Powell 4/30-5/3

[MrShane]

My knee replacement was feeling decent enough I decided to test it on a solo trip to Powell, just got home yesterday (5/3).
Since weather forecast was so good I decided to skip the work of setting up a camp and just slept in boat each night wherever I ended up.
Fished and slept in north end first three nights while bouncing around in Cedar/Knowles/Forgotten.
Had two goals:
1. Catch all game species. I got nine different species but did not take pic of the Bullhead.
2. Catch a 16” plus Crappie (failed).
My takeaways for this trip:
I suck at Crappie fishing.
The LM’s this year are absolute tanks, they are eating good.
The Walleye are thicker than I remember, they are eating good also.
Smallies are doing very well also, but they are always doing well in Powell.
The bigger Stripers are getting thin, at least the ones I got. The sub 16” Stripers are very healthy and fight above their weight class.
Dandy Bluegill fishery for sure.
Sunfish are normal and aggressive as ever.
You can fill boat after boat with very healthy Cats on any shoreline beach.
I did catch my best personal Powell Smallie in Forgotten and while holding pole in prosthetic I reached for net with good hand and Bass made a run and pulled my pole overboard out of bad hand.
That was my most favorite pole with a new Shimano Stradic on it.
Ironically that pole was caught at Deer Creek while bottom bouncing so I cleaned it up and fell in love with it.
Hopefully someone else ‘catches’ it and loves it as much as I did.
Spent the last night in Bullfrog after an anchovy session at Moki Wall where I could not even run two poles and caught so many Stripers I lost track.
A boat next to me stopped at 100 the day before and said they were filleting until 11 pm that night.
Loaded up Sat morn on Executive ramp, which is a long walk up to your truck/trailer.
AIS took 1.75 hrs which is ridiculous.
All in all a fantastic trip with nothing more than an occasional light breeze but man oh man I am worn out.
What an absolute amazing place!
I do not know of another body of water in Utah you can catch nine different game species?

[Mildog]

Great report and great trip for you! Except losing your favorite rod and reel. Thank you for posting that report! Powell is a very special place for sure !

[lovetofish]

WOW have you ever made me jealous. What a fantastic fishing trip and the weather cooperating plus the wind not blowing hard. Thanks for the report and pictures.

[Bubman1]

I fished a tournament out of bullfrog a month or so ago and caught a lot of snake stripers while casting for bass but the trip last November very few were snakes interesting a few months time how things change. Sounds like a good trip.

[MrShane]

Great report and great trip for you! Except losing your favorite rod and reel. Thank you for posting that report! Powell is a very special place for sure !

Thanks Mildog!
I had seen your giant Crappie on WW last week and that is what made me go down.
I could get a few up to 10” but don’t know how to catch the big ones.
I can catch everything else in that pond except those big Crappie!!
I spent over two hours Fri afternoon with a bb’er and a big Rattletrap with double trebles absolutely grinding the bottom hoping to snag that pole. I can replace the reel, I just want the pole back.
Here are my gps tracks where I believe the pole is.
While dragging for the pole I caught two 3 lb Walleye which was an extra bonus.

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WOW have you ever made me jealous. What a fantastic fishing trip and the weather cooperating plus the wind not blowing hard. Thanks for the report and pictures.

You are very welcome,  to see water so low.
Here is a pic of Bullfrog main ramp looking down from very top of ramp.
Spur ramp is usable and has a courtesy dock out.
Feds allow truck/trailer parking at bottom but only for day use, overnight you have to bring your truck/trailer combo up to parking lot and walk back down.
Then reverse process for takeout.
It does make you think very well to not forget something you need in your truck!
You can see why I am so worn out by going down there solo!
I go down every year in late April/early May.
Two or three years ago the spur (the curved asphalt ramp) was high and dry and you had to drive 2-300’ish yards out on lake bottom and we all launched off of dirt ledge.

