2016 - Lake Powell

2016 - LAKE POWELL #3

Well, we missed the last 2 years.  In 2014 I believe Dad and Mom were at Martin's Cove mission but in 2015 we just let is slip by without getting one in. 

This year we had trouble getting it scheduled but the fishing has been good in Powell so we decided to go there.  But just a day trip instead of overnight. 

It had been cold and rainy all week so we tried to decide whether to postpone, change to Lake Mead or just go.  In the end we were glad we chose to go. 

We left at 6:00 am and stopped at Subway in Kanab to grab sandwiches for lunch.  There  were long stretches of fog on the drive We also snapped this nice picture in Kanab. 

Here's an early pic of the lake as we were prepping the boat to launch at Wahweap marina. 

And a couple more as I'm getting down to the dock to jump on the boat so we can take off and head out to fish.   Notice the rays from heaven shining down in the 2nd one.  Should be an omen for a great day right???

We started briefly fishing at the mouth of antelope canyon.  With no where good to tie off and with no bites for 30 minutes, we quickly decided to head to the pump house.  3 weeks ago Dad, Dustin and Trent Bundy took at trip and caught 43 fish there in just 2-3 hours.  So that seemed like the best bet.

After nearly 2 hours with nothing more than a couple of bites and no fish we decided to try our luck at the beach across from the antelope boat ramp.  This was the site we camped back in 2008 on our first powell trip.  So we have a lot of memories there.  Course we didn't catch many fish that time.  

Jay and Travis jumped to shore to fish while Dad, Dust and Josh floated around fishing from the boat.  

Finally 40 minutes later right as we were about to leave Jason caught a nice little smallmouth bass.  Our first fish.  Yahoo!!!  At least we weren't going home skunked. (Which we had begun to worry about.)  We headed back to antelope canyon and went up a ways to an old success spot. 

We fished here for another 30-45 minutes.  See pic below. 

   

It was now past the midpoint of our trip and with only the one fish we were getting nervous.  I was still feeling confident though mostly because we had caught so many 3 weeks ago.  And since the day was getting warmer I promised to buy everyone ice cream at the marina if we didn't catch at least one striper as we headed back to the pump house for another try.  This is when it all started to get good. 

I started us off with a whopper and we all soon were catching stripers right and left!!! 

The race was on for the biggest and the most fish.  Jay had a nice early lead in the quantity and soon had the biggest.   I then tied him for biggest, he passed me again and I passed him and he tied me again so we both tied with around 23 inches.  In quantity I took a late lead, but Josh snuck up even later and passed me right at the very end. 

Totals. 

1st fish  - Jason

Last Fish - Josh 

Longest tie - Dustin and Jason

Most  - Josh

Totals

Josh - 12

Dustin - 11 

Jason - 9

Travis - 8

Lamar - 5

GRAND TOTAL 45!!!

Getting off the lake after a successful day!!

Our big bucket of fish.

 

We filetted about 20 and gave some away.  We also got to meet Wayne from wayneswords.com the Lake Powell fishing guru at the cleaning station.  

On the way home we stopped in Kanab for dinner at Houston's.  We had ribs, chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken and some good pie!!!  What a great trip!!!!!! 

                                 2013 - SUCCESS!!!! - Lake Powell


Well, I'm documenting this over 1 year late.  Not sure how I dropped the ball so completely on this one.  Given that 2013 was the runaway leader for our most successful fishing trip ever.!!!!

Like I said I can't remember all the details but here is what I remember.

By far the most fish ever.  well over 200.  Mostly stripers with a few catfish mixed in.

We had our best success at the mouth of Antelope Canyon. 

We went up Navajo canyon with modest success and caught some at the Damn and at the intake. 

They were biting fast and furious at Antelope.

Almost all the fish were around 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.  Fun to catch and feisty.  We threw most back, but  the second day we kept and filleted about 50.  I can't seem to find many pictures I'm attaching a couple from a trip Grant and I took a week later with some friends to give you an idea but the only official pic I can find is the one with Jason that he sent me.  Does that mean he caught the biggest fish officially? 

We even got to spend the night at a hotel in Page!!!

It will be hard to ever top this trip, it was definitely the best one yet.  Perhaps some time we can go up the lake for a couple days. 

Send me anything you boys can remember about the trip.

2012 - IDAHO!!!

Jason's turn.  Since he lives in Idaho he of course picked the great state which supposedly has great fishing.  However for us it was the same old story yet again.  It is really getting to be unbelievable.  Idaho, Snake River, recent hot fishing...  and then the Woodburys show up and the fishing slows way down.  Oh well it's always lots of fun anyway.

