90’s. a few are still caught, though.
a quick ck w/very good friend from las cruces (now in
roswell), just verified this. he retired from the nmg&f
after 26 yrs, one of his early assignments was the TorC area.
doesn’t appear the nmg&f stocks them in the butte anymore.
 
If you are catching ten or more 30"+ stripers at Powell per year, you are probably catching more 30" stripers than anyone that fishes Powell. I'm actually very impressed.

I fish Elephant Butte on a regular basis for the last 5 years because it is the closest large lake to fish. It hasn't been all that great of a lake for me but this year the fishing was decent because of the extra water from the 2022/2023 winter. There are occasional big stripers caught at Elephant Butte but they are not common. Elephant Butte has had chronically low water for the last 20 years. Currently Elephant Butte is only about 8% full. Elephant Butte has a much larger density of shad than Powell does as well as other fish for stripers to feed on, so any 20" striper in Elephant Butte has a much better chance of reaching 20lbs than a 20" striper from Powell does.

Look at this historical data for a graph to show trends. In the 80's and 90's Elephant Butte was much better fishing.

Water Data For Texas

waterdatafortexas.org

I wouldn't doubt the striped bass density in Elephant Butte is only 1% of what Powell has. I don't catch them very often. Butte has a good population of white bass and blue catfish. Butte has an ok population of largemouth, smallmouth and walleye.
Here is the biggest striper I've caught out of Elephant Butte. I would estimate is was about 8lbs.
IMG_1748.jpeg
There are more big largemouth in Elephant Butte than Powell. I catch 5lb+largemouths on a regular basis. I've never caught a largemouth larger than 5lbs from Lake Powell and I've probably caught more than 10,000 black bass (largemouth/smallmouth) from Powell.
IMG_1775.jpeg
 
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I posted this question because I would not consider myself any sort of an expert fisherman. It has been my experience fishing lake powell that there are some actual serious guys on the water. I usually don’t take a lot of pictures as I don’t really care and I generally fish alone. I will say that after talking with Dan Miller that I am fishing in the right depth for some of the big singles. I however, would find it hard to believe that I am catching more 28-30 in stripers than anyone at Powell. I’ll post a few picks to ensure that my length perception does not mean 3” = 6”. The lakers are 36” and 43” the stripers are right around that 30” mark. I caught those three on the same day right behind the bullfrog marina and the cut to halls a couple of years ago.


IMG_4183.jpegIMG_0428.jpegIMG_1063.jpegIMG_1065.jpegIMG_1064.jpeg
 
About 25yrs ago, I ask Wayne, how many 40lb stripers might be in the lake? Like the rest of you I was frustrated not catching anything over 7lb, and those were rare! Again, this was when he estimated the striper pop. around 3million lake wide. His answer was 2-3 maybe in that size stunned me. He went on to explain the same reason mentioned by you guys in previous threads. I tried talking him into letting a few commercial guys in to net a few million, thus thinning them out in order to put less stress on the forage? needless to say, he didn't like my idea. Over time I have given up on Powell becoming a big striper lake. I still think it is one of the best freshwater fisheries anywhere...
 
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