Powell Report Aug 4&5

[sam sherwood]

San Juan Boils are Awesome!

I took a friend Bryan and his grandson Travis up to Powell for a short trip before Travis leaves on his 2-year church mission. We were concerned about the weather forecast posted Wed night when considering staying close or heading north but went ahead and headed up to the San Juan out of Wahweap on Thursday morning expecting to get wet but never did. What we did do was find stripers on top ¼ mile into the San Juan and we started catching fish immediately for the next ½ mile before a boater came up and asked if we knew what the “hundreds of fish coming up on the surface just around the corner” was all about and we assured them we’d go see if we could fix it… wow, game on! We had close to 3 hours of great action as the clouds kept the sun at bay and we had lots of different boils to work, some large and some small. We finished up this action and left it about 9:45 while there was still a little bit going on top but headed up to a spot we killed them last year in and we were disappointed to find no boils up there but poking around we did find some likely looking shad balls with stripers going on them and dropped spoons on them for great action for another couple of hours, from 40-80’ bottom depth. Many fish were suspended and would be caught speed reeling up after bouncing the spoon on the bottom for awhile and some we’d just guess about where 30’ was and jig it around that depth and score, since that depth seemed to be the shad ball locations. We even caught a few fish on the bottom in 80’! Stripers, smallies, walleye, and catfish were all in the mix. We left after noon and headed to Dangling Rope for some ice cream and shade.
After the DR break, we fished close by and caught some smallies and a largemouth in the back of a canyon and then trolled up a few more including a striper along the shoreline going toward Wahweap. The trolling was not nearly as effective as last year but I think it will be better in a month with some cooling. With the increasing winds and rain in the distance we decided to head in early and it was a pretty rough go! Our total catch for the day was 125+ with lots of 4+ lb healthy stripers. Bryan commented several times on how quiet the Verado motor was and on the slick design features of the Phoenix 920. It was also a little surprising how much less fuel we needed than anticipated after running 75 miles up into the river then chasing boils around for hours, and then hauling back down to DR.
For Friday we booked it right back up to the San Juan hoping for a repeat but even though there was sporadic action again shortly into the San Juan, we buzzed past them and went up around the first hard RH corner and there was a good sized boil to start with but after we worked them for awhile, we only had random smaller boils that were much more skittish than before so it wasn’t long before we headed up to the spooning spot hoping for boils but had none and the spoon fish had moved and few fish were caught. Since it got hotter quicker and the clouds were long gone and it was getting hot, we heard DR Marina ice cream calling our names much earlier and headed back there and then went to some areas around Dungeon Canyon/North to finish off the trip. We caught a few here and there inc a nicer walleye off a submerged island but the day was much slower and hotter so we headed in before noon and called it a trip. Only about 40 fish this day and the stripers were all pretty much on the smaller size. With any luck I’ll be back a few more times this season when it gets cooler and if I don’t get too bogged down with the new house project in Flagstaff.

Sam Sherwood Mesa, AZ

[Swankster]

Nice! Thanks for posting.