04-15-2013, 12:43 AM
Hey all,
Every springtime for 8 years now we've made the journey south to participate in what we call "The Dam Fishing Trip" out of Wahweap at Lake Powell. When conditions are just right, the Stripers head out into the main channel and can be easily caught in large numbers jigging with anchovies. It has become one of our favorite trips each year that we look forward to. Some of you may have seen the recent Adam Eakle show highlighting the Striper fishing down there this year, and I can now personally agree that it really is the best it's been since I've been going there which is at least 8 years.
We (My cousin Arron, myself and my uncle Gayle) left Wednesday night 4/10 and headed to Page Arizona where we checked into the Best Western Lake Powell motel after buying our reciprocal stamps at Walmart and getting a few last minute groceries for the next day.
On Thursday 4/11, we waited till 6:00 (AZ time) at the ramp for the nice Quagga Mussel lady to clear our boat, then we launched and headed right for the barricade at the dam. Weather was beautiful! Coats needed in the mornings...T-shirts in the afternoons...and no wind for once! Tropical vacation weather. Once we hooked up to the barricade at the dam (we tied onto the 2nd pontoon from the west wall), my first 3 casts yielded three 25 inch fat Stripers! The action was literally ON from the very first cast! Wayne Gustaveson himself showed up and fished with us for a while and talked with us. He reminded us that the fish cleaning station was broken and apologized for that. Fishing was just outstanding. We didn't stop fishing till about 2:30 that afternoon and by then had fished all we could. We were literally worn out. The cleaning station is BROKEN right now, so we had to fillet on the boat...about 1.5 hours and a big mess later...we were done for the day and headed in. Our catch for Thursday: 88 fish between the 3 of us! And we could have caught a lot more had we not stopped fishing while we ate lunch and took government regulation 15 minute breaks every now and then! We were exhausted.
Friday morning we were at the ramp again waiting till 6:00 to allow launching, as well as a few other boats. We had our friend John join us on Friday who drove in from Salt Lake. It's a race to get to one of the first 3 floating barrier pontoons against the west wall of the channel, and we knew at least one other boat was going for that spot...so after I launched our boat with Arron, Gayle and John aboard, I raced to the parking lot, then ran down the ramp keeping up with the much younger driver of the other boat. FYI...the ramp is a full 1/4 mile long right now! I jumped into our boat and we headed off to the dam. We got there right behind the first boat but still got the 2nd pontoon...and then...nothing. Fishing was not happening at the dam for some reason. We stuck it out for about 2 hours and only had a handful of fish. Conditions were exactly the same as the previous day...but the fish just weren't there. Our friend John was starting to think we made the story up from the day before. About 9:30 we decided to go look for some fish. I had read on WaynesWords website that Stripers were schooling up around Buoy #3 towards Antelope (amongh other places), so we headed that way...deployed the i-pilot virtual anchor (it's 400 feet deep there...i-pilot was AWESOME!), and waited for about 10 minutes before we caught our first fish...and then...IT WAS ON! For the rest of the day, we hammered the stripers as the school stayed under us all day long. If you wanted to eat something, drink something, or pee...you HAD to quit fishing as these fish will take your whole pole into the water! Another boatload of guys saw us throwing the fish back as we didn't want to fillet on the boat again and the cleaning station was still broken, and they came over and gave us a stringer to fill up for them. We had already thrown back more than half our fish by then, but at about 3:00 when we quit (of exhaustion!), we delivered to them a stringer with about 80 fish on it...our total count for the day...196 fish! We didn't add up our numbers till we started back in, and had we known we were that close we would have stuck it out and caught 4 more fish (which would have taken 5 minutes) to make it an even 200 for the day! By the way...the virtual anchor feature (spot lock) of the i-pilot on the MinnKota?...PRICELESS!!!! We stayed put all day as other boats kept having to reposition all day long around us...and believe me, they stayed VERY close to us as we were the "hot boat" on the lake that day because we are excellent fishermen...[cool] Plus the ipilot helps out also. It's like an anchor...without the anchor.
On Saturday, I didn't race down the ramp since we weren't racing for position at the dam and also because I was so sore from doing it the day before (I'm old, ok?) and we headed back out to the same spot. We again started slaying the fish and soon there were another dozen boats around us again. We stopped before noon to head back in as it was go-home day, after catching 83 more fish! We filleted a few for John who hadn't kept any yet and made another stinking mess on the boat, but it was all worth it.
Weather all three days was FANTASTIC, with ZERO wind! Fishing all three days was the best it's EVER been down there...and now as I write this all I can think about is wishing I could make it back again this year. Gas and Lodging in the hotel is expensive, but it was so worth the trip. In all, we ended up with 367 fish total. Our initial predictions were less than half of that at best and it way exceeded our expectations. If you haven't been down there, this is the year to go. All fish are between 24 and 30 inches going up to 7 lbs. with an occasional smaller or larger one. We were fishing with two poles each and there were times when literally all poles on the boat had a fish on. We had more doubles than singles! We literally got TIRED of catching fish at times and had to stop and rest!
Here are some pics:
One of many DOUBLES in the net...
[inline IMAG0916s.JPG]
...A few fish on the stringer...
[inline IMAG0914s.JPG]
Wayne Gustaveson himself came by and visited and fished with us for a while...I wanted to ask him for his autograph, but was too embarrased...[blush]
[inline IMAG0919s.JPG]
...Another day in Paradise!!!
[inline IMAG0930s.JPG]
...just 15 minutes or so into the trip on the first day!!!!
[inline 2013-04-119507.31.26s.JPG]
Arron and John...while we fishing the school at "Lake Bum Curve", which is between buoys 3 and 4...
