Lake Powell 2019

Fishing Time: March 30 to April 3

Weather: Calm with slight breeze at times, mostly sunny, T-60s to 70s

Moon Phase: 19% Moon

Water Level: 3,569 ft amsl

Mudline: First mudline (green stained) started in Piute Bay near our camp, Second Mudline (mud stain) was not found this year.  Run off hadn’t started yet.

Water Temp: Ranged from 53 degrees in the morning up to 60 degrees in the afternoon.

Best Baits (in order): Curly tailed grubs, Texas rigged plastics, spinnerbaits, jig and trailer. 

Who Went:  Rick, Bobber John, Dunc

Spring is here and it’s time for my favorite fishing trip of the year, Lake Powell.  My buddies and I have a camping list that we revise after each Lake Powell trip, and this being our decade anniversary of going, you might say we have it dialed in. 

A quick stop by the grocery store and we were on our way.  We left this year on a Friday evening and arrived at the Ticaboo Lodge at midnight.  Lucky for me, I brought a nasty cold with me that made sleeping miserable, but luckily it got better as the trip went on. 

Saturday morning we enjoyed a hot breakfast and made our way to the boat ramp only to be surprised at how low the water was.  In fact, we couldn’t even launch at the main Bullfrog Marina.  It was bone dry.  Instead we were redirected north to a service ramp to launch.

After a two hour boat ride we arrived at our camp spot towards the end of the San Juan Arm.  This year’s spot was beautiful with classic Lake Powell boulders surrounding us, in water and on land.  We were even greeted by some wild burro’s that hung out with us during our entire trip.  

We set up camp between the sandstone boulders and the 4 day fishing bonanza began. 

Saturday:

We only had the afternoon to fish, so we stayed close and fished the waters near camp.  It was a smallmouth afternoon and the fishing wasn’t fast.  We worked areas hard and caught fish, but it wasn’t as hot as we had hoped.  

Rick was throwing texas rigged plastics, John was throwing curly tailed grubs, and I was throwing a jig and trailer and spinnerbaits.  All produced, but the grub and texas rigged plastics were the main producers.  Most fish were caught off points and rocky shorelines in 10 to 15 feet of water. 

Sunday:

A much better day with a mixed bag of smallmouth, largemouth, walleye, and crappie.  I woke up early and the weather was gorgeous.  I snapped a few photos showing our view from camp, including a panorama of the glassy water and red bluffs in the San Juan Arm.

We fished all our usual haunts in the San Juan arm and fishing was good, especially for Rick.  He was close to the Lake Powell Grand Slam, minus the catfish and bluegill.  

He also busted a pretty good largemouth.

Then just before evening we were fishing a stretch of rocky shoreline and it went nuts with smallmouth bites.  We must have landed 50 of them within a couple hours, and John added one crappie.

It was a good way to end the day.  Most fish were caught off the shoreline between 5 and 15 feet of water, however the afternoon smallmouth bite was shallow near rocky and gravel shorelines.  At times we were trying to manage two rods with fish biting each of them.

We headed back to camp a bit early and filleted a bunch of fish.  We had enough fish for dinner each night we were there.  While Rick went to work filleting fish, I threw some topwater around camp and landed a very nice Crappie.  I walked over and added it to the filet pile. Yummy!

Monday:

We started the morning drifting baits in 15 to 20 feet of water.  This produced a few smallmouth, but wasn’t fast fishing.  We moved to some different areas of the San Juan arm, and caught some smallmouth and largemouth, mainly off of points and deeper water from 15 to 25 feet.  

The wind was a bit annoying forcing us to troll and hide in the back of a few select canyons.  Trolling produced a few stripers and smallmouth, but this was by far our toughest day of fishing.  Still a good day, but we had to work for them in the shifting winds.  Almost all fish were caught off points and underwater ridges.  Casting into deeper water across a known point or ridge usually produced a few fish.

That evening we fished topwater from the shoreline near camp.  It’s a bit early in the year for topwater, but we managed a couple.  Just before dark I tried to jump to a large rock to cast from shore and ended up landing on moss that put me right on my butt and onto a slippery slide that launched me into the lake!  Crazy part was I couldn’t reach the bottom and had water up to my neck!  I quickly launched my rod onto shore and got out.  My new job had just given me a new cell phone the day before I left on this trip and it was in my pocket.  Luckily I was able to get out of the water quick enough to keep it mostly dry and the phone was fine.  Whew!