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I fished a tournament out of bullfrog a month or so ago and caught a lot of snake stripers while casting for bass but the trip last November very few were snakes interesting a few months time how things change.  Sounds like a good trip.

Thanks, it was a good trip.
Crazy to see how those Stripers turn in to fatheads so fast as soon as they can’t get enough Shad or Crawdads to eat.

[Fishpro22]

I was at Powell those exact days except we just got home today. We were camped over in Stanton Creek and were fishing from float tubes and kayaks. We caught all those same species except we couldn't find a crappie. Probably my first time not catching a crappie on a Lake Powell trip. We go every late April to early May every year too. We usually go to Blue Notch and Red Canyon but with the road closures we've had to do Stanton the past 2 trips now. I hope they can get those roads open again. Anyway you are right about the weather. It was fantastic for the most part. Sorry you lost a pole. We lost a brand new fishing net on Thursday. Not sure how it came off the kayak but somehow it did. Oh well I guess. Glad you had a great trip too!

[Mildog]

With a fish still attached it might have been pulled away from where it went in, how deep was it where it went overboard?

[MrShane]

With a fish still attached it might have been pulled away from where it went in, how deep was it where  it went overboard?

I’m sure it did get pulled some distance before it got hung up.
I tried to grab it with net and had it for a split second but could not get reel handle to snag in net.
Very clear water, I watched it slide off slope in about 8’ FOW to the inky darkness of appx. 32’ FOW.
I was towards back of Forgotten.
Sadly, I think we will witness Powell go down at least another 50’ in the next decade.
Enough people go to extreme end of Forgotten to go to the ruins that my pole will be found.
A few years ago I found a camera in Forgotten while hiking to the ruins that had been dropped in a decade before.
And a handful of sunglasses.

[TubeDude]

Congrats on a great trip.  Love those multi-species jaunts.  And Lake Powell is probably the best spot in Utah for more than about 4 or 5 species in a day.  Used to have several lakes in southern Arizona that kicked out multiples.

Sorry about the rod and reel.  Those moments are ones we replay in our minds forever.  "If only...."  With all the time I spend dragging fligs and other bottom gear I have pulled up a lot of lost gear.  Some of it is "well aged" and not worthy of cleaning up and further use.  But, I have also hooked almost new rigs with live fish still attached.  Main problem is that most of the still useable gear I retrieve is not the same quality I like to buy and use.  So, I still clean it up and try to find a youngster who will get some good use out of it while learning.

Thanks for the striper picture.  Couldn't get much of a fillet off it though.

[Paddler]

With a fish still attached it might have been pulled away from where it went in, how deep was it where  it went overboard?

I’m sure it did get pulled some distance before it got hung up.
I tried to grab it with net and had it for a split second but could not get reel handle to snag in net.
Very clear water, I watched it slide off slope in about 8’ FOW to the inky darkness of appx. 32’ FOW.
I was towards back of Forgotten.
Sadly, I think we will witness Powell go down at least another 50’ in the next decade.
Enough people go to extreme end of Forgotten to go to the ruins that my pole will be found.
A few years ago I found a camera in Forgotten while hiking to the ruins that had been dropped in a decade before.
And a handful of sunglasses.

I lost a nice rod and reel setup to a tuna a few years ago, a single speed Daiwa SLD30 on a Calstar 6'6" rod.  I was holding one hooked up rod in my left hand when the other rod went off.  Thinking I needed to slow down the second fish I reached over to the drag lever to increase the drag.  All went well until the Scotty rodholder gave way.  Snapped right off.  I watched helplessly as the rod headed for the bottom, which was 5000' down.  

Cost me a lot of money, too, as the reel had been discontinued.  So, liking symmetry I had to buy two Shimano Tiagra 30Ws plus a new Calstar.  Ouch.  Losing things overboard can be costly.  Ask me about the Islander MR3 that slipped out of my hand with a hot coho on the other end.