[inline 2013-04-129510_2.40.48s.JPG]
[signature]
Every springtime for 8 years now we've made the journey south to participate in what we call "The Dam Fishing Trip" out of Wahweap at Lake Powell. When conditions are just right, the Stripers head out into the main channel and can be easily caught in large numbers jigging with anchovies. It has become one of our favorite trips each year that we look forward to. Some of you may have seen the recent Adam Eakle show highlighting the Striper fishing down there this year, and I can now personally agree that it really is the best it's been since I've been going there which is at least 8 years.
We (My cousin Arron, myself and my uncle Gayle) left Wednesday night 4/10 and headed to Page Arizona where we checked into the Best Western Lake Powell motel after buying our reciprocal stamps at Walmart and getting a few last minute groceries for the next day.
On Thursday 4/11, we waited till 6:00 (AZ time) at the ramp for the nice Quagga Mussel lady to clear our boat, then we launched and headed right for the barricade at the dam. Weather was beautiful! Coats needed in the mornings...T-shirts in the afternoons...and no wind for once! Tropical vacation weather. Once we hooked up to the barricade at the dam (we tied onto the 2nd pontoon from the west wall), my first 3 casts yielded three 25 inch fat Stripers! The action was literally ON from the very first cast! Wayne Gustaveson himself showed up and fished with us for a while and talked with us. He reminded us that the fish cleaning station was broken and apologized for that. Fishing was just outstanding. We didn't stop fishing till about 2:30 that afternoon and by then had fished all we could. We were literally worn out. The cleaning station is BROKEN right now, so we had to fillet on the boat...about 1.5 hours and a big mess later...we were done for the day and headed in. Our catch for Thursday: 88 fish between the 3 of us! And we could have caught a lot more had we not stopped fishing while we ate lunch and took government regulation 15 minute breaks every now and then! We were exhausted.
Friday morning we were at the ramp again waiting till 6:00 to allow launching, as well as a few other boats. We had our friend John join us on Friday who drove in from Salt Lake. It's a race to get to one of the first 3 floating barrier pontoons against the west wall of the channel, and we knew at least one other boat was going for that spot...so after I launched our boat with Arron, Gayle and John aboard, I raced to the parking lot, then ran down the ramp keeping up with the much younger driver of the other boat. FYI...the ramp is a full 1/4 mile long right now! I jumped into our boat and we headed off to the dam. We got there right behind the first boat but still got the 2nd pontoon...and then...nothing. Fishing was not happening at the dam for some reason. We stuck it out for about 2 hours and only had a handful of fish. Conditions were exactly the same as the previous day...but the fish just weren't there. Our friend John was starting to think we made the story up from the day before. About 9:30 we decided to go look for some fish. I had read on WaynesWords website that Stripers were schooling up around Buoy #3 towards Antelope (amongh other places), so we headed that way...deployed the i-pilot virtual anchor (it's 400 feet deep there...i-pilot was AWESOME!), and waited for about 10 minutes before we caught our first fish...and then...IT WAS ON! For the rest of the day, we hammered the stripers as the school stayed under us all day long. If you wanted to eat something, drink something, or pee...you HAD to quit fishing as these fish will take your whole pole into the water! Another boatload of guys saw us throwing the fish back as we didn't want to fillet on the boat again and the cleaning station was still broken, and they came over and gave us a stringer to fill up for them. We had already thrown back more than half our fish by then, but at about 3:00 when we quit (of exhaustion!), we delivered to them a stringer with about 80 fish on it...our total count for the day...196 fish! We didn't add up our numbers till we started back in, and had we known we were that close we would have stuck it out and caught 4 more fish (which would have taken 5 minutes) to make it an even 200 for the day! By the way...the virtual anchor feature (spot lock) of the i-pilot on the MinnKota?...PRICELESS!!!! We stayed put all day as other boats kept having to reposition all day long around us...and believe me, they stayed VERY close to us as we were the "hot boat" on the lake that day because we are excellent fishermen...[cool] Plus the ipilot helps out also. It's like an anchor...without the anchor.
On Saturday, I didn't race down the ramp since we weren't racing for position at the dam and also because I was so sore from doing it the day before (I'm old, ok?) and we headed back out to the same spot. We again started slaying the fish and soon there were another dozen boats around us again. We stopped before noon to head back in as it was go-home day, after catching 83 more fish! We filleted a few for John who hadn't kept any yet and made another stinking mess on the boat, but it was all worth it.
Weather all three days was FANTASTIC, with ZERO wind! Fishing all three days was the best it's EVER been down there...and now as I write this all I can think about is wishing I could make it back again this year. Gas and Lodging in the hotel is expensive, but it was so worth the trip. In all, we ended up with 367 fish total. Our initial predictions were less than half of that at best and it way exceeded our expectations. If you haven't been down there, this is the year to go. All fish are between 24 and 30 inches going up to 7 lbs. with an occasional smaller or larger one. We were fishing with two poles each and there were times when literally all poles on the boat had a fish on. We had more doubles than singles! We literally got TIRED of catching fish at times and had to stop and rest!
Here are some pics:
One of many DOUBLES in the net...
[inline IMAG0916s.JPG]
...A few fish on the stringer...
[inline IMAG0914s.JPG]
Wayne Gustaveson himself came by and visited and fished with us for a while...I wanted to ask him for his autograph, but was too embarrased...[blush]
[inline IMAG0919s.JPG]
...Another day in Paradise!!!
[inline IMAG0930s.JPG]
...just 15 minutes or so into the trip on the first day!!!!
[inline 2013-04-119507.31.26s.JPG]
Arron and John...while we fishing the school at "Lake Bum Curve", which is between buoys 3 and 4...
[inline 2013-04-129510_2.40.48s.JPG]
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