Tuesday:

Another nice day and we decided to run up lake to explore Escalante Canyon.  

It's a gorgeous canyon and I have heard good things in the past, but never fished it, so we gave it a chance.  The low water didn’t help, but we didn’t find much that looked fishy.  It may be better with higher water, but for now it wasn’t too impressive.  We did find one decent cove that had some sunken trees and rock rubble.  We caught a few smallies, and I lucked into a good largemouth on a spinnerbait.  

We also found some skinny stripers hanging out in the back of one canyon that played with us for a while as we harassed them with deep diving crankbaits.  The bite was fun while it lasted.

That evening we headed back to the San Juan arm and fished some new shoreline.  One spot in particular was on fire for largemouth and Rick put on a clinic with the spinnerbait.  

A storm was blowing in and it makes me wonder if this was a pre-storm bite.  Those are the best!  John and I also got into some largemouth and I had one break off that I think could have been the fish of the trip.  It was fun while it lasted, but soon it was getting dark.  Topwater didn’t produce, so we turned on my newly installed boat lights and began drifting jigs in 20 to 30 feet of water. Bobber John and Rick picked up a couple walleye, and rick landed one catfish.  I managed one striper before calling it a night.

With no moonlight it was a scary boat ride back to camp.  I literally followed our trail on the gps all the way back.  We passed through boulder islands and underwater hazards going 30 mph in pitch black.  Totally freaky!

Wednesday:

We slept in late and by the time we had camp loaded it was time to make the 2 hour trek back to Bullfrog.  When we arrived Rick backed the trailer down the ramp and I noticed I was missing a runner board.  I couldn’t trailer the boat without it, so Rick and John headed into Bullfrog and scored a 2x4 from some construction workers.  Price was a 12 pack of beer.  A few zip ties later and a 2x4 and we were ready to trailer the boat and head back to SLC.

Conclusion:

The trip was a bit early this year, but we were lucky to have good weather.  The bite wasn’t the best we’ve experienced, but some good moments and shorelines that produced a lot of fish.  We caught a bunch of smallmouth, a good number of largemouth, and a few crappie, walleye, and stripers.  Rick picked up one catfish while drifting, so the only fish we didn’t catch was a bluegill.  We had the entire San Juan arm to ourselves for 4 days and that was one of the bonuses of doing the trip earlier in the year.  It was one of my favorite camp sites we’ve had, and the fish dinners each night were amazing. 

We had a couple evenings where the bite was shallow, but most of the trip fish were found between 5 to 20 feet of water and off of rocky points seemed to produce the best.  We caught a handful of fish on topwater, but the cold evenings seemed to keep the fish deep.  Trolling was awful and barely produced a bite.  Typically we can’t keep fish off when we troll at Lake Powell.  The spinnerbait produced some nice largemouth, but plastics were king as usual with the curly tailed grub and texas rigged creature baits producing the most fish.  The jig and trailer also had its moments.  The only fish caught on crankbaits were stripers, and I don’t recall a fish being caught on a senko or worm, although we didn’t give them much of a chance. 

The only mishaps of the trip was me taking a swim and the 2x4 runner board replacement on the boat trailer.  It was another successful trip with good memories and many fish caught.  Can’t wait to go back!

Fish Lake Blues

Fishing Time: Saturday and Sunday (February 9-10)
Weather:  Cold, windy, below freezing
Moon Phase: 22% Moon
Location: Fish Lake
Best Bait: Storm minnow jig (white)
Who Went: Bobber John, Dunc

This has probably been the worst ice fishing season I have ever endured.  We have been pounded with snow this winter and many of the lakes have so much snow that walking through it sounds miserable.  The last two trips were an attempt to get my boys into some fast action for perch and both trips were total fails.

But I was excited about this trip.  We were leaving the kids at home and headed south to Fish Lake for two days. The mornings were cold reaching temps below freezing, but we were able to get the tent set up and the heaters pumping while we hid away for two days and pestered the lake trout below.  

The first morning the lake trout seemed active and were chasing us up and down the water column.  John missed two bites, and I got none.  No fish were caught.

