Powell Quicky: Bullfrog

[Duckbutter]

So, my brother and a buddy went down Friday for a little over nighter, and actually my first trip to Powell for me and my brother since we have both respectively moved to Grand Junction. Our buddy brought down his party barge, we launched at about 3:30-4:00 ish and we were off. We made our way slowly out to Moki Canyon, fishing along the way and missing some fish. A few turns up Moki my brother caught the lone smallmouth of the trip. We marked some stripers on the sonar, and then headed up canyon to find a camp spot while we had plenty of light.

After finding a camp spot a ways up Moki, we went back and started chumming where we marked the stripers. It was awesome to watch the fish slowly move up from 90 ft up 40 ft, and then to catch a few.

My first striper


My brothers first with horrible case of the old stiff arm


Friday nights haul- 4 total (not great but still fun) These were 22-24 inches and healthy. We filleted them on the boat to get them on ice right after the picture.


At 10:00 we called it and ran up to camp, and sleeping under the desert stars were awesome. Sleeping, however was tough. Some fish were going crazy on the surface, and my brother was doing some seriously crazy talking in his sleep, including a bout of barking like a dog at 3:30am. Hilarious.

Also, me sleeping on a beach, yeah I was catfishing. Threw out some beef liver on a slip sinker rig, stuck my rod straight up in the sand next to me, made sure I had slack line, and the idea was when the rod fell over fish on. It worked. Falling rod woke me about 1:00 am, caught an 11 inch bullhead. Deep hooked with a circle hook?!?! Too tired to care much, I just cut the line and threw him back. Biggest mudder I've caught to date.

Woke up at the crack of dawn, broke camp fast and started chumming on the stripers pretty quick. Caught this one pretty fast.

While fishing for stripers, we had two Peregrine's, (male and female) chase a canyon wren down, and they trapped it in the alcove where we were fishing. Poor wren couldn't go up, couldn't get wet, and after a minute the female plucked it out of the air. Awesome to watch! Sorry, no pics.

We had a double next, and then it slowed, and we ended up with two more. Here are the five (fifth is hidden behind on the right) at the cleaning station with my little fillet knife on one.

The stripers cleared out at 9:00 am and we were out of chum, so time to explore. Unfortunately a mile northeast of Moki, the engine died. Trolling motor lost juice. OBAMAOBAMAOBAMAOBAMA. After 45 minutes in the main channel, we figured out it was a problem with the fuel line (no pressure for whatever reason). So the last part of the trip consisted of my brother and I trading off hand pumping fuel into the engine back to the boat ramp. It was still fun. We were off the water by 12:30, didn't need a tow, caught some fish and had a blast. Totals for the three of us were 9 stripers, one smallmouth and a bullhead. Not fast fishing, but still a riot. Will be back in three weeks.
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[fish_or_die]

thanks for the report, looks like fun! Love them stripers!
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[kochanut]

18 days till i head down to fly fish for over a week! did you happen to get a water temp reading when the sun was out? is moki the furthest you went up? has the stain started moving in? thanks!
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[Duckbutter]

I didn't have a thermometer, but we did spot some bass fairly shallow in Moki's in full sun, probably just enjoying a little warmer water late in the day. Didn't see any on beds. Moki was as far as we made it because of the slow boat, engine problems and lack of time. Next time, I want to make to Forgotten or Cedar, but Moki was good for only 21 hours at the lake. Quick trip.

Next time I hope to fish at night in a better spot for channels.
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[albinotrout]

Nice report, glad you had some fun.
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[TheFishSlayer]

Nice report. I may take a run down there soon. I love it down there. Forgotten and Cedar are both very good places to fish. Where in Moki did you camp?
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