Lake Powell Fishing: Striped bass are extra hungry, leading to bountiful harvests

"We've got some good size to our bass," he explained. "In fact, it's the best we've had in a decade.

"We've already had a couple of bass tournaments. A few years ago you could win a tournament with a combined weight of five fish of seven pounds. It went up to 12 pounds last year and this year it's up to 17 and 18 pounds for five fish. That's an average of more than three pounds a fish, and that's great."

The reason for the good size, he continued, is there was excellent production on forage fish between 2003 and 2005, which allowed all fish, including smallmouth and largemouth, to put on weight. While stripers have been limited to shad and a growing population of gizzard shad, bass and walleye have been able to supplement their diets with crayfish. This has resulted in an adult population of bass that is large and plentiful.

Fishing is expected to remain good through mid-May. Fishing is also expected to be good this summer, especially for smallmouth. How and where the fish can be found will change, however.

Gustaveson said that while the dam site is the hot spot for stripers, it's possible to fish other parts of the lake and catch just as many stripers along with several other species.

On a trip last Friday, among the 50 fish caught by a party of six, there were more than 30 striped bass, more than a dozen small and largemouth bass, one walleye, a half-dozen bluegill and one missed crappie.

Those looking for the best fishing, he said, need to look for slick rock canyons that hold stretches of sandy beach fronted with submerged tumbleweeds and brush.

"Along with providing some cover, the sand and vegetation also provided spawning habitat. And because there are a lot of tumbleweeds along these shores, people need to fish with lures that pass over or through the tumbleweeds, which may involve a little quicker retrieve," he said.

If the sandy beaches are long and without a break, he suggests looking for rocky areas on the beach that reach down into the water. Fish will hold along the edges.

He also recommended looking for areas where runoff drains into the lake that have shallows areas on each side and slope down in to a deep "V." This has not only been a popular area for stripers, but also bass, walleye and bluegill.

He recommended using shallow-running crank baits, Rattle Traps and weightless plastic lures like Senkos.

"The slow, tantalizing fall of the weightless plastic lures is what they really like, especially the bass when they are on their beds," he added.

Good colors to try are dark greens and dark browns and crayfish colors.

As to what's in store for the future, the hope is that since there is no limit on striped bass that fishermen will catch and keep as many as possible, with will hopefully reduce the population to a point where the shad will be able to recover.

At this point the cycle will begin all over again ... the predators will increase because of the good food supply and the fish will grow in numbers and size.

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