The second day the fish were not around as much and were also not active.  We continued to work through the slow inactive times and I was finally able to pin one lake trout to a hook.  It was small, but at least it was a fish.  

After my hook up the lake trout seemed nonexistent.  We start fishing higher in the water column for splake and rainbows.  We didn’t have any worms and had to resort to using powerbait that Bobber John found in his tackle box.  We had a lot of bites, but it seems they would always leave us with an empty hook as they swam away with our powerbait. Again, I finally was able to land one small rainbow.

The highlight of the trip was watching a 10-15-pound lake trout swim 3 ft underneath the ice right past our ice holes.  It just meandered through and let us take a good long look at him.  Very cool, but I wish he was on the end of my line.  So, another failed trip this winter.  I can’t wait for spring.  Hopefully it’s a bit nicer to us.

Wrong Turn at Pineview Leads to a Marathon

Fishing Time: 9:00 to 3:00 pm
Weather: Fog, calm, T-20s
Moon Phase: Full Moon
Location: Pineview Reservoir
Best Bait: Firetiger spoon tipped with worm
Who Went: Bobber John, Devin, Dunc

Devin couldn’t make the last ice fishing outing, so we planned another trip to a different lake.  Dayton decided to opt out on this trip.  I think the slow fishing and cold weather on the last outing didn’t excite him much.

We arrived to Pineview in a thick fog.  We couldn’t even see the reservoir.  We stopped near the dam and started to unload when a big group of fishermen arrived back to their vehicles.  The report was that they had just spent a day and a half fishing and sleeping in their tents with one fish caught by the whole group. Yikes! 

We hopped back in the truck and headed further down lake.  The goal was to make it to Browning’s Point, but I made a wrong turn in the thick fog, which put us in a big shallow bay about 1 mile from Browning’s Point.  We didn’t realize it until we got onto the ice and I turned on my fish finders GPS to get a bearing.  Devin was in good spirits so we decided to make the trek to Browning’s.  Hindsight is 20/20.  After a grueling 1-mile hike over the snow-capped lake we made it to our spot exhausted and sweating.

We set up and began to fish.  There were a few small perch that wanted to play, but the action wasn’t hot.  Bobber John caught a tiny bullhead catfish and it became Devin’s best friend.  He spent most of the day making ponds in the snow and transferring his new pet back and forth to each pond.  We gave the fishing a good effort, but all we could entice were a few small perch.  No other species wanted to play.

The hike back wasn’t fun.  Devin was tired and cold, so I made him a makeshift chair on the sled and the trek began.  Let’s just say it was one of those hikes where you feel like you have never been so excited to see the truck!  Old age is not fun.  I was exhausted!  

Red Hot Fishing at Echo Reservoir - Not Really

Fishing Time: 10:00 to 2:00 pm
Weather: Cold, clear, calm, T-18
Moon Phase: 47% Moon
Location: Echo Reservoir
Best Bait: Curly tailed grub tipped with worm fished 10 ft under the ice in 35 ft of water
Who Went: Bobber John and Anthony, Rick and Elle, Tad and Zack, Dayton and Dunc

I wanted to get my boys out ice fishing this year and my online research led me to reports of red hot fishing for perch and rainbows at Echo Reservoir.  Seemed perfect for the kids.  Unfortunately, Devin couldn’t make it, but Dayton and I picked up Bobber John and his boy Anthony and met Rick and his buddy Tad and their kids at the lake.

Apparently, we were not the only ones to research the hot reports.  The ice was covered with people and ice fishing tents.  We found one of the only open spots left and set up our own tents.

The depth was 35 feet and seemed perfect for perch. Rick lowered his Aqua View camera through the ice and confirmed it.  Little perch swimming everywhere.  We started fishing and immediately getting bit, but they were the kind that drive fisherman nuts.  One tiny bite and then gone.  Bobber John finally stuck one and pulled up a 5-inch perch. Yay. We got plenty of bites, but that was the only perch that made it to the ice.

I started seeing some marks on the fish finder higher in the water column and began targeting them.  I had a taker and it turned out to be a feisty rainbow.  Dayton took over and was able to pull it through the ice.  Good job Dayton!

Bobber John took note and also moved up in the water column and landed one more feisty rainbow with Anthony.  Rick and his gang continued to frustrate themselves watching perch on the camera and get constant nibbles, but no takers. 

