Best and Worst Day at Flaming Gorge

Fishing Time: 8:00 am to 3:00 pm

Weather: Unseasonably warm, temps reaching 50 degrees with sunny skies and no wind

Moon Phase: 90% Moon

Location: Flaming Gorge (Anvil Point)

Best Bait: River2Sea Glide Bait - Party Crasher Series 200

Who Went: Dunc

I made plans with my boys to fish The Gorge over the holiday break.  The day before we left, they both got very sick and bailed on me.  It didn’t leave me much time to find a partner, so I just rolled solo.  Arrived at the lovely Browning’s Motel in Manila at 7 pm.  I watched some football, rigged some rods, and went to bed.

Woke up early to clear skies and no wind.  The temperature was the warmest I can recall for this time of year, and I didn’t even need gloves.  Got to the boat ramp just as the sun started to come up and launched the boat. 

The day seemed perfect until I went to fire up my electronics, and they wouldn’t turn on.  Lake trout fishing with no electronics is basically not worth doing, so I started to panic.  I messed around with the battery with no success.  I’m still learning the lithium battery world. If it wasn’t such a nice morning, I would have loaded the boat and went home for sure, but I couldn’t get myself to leave. I was so angry but finally just made a mental decision to get over it and think about how to make it work. 

I’ve wanted to try a new technique dragging large glide baits and it’s the perfect time of year to try, so I committed to it and went to work. I deployed two large glide baits behind the boat going 1.5 to 1.7 mph.  It was frustrating at times because I didn’t know my depth.  I tied on a heavy weight onto a spinning rod and continuously dropped it to the bottom to get an idea where I was at. My goal was to stay in 20-35 ft of water.  By the end of the day, I had the depth check system dialed in!

I spent the morning dragging glide baits around Antelope Flats with no success before moving north to Anvil Point.  I decided I had to see what was going on beneath me, so I disconnected my trolling batteries and hooked up my fish finder.  Now I had a fish finder but no trolling motor (sigh). I used the big motor to check all my waypoints out deep and to my surprise I couldn’t find a fish anywhere.  This gave me more confidence to just go back to the shallows and continue trolling.  I disconnected the fish finder and reconnected my trolling batteries… what a pain!

I pulled out my paper contour map (yup going back in time) and picked a good-looking point that had a nice 20-40 foot flat all the way around it.  On my first pass I had a hook up!  My rod doubled over, and I saw a fish surface on my lure.  It was so cool!  Unfortunately, the moment I grabbed my rod it went slack and was gone.  Now I was really angry.  After all I was dealing with I miss the fish too!  This day took a lot of patience, but again the weather made it easier to deal with.

I continued trolling and consistently checking depth with my manual depth finder.  Soon after missing the first fish my rod doubled over again and I saw another fish roll on the bait, but this time it stuck!  Based on seeing it surfacing I guessed it was maybe a 10-15 pound fish but was just excited to catch one!  About 30 seconds into the fight, I realized it might be a pretty good fish.  Then after 5 minutes of fighting and still losing ground I realized it was definitely a good fish!  I finally got a net on it and was able to weigh it in at 32 pounds!  Trip made!  I still can’t believe I caught a 32-pound fish in 30 feet of water.  I’m now in the 30 in 30 club!

See the video links below:

https://www.amazon.com/photos/all/gallery/gPOplN7mSNu_y_2iTtywqQ?sf=1&ref_=APH_SNPA7 

https://www.amazon.com/photos/all/gallery/SXv6gEunRECYtpLVoDrDrA?sf=1&ref_=APH_SNPA7

I continued dragging glides for another couple hours but never got another bite.  It was hard to leave, but I had a date with the family in SLC to see the finale of Stranger Things on the big screen, so I called it a day and drove home with a big smile on my face.   

Hiding from the Cold in Sunny Arizona

Fishing Time: Thursday through Saturday

Weather: Warm, but a bit cooler than average.  Sunny and calm winds with exception of Friday afternoon in got windy.

Moon Phase: Full Moon

Location: Saguaro Lake, Alamo Lake, and Lake Pleasant

Water Temps: Averaged 60-64 degrees

Best Baits: Weightless Senko, roboworm on a drop-shot rig

Who Went: Casey Davies, Dunc

The cold weather finally hit home, but I’m not quite ready for it.  I decided to take a few days off and head south with my buddy Casey.  We hooked up the boat and drove 10 hours through snow until it finally quit 100 miles outside of Phoenix, AZ.  

Casey’s sister lives in Phoenix and offered us a base camp for a few days.  Turned into more than a base camp as they were excellent hosts feeding us smoked ribs and all you can eat halibut they brought home from Alaska where they live most the year.  It was sooo good!  I also fell in love with their little weiner dog Maggie!

The first day we fished at one of the coolest lakes I’ve ever launched my boat.  It’s called Saguaro Lake, but its nickname is “Land of the Giants”.  It’s not known for producing a lot of fish but has produced many giants in the double digits.  My kind of lake!

The lake is one of many reservoirs along the Salt River which is set in the red rock desert with Saguaro Cactus lining it’s shorelines.  It was gorgeous.  We made our way upriver dodging many underwater hazards along the way until we reached the dam.  Started fishing and worked our way back down river. We were also lucky to see some bighorn sheep on top of the canyon rim.

Fishing a new lake is tough and we struggled.  I landed one small largemouth bass, and Casey found a pile of bluegill to get the skunk off him.  Unfortunately, those were the only two fish caught.  I got the feeling this was a lake that takes some time to learn, especially fishing it in the winter months.  Either way it was worth the trip.

On day 2 we drove two hours northwest of Phoenix to Alamo Lake.  The locals at the tackle store said this was a good producing lake but wasn’t known for producing big bass.  It certainly was not the prettiest of lakes and was in the middle of nowhere.  

We fished the morning with only a catfish pulled off the 40-foot bottom with a Ned Rig to show for it.

In the late morning, we moved across the lake to some points with submerged brush. The bite turned on for a minute, and I caught 6 small bass using a weightless Senko and Casey put one in the boat as well.  

Soon after the bite died and the wind came up something fierce, so we said goodbye to our donkey friends that kept us company for the day and headed back to home base.

On our last day we decided to fish the closest lake to home base at Lake Pleasant.  Mixed reports on Lake Pleasant said it can be tough, but it has big fish and can get hot at times. It’s a huge reservoir and reminded me of Lake Powell.  We launched in Scorpion Bay and crossed the lake to fish some islands that a guide told us usually produce.

We tried almost every type of bait and technique I know how to fish and couldn’t buy a bite.  I wasn’t seeing anything on the fish finder either.  It was a ghost town. We moved down lake to some rocky points to try our luck there.  I fished on a 20-foot shelf off a rocky point and saw a good mark right on the bottom.  I sent my roboworm on a drop-shot down toward it and immediately hooked up.  It felt like a small fish, but once it got close to the boat it surfaced.  It was not a small fish at all and probably went 4-5 pounds!  Sadly, we will never know because it surfaced one more time and spit the hook!  I was bummed!  It was the only good fish of the trip.  I ended up catching one smaller bass off the same shelf, but that was it for the day.

We met some locals on the boat ramp when we left and they were there all day and caught two fish.  Said 3 weeks ago they were catching 40 fish a day.  Figures!  Shows that winter fishing, especially in water you are unfamiliar with, can be really tough!  Either way it was fun to get out of the cold and visit some new lakes!  Luckily, we didn’t get snowed on going home!