Chris Crosby caught two tagged fish
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Lake Powell has risen four feet in the last week. Expect the same for this week. Inflow is over 80,000 acre feet with only 21,000 AF being released. Retie your boat anchor lines each morning and then enjoy the day. Rapidly rising water is flooding vegetation that has not been wet for a while. This new habitat attracts largemouth bass, bluegill and crappie like a magnet.
Water temperature is in the high 60s in the morning and mid 70s in the afternoon. Warmer water means spawning time for bluegill, carp, channel catfish and threadfin shad. Bluegill and catfish are very active during the spawn and easy to catch. Bluegill can be seen guarding nests and will respond to a chunk of worm on a very small hook. Attach a bobber about 6 feet above the bait so the subtle bite can be seen as the bobber wiggles. The size of bluegill is very impressive for a panfish and the fight is like a roller coaster ride. Give it a try.
Water clarity is decreasing lakewide as algae numbers increase making the water a lovely blue green color in the southern lake. Sloughing banks make many mud lines that just float on the surface while giving walleye a pleasant place to hide as they wait for the next meal to swim by. Walleye are ambush feeders that lie in wait for a tasty morsel to swim in view. If that happens to be your night crawler towed behind a bottom bouncer, or a plastic jig with a chunk of worm attached, the chances are good the hungry walleye will bite the bait. The northern lake, from the San Juan to White Canyon is the walleye hotspot. There have been over 20 tagged walleye captured in the last two weeks. Chris Crosby was the winner when he caught two tagged fish in one day in Good Hope Bay. He reports water clarity to be only a few inches upstream from Red Canyon, 2-3 feet in Ticaboo while Blue Notch had over six feet visibility. Good Hope Bay is fishable despite the high runoff.
Smallmouth bass fishing is amazing with active fish in rock structures lakewide. I took a break from striper fishing over the weekend and pulled into an isolated main channel rockslide in Last Chance Canyon.