Fishing Time: Sunday – Wednesday (March 31 – April 3)
Weather: Calm, mostly sunny, Tuesday morning was
windy, T-70s
Moon Phase: 50% Moon
Location: Lake Powell – Camped in Red Canyon
Water Temp: Morning – 56 degrees, Afternoon – 61
degrees
Water Level: 3,559 ft amsl
Mudline: Mud to Green stain started just north of Red
Canyon, Green stain to clear just south of Ticaboo Canyon
Best Baits: Largemouth Bass – Jig and Trailer and
deep diving crankbaits, Smallmouth bass and crappie – 3-inch Keitech swimbaits
and curly tail grub on 1/8 oz jig head, Stripers and Walleye – trolling and
casting deep diving crankbaits
Who Went: Devin, Dayton, Dunc
My boys have been begging me to take them to Lake Powell to
camp and fish. This week was their
spring break, so we decided to make it happen.
The trip turned out incredible and we will probably need to make it an annual
endeavor. Apart from one windy morning
the weather was perfect with temps in the 60s and sunny.
On the drive down we hit a blizzard going over Soldier
Summit and I learned something new after going to Bullfrog Marina at Lake
Powell for many years. We found the
mountain that gave Bullfrog its name. All these years and I never knew…
We launched from Bullfrog and made the hour drive up to Red
Canyon and setup camp with an hour of daylight left. Some of us had a good nap on the ride up. The boys fished from shore and immediately
caught a largemouth bass and crappie.
The first morning we started fishing right from camp not even cranking the big motor and within minutes the boys both caught a crappie and I landed my first largemouth of the trip on a jig.
The boys wanted to catch some striped bass,
so we trolled out to the mouth of Red Canyon using deep diving crankbaits and found
them stacked on a shallow hump. We
trolled over them multiple times doubling or tripling up each time. After 8-10 passes we decided just to anchor on
top of them and cast our lures around the boat.
The boys continued hauling them in while I unhooked their catches. I switched two rods to a bare jig head tipped
with a worm to make the unhooking process easier. It worked and Dayton put on a jigging
clinic. He not only landed a bunch of
stripers, but also one channel catfish and a walleye. The striper fishing was off the chain!
Once their arms wore out catching stripers we went back to
bass fishing and continued the catching for smallmouth, largemouth, and
crappie. We had one of the best days of
fishing I’ve ever had at Lake Powell. Every
fish was healthy and fat. Dayton was one panfish away from the Lake Powell
Grand Slam after landing Striped Bass, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Crappie,
Walleye, and Channel Catfish. Truly
impressive for a 12-year old on your first day fishing Lake Powell. His best
bait for bass and crappie was the 3-inch keitech swimbait rigged weedless.
That night sitting around the campfire the wind came up and didn’t stop all night. It continued through the next morning and really made fishing tough. We checked out some new water up in Scorup Canyon and trolled for stripers around the Horn, but with no success.
Luckily at 4 pm the wind shutoff like a light
switch and the fish immediately began to bite again. It saved the day as we caught many more bass
and crappie. That evening we tried
topwater and Dayton had one of the biggest blowups I’ve ever seen, but didn’t
land it. It was the only topwater bite
of the night.
Our last day we planned to pack up and leave, but the
morning was so gorgeous and calm that we gave it one more hour of fishing along
our best run in Red Canyon. We all caught
a few more fish before finally calling it quits.
