Willow Beach is a good trout lake for Arizona, especially since it is stocked with trout every Friday.
The new pier seems to be the new hot spot for anglers and trout alike. Get out early, best opportunities to catch trout at Willow Beach is before 7 am. Use green Power Bait, Power Worms or salmon eggs.
Willow Beach also has striped bass and the fishing has been fair for this species.
Lake Mead is a popular destination for anglers looking to catch some nice sized striped bass. However, even though the water levels have risen, fishing has slowed.
Night fishing is a popular sport at Lake Mead, especially for striped bass. Get out on the lake at about 5pm with artificial lights.
Lake Powell has risen 45 feet this year providing an optimal habitat for all it’s aquatic life. Food is abundant, shelter is easily found and the angler is left a little frustrated. This season the fish are fat and happy and are less likely to strike a bait when their stomachs are full.
If you’re lucky to find a striper boil, you will probably leave for the day with you full catch in hand. However, most of us aren’t quite as lucky. But not all is lost and Lake Powell is still one of the best freshwater fishing lakes in Arizona.
We can expect 2009 fishing season to be excellent as the fish continue to eat to their fill and live relatively safe in all the new shelter created by the rising waters.
Lake Havasu is an excellent bass lake for Arizona anglers. With the cooler weather the bite has slowed but this just means you need to work your lures a little slower and deeper than normal. Use plastics, cranks, spinners and jigs. The fish are deep this time of year so topwaters and other floating baits you can put away until spring.
Sizes are ranging from 13 inches and up for largemouth bass. The skilled angler could hall in a 4 pounder. Smallmouth bass are also abundant in Lake Havasu, as well as striped bass. Stripers are in the size range of about 12-18 inches with an occasional 8 pounder waiting to be caught.
Bass aren’t the only species to be caught in Lake Havasu, channel cats are also a popular catch among Arizona anglers. Cats are ranging in the sizes or 3 - 10 pounds and are biting on anchovies, spam and mackerel.
Lake Pleasant is currently 75% full with large concentrations of shad along the shore. These large numbers of shad make for great bass fishing whether it’s along the shore with the largemouth or in open water with the stripers.
Look for boils. There will be a lot of them but they don’t last long and are unpredictable so be ready to strike at any moment.
Anglers are catching stripers around 4 pounds down lake. The stripers in the coves are hungrier and more aggressive but a little smaller. Use anchovies and shad.
Hit the drop shot for those largemouth bass. They are feisty but small. No use working the cranks.
Lake Mead water levels have held strong through the summer and the water elevation is around 1100 feet.
Night fishing for stripers seems to be the best option right now. Anglers are using artificial lights and are catching as many stripers as they want to clean, most ranging in the 12-18 inches.
The lights are also helping anglers catch catfish, use anchovies.
For best results: Get out on the lake in the evening with some artificial lights.
The water temp is getting warmer in the basin of Lake Havasu and the larger fish are beginning to move into the cooler water at Willow Beach.
The trout stocking takes place every Friday giving shore fisherman a 50/50 shot at going home happy. But most of the success has been around the new pier. Try Power Bait, green Power Worms, or salmon eggs.
For best results: Get out on the water early. The action seems to be dieing off by 7:30am. Use green Power Bait on a hook with a small sinker about 2-3 feet above the hook.
The bite from stripers has been picking up as well.
Out at Lake Powell, striped bass are still being caught in big numbers. Trolling seems to be working best. Just throw on a shallow-running crankbait and troll through a boil. You’ll sure to get a hookup each time. If the cranks don’t work for you, try plastics swim baits or a spoon.
Hite is still the best location for fishing. The full moon has slowed the boils to an evening only event. You can expect the slurps to begin around 2pm but they disappear quick. The best you can do is get out just before 2 and get into position. The most active areas for the boils are between buoy 129 and 131. This stretch has many surfacing schools.
For best results: Get out there and troll. This is the most effective method right now. The hardest part will be trying to predict the boils but they occur often enough to keep the fun going.
San Juan is also a nice fishing area but it’s not as active as Hite right now. If you’re out on the San Juan, Spencer’s Camp has always been a dependable fishing hole.
Jack Arch has been nice in the evenings and into the night.
If you go out to Piute Canyon, get out early, catch your fish and get out, otherwise you’ll be fighting with houseboats and jet skies the rest of the day. Piute Canyon is a hot spot for boils and the bite has been good.
At Lake Havasu the average day time water temp is between 86-92 degrees right now.
The striper bite is good to fair but they are only small to medium sizes. They will bite on anchovies, squid and mackerel at around 30 - 50 feet deep. Chumming is recommended because the striper schools are broken up due to the low number of shad this year.
Smallmouth bass have been hitting big time with a 1/4 - 3/8 ounce brown jigs, or hula grubs. Try around the rocky points in the main basin south to Standard Wash.
Catfish are also biting. They prefer anchovy this summer and they are most active at night. It’s recommended to go out to Topock Gorge where the sizes have been around 4 - 12 pounds.
For best results: Go for the smallmouth bass. Get out early in the morning and troll with chrome/blue Rat_L-Trap, pointers, or chug bugs. Spin casting is also working well if you don’t like the troll method.
Lake Pleasant is 75% full, at just over 1600 feet in elevation.
Mornings are best before 9am. There is some fish activity but the shad boils don’t last too long and after 9am, the shad boils drying up. Some anglers are seeing the activity taper as early as 7am.
Striped bass, white bass and largemouth bass are all biting now in varying numbers. Most are being caught in the north coves of the lake, as well as Scorpion Point.
For best results: Get there early; before dawn. Try topwater lures for the stripers and whities. Specifically, the Diawa diving topwater lure works really well in the northern coves.