Meanwhile, Dayton was trying out his new BB gun that he got for Christmas.  He has become quite the shot and was putting holes in cans of soda and watching them explode.  I think that was his favorite part of the trip! 

The slow fishing got old, so we packed up and let the kids slay ride near the truck for a minute.  It wasn’t the red hot action I was hoping to get the kids into, but a fun trip none the less.

Frozen Boat at Flaming Gorge

Fishing Time: Friday and Saturday (December 28 and 29)

Weather: COLD, calm, Temps were -5 in the morning and single digits in the afternoon

Moon Phase: 55% Moon

Location: Flaming Gorge

Water Temp: 39 degrees

Best Bait: small tube jig fished shallow for rainbows and pup mack

Who Went: Rick, Bobber John, Dunc

Another winter trip to Flaming Gorge and just like the last few years, there is no ice.  No problem, because I have a boat, right?  Well yes, but we were about to find out, boats don’t like temperatures below freezing.  The last couple years have been mild and fishing from the boat wasn’t too big of a deal.  This year taught us a valuable lesson of what boating in real winter conditions is like.

We arrived late in the night to our cheap motel after driving through a snow storm that had us on edge the entire way.  The drive took over 4 hours and I slipped 5 or 6 times on I-80, which is not fun pulling a boat.  However, the forecast for the next two days called for no storms, calm winds, and cold temps. 

We woke up the first morning and were greeted with -5 degrees, but calm conditions.  Everything seemed okay until the motor on the boat would not turn over. I thought my battery was zapped, but for whatever reason after a few minutes it decided to start.  Once the boat was launched it became obvious that everything on the boat was frozen.  The pea hole on my motor wasn’t spitting water which is how the engine cools itself, so we had to use the portable heater to thaw it out.  After that it was the front thruster motor that was frozen.  We need the thruster motor to fish, so we spent time thawing that out.  Lastly, my fish finder seemed to be on the fritz, which wasn’t really a cold issue, but more of an old issue!  Not sure if it’s my fish finder or my transducer, but one of them needs replacing.  Ugh.  We spent half the morning trying to dial in the fish finder just to get a glimpse at what was beneath us.  We ended up getting it to work okay, but not as well as we needed it to effectively fish for big lake trout.

Frustrated, but still excited, we went to work to find some fish.  Not many fish were showing up and doubt started to creep into our minds.  Is it the fish finder, or is there really no fish?  It really put into perspective all the things that must go right to effectively fish for lake trout on Flaming Gorge.  Finally, a few groups of fish were seen, and Rick had two bites, but missed them.  He was frustrated, but it gave us hope.  The hope didn’t last long though, and we ended the long day with no more bites.  Lame.

The second morning brought more cold temperatures and this time my boat was completely frozen.  After pulling it out of the lake the night before I think all the water instantly froze and this morning the boat was an ice burg.  To make matters worse, the cove that the marina sits in was frozen with about an inch of ice.  

We spent the first 2 hours of the morning thawing my steering wheel, throttle, and motor to get them to move.  After that we had to launch the boat into the ice and break our way through.  The boat didn’t seem to want to come off of the trailer, but after some prodding it finally let go and then I realized why… the running board was frozen to the bottom of the boat and finally snapped and came off the trailer with it.  Plus, my tail lights on the trailer were smashed from launching through the ice.  Was this worth it?  Not sure but we were in too deep to quit.  We used an oar to pry and pound the running board off the bottom of the boat and then Rick strapped it back onto the trailer using some large zip ties I had in my boat.

Okay the motor is running, boat is off the trailer, and we fixed the running board.  Ready to go, right?  Wrong.  We had to slowly break through the ice and I worried the entire time as I heard the pops and cracks of breaking ice.  I thought for sure we were putting holes in my boat.  Luckily, the boat survived and we were finally ready to fish at 11:00 am.  

Not exactly the best fishing time for lake trout, and four hours later with no bites, it started to feel not worth it.  We finished the evening by fishing the shallows trying to get the skunk smell off the trip.  We caught a couple decent rainbows and one pup mack to end the night.  We didn’t get skunked and we didn’t drive home in a snow storm.  How’s that for looking on the bright side!

