1997 Fall Lake Powell Trip

It was a fortuitous happenstance that we timed this trip over a weekend when the first of winter's blasts hit the Vail Valley. We arrived at the South Bullfrog Primitive camping area late in the evening after a quick six hour drive. Thunderstorms were passing through the desert, but we managed to get the tent up and occupied without too many mishaps.

Water levels are quite high at this time of year (3689 feet of elevation) and as this was a new camping/fishing spot for us, we weren't sure how successful we'd be - particularly given the extraordinary numbers of people visiting the lake this weekend. The next day Sue, Woody the basset, & I hopped into the kayak and paddled along the shore north of camp. Our main fear was that because we were several miles from the main channel and cooler water temperatures, the fishing might be spotty or nonexistent.

Not to worry as it turned out. Fairly quickly we got into small schools of stripers as we trolled our double streamer rigs behind the boat. We stopped & cast at several rocky points and managed to pick up immature smallmouth and sunfish as well as the striped bass. It was really exciting to connect with several doubles when we'd get into a school. No large ones came to hand and the action was sporadic throughout the day.

Day two was a near mirror image until just before dark. At that time we were shore casting a deep ledge area and noticed a small school of threadfin shad scattering along the rock wall. Sure enough the big boys were tagging along below them and we were lucky to get into two very nice smallmouth that night - Sue's was probably 1 1/2 pounds and I had one somewhat larger with the interesting twist that it was accompanied by a one pound striper attached to the other fly! Great fun.

The third day was scorching hot and a trolling bust until we were heading back to camp. Sue was paddling quickly across the middle of our bay when wham came the strikes and another double hookup of stripers were brought to the boat and released. We continued to make passes through the same area and had at least another five double catches on both rods so it turned out to be a successful day after all.

It was a nice trip, but because of the unusually large number of people now visiting the lake - even at the primitive areas, it looks like we'll just load our camping gear in a towable raft next season and paddle somewhere remote to have some privacy.

The arrow on the map below indicates roughly where we camped and fished this year. As a last note, we continue to be the only people noticeably fly fishing the lake, and based on our continuing good results, I suspect there are very few people doing any better with any kinds of rigs.