Bear Lake - Check One More Species Off the List...

Fishing Time:  8:30 AM to 3 PM

Weather: Calm, no wind, partly cloudy, T-20s

Moon Phase:  7% Moon

Location:  Bear Lake

Water Temp: 42 degrees

Best Bait: Any color of small marabou or curly tailed grub

Who Went:  Bobber John, Rick, Dunc

I was scouting a new place to ice fish and came across an online fishing report from Bear Lake stating that the Bonneville Whitefish spawn is at it’s peak.  The Bonneville Whitefish is endemic to Bear lake and just happens to be one of the last species on my list of fish to catch in Utah.  Two other fish I need to cross off my list are also endemic to Bear Lake.  The Bear Lake Whitefish and the Bonneville Cisco.  An interesting lake to say the least.  Bonneville Whitefish are difficult to catch most of the year staying deep, but when they spawn they move shallow into rocky areas and can be easily targeted by fisherman.

I pitched the idea to my fishing buddies and they were down, so away we went with boat in tow.  The drive to Bear Lake was foggy and cold, with temperatures below zero in Woodruff and Randolph, which are known to be the coldest towns in Utah.  Bear Lake wasn’t much warmer when we arrived, but the fishing gods were generous and we experienced a calm lake with no wind all day long.

We started fishing a few known rocky areas near Gus Rich Point, but the only activity we saw was a pile of carp slurping at the surface near the shoreline.  I made one cast into the middle of them and hooked up immediately.  It wasn’t a snag either, the carp actually bit my small marabou jig tipped with a worm.  Rick also hooked up with one cutthroat. 

We moved areas to the east side of the lake to continue our quest of finding some spawning whitefish. We were rewarded for moving at an area called First Point.  The action was immediate and fast.  We all began catching whitefish and each checked them off our Utah species to catch list.  Rick even had a few cutthroats bite including one nice one over 20-inches.

Soon we had our fill of Bonneville Whitefish and tried our luck trolling deeper water for cutthroat and lake trout.  The weather was beautiful and made for some relaxing trolling, but we didn’t find the groups of fish we were hoping for.  Rick, the cutthroat slayer of the day, was able to land one cutthroat, but that was the only fish we caught trolling all afternoon.  The good weather and whitefish bite still made us happy and I got to check one more species off my list!

First Ice Fishing Trip... Almost a Bust

Fishing Time:  7:00 am to 11:00 am
Weather: Snow blizzard and windy.  (6-10-inches of snow)
Moon Phase: 20% Moon
Location:  Utah Lake
Best Bait:  Marabou jig tipped with earthworm
Who Went:  Bobber John, Dunc

The word was out that Scofield Reservoir has capped with 4-6-inches of ice.  The plan was to beat the crowds and catch hoards of fish still yet to see pressure from the masses.  First ice is always the best.  However, mother nature had other ideas.  I woke up at 5 am to a winter wonderland.  The first snow storm of winter had hit with a vengeance.  There was a couple inches of snow on the ground already, and it continued to come down quickly.  I slowly made my way to Bobber Johns house to pick him up, but as we hit I-15 to head south it quickly came apparent that we weren't making it to Scofield.  Cars were sliding all over the road.  We watched one SUV slam into the freeway barrier.  This storm had no signs of stopping and the plows were just getting started.  By days end there would be 6-10-inches of snow on the ground depending on area.

Luckily we made it to the Provo Boat Harbor unscathed and sat in the dark watching the snow fall until the sun made it's way over the Wasatch Mountains.

The snow was still falling and now the wind was driving it sideways.  We geared up anyway and hit the docks.  There's no ice at Utah lake yet, so we jigged our ice fishing rods around the docks in open water hoping for a white bass or any other species willing to take.  After 20 minutes with no bites we decided it was time to move locations.  We braved the treacherous roads once again and made it to one of our secret inlet spots where the fishing is usually good.

Once there, Bobber slid down the hill on his butt to the shoreline and on his first cast he landed a little largemouth bass.

I slid down to fish next to him and we continued to catch a mixed bag of largemouth, bluegill, and white bass.  I caught one decent white bass and Bobber landed the fish of the day with a chunky largemouth bass.

It's nice to have a secret location in your back pocket when the first planned ice fishing trip of the year goes badly.