We started with an 10 hour drive (including a 2 hr stop for dinner at Maddox in Brigham City.) 

Slept the night at Jay's and got up and fished the Snake River all day.  Nothing.  One almost catch for me and not other bites.  Several different spots.  Then we went to Island part and caught a few small fish right before dark.  We stayed at a cabin at Mack's inn.  (See picture.)  We fished Henry's lake the next day 1 big trout in the boat for Josh plus one small.  One large fish from the shore (while taking a nap) for me and no other fish at the lake.  We went back to the rivers and caught a few small ones.  I caught a large trash fish and that was the end of the fishing.  We saw a bear.  (See horrible pic of the footprint below.)  A moose and her baby moose and a ton of beautiful country.  We played a bunch of an iphone game Grant downloaded called Jetpack Joyride and Josh got the high score.  We also got to visit Kerianna, Ethan, William and Mae Lynn.

Total Counts.

Biggest Fish - Dustin 22 inches

Most Fish - Dustin 8

Fewest fish - Travis - 4

Second biggest fish - Tie - Josh and Dustin 19
First fish - Lamar
Smallest fish - All of us several under 8 inches
Higest average fish size - Travis (didn't catch any perch)
Last Fish - Lamar
Most Trout - Jason - 3
Most actual got away's - Josh
Most false alarms/didn't really have em's - Tie - Josh and Travis
Most different method's of fishing - Lamar  (Dad or Jason always win this one.)

2011 FISH LAKE #2

It was my turn to choose the location. (Dustin.)  3 reasons convinced me to go back to Fish Lake even after our low succcess in 2009. 

#1 - It's in the middle of the state and made it an equal drive for everyone.
#2 - The reports all said the fishing was HOT.
#3 - The outsite chance to land the BIG ONE. (Mackinaw)


Dad is in Brazil right now so he was out. 
We brought our boat again, and she ran like a champ.  (She's very reliable!!!)

Well this pretty much played out like every single year has. 
This is how it always seems to go:
We go to a spot that is supposed to be HOT as can be.  Usually someone we know went last week and we read all the reports. 
Then, inexplicably, the week we show up somehow the fishing slows WAY down. 
(More likely we just STINK at fishing.)  Hehe

Scott Finch who works with Josh and I went the previous week and he said quote "we fished all day long and someone was always catching one at any given moment".

Anyway, some day the stars will align and we will have the best fishing trip ever.

In the meantime, we still have lots of fun and make a lot of great memories.

It's was mainly an ongoing inside joke but we decided to increase the number of categories this year

Biggest fish - Dustin  - 17 inches
Most fish - Jason - 5
Fewest fish - Travis - 1
Second biggest fish - Travis - 16.5 inches
First fish - Josh
Smallest fish - Dustin - See picture
Higest average fish size - Travis (didn't catch any perch)
Last Fish - Jason
Most Trout - Jason - 3
Most actual got away's - Josh
Most false alarms/didn't really have em's - Jason
Most different method's of fishing - Jason  (Dad or Jason always win this one.)


We stayed in Loa at the Snuggle Inn - see pic - it was really quite nice.  At midnight as we were going to sleep we had a 45 minute conversation in which we all agreed we'd sleep in till 8:00.  Well Jason woke up at 6:00 and woke us all up at 6:30 anyway cause the room was too bright to go back to sleep. 

We had an ongoing number of things go wrong particulary as we were trying to get on the road on Friday to get to Fish Lake.  From forgeting to get the boat sterilized and having to run out to sand hollow, to waiting till the last second to borrow Scott's giant poles, to finding out 3 hours to late that we could have used the Hansen's cabin but already dropped $100 bucks on a hotel.  The trailer lights were out, so Josh drove to walmart for a fix, but I got them going, then he decided to fix them anyway, but the fix wasn't working but finally it was.  Leaving the maps and my fishing license at my house and having to drive back.  There are at least 3-5 more that I can't remember now, oh yeah, spending too much on worms, then Travis dropping 2 bucks into a self serve worm bucket only to find there were only 4 dead worms left and our original worms weren't a bad deal after all.  To missing the shortcut and driving an extra 5 miles the list goes on.

Anyway, we did fair a bit better than 2009 Fish Lake trip,  catching about 15 in 6-7 ours of fishing.  (In 2009 we caught 11 in 12 hours.)

We got a few more pics and had quite a blast.  We did also get blown off the lake by a giant windstorm at noon on Saturday when we were hoping to fish several more hours.  That stunk.  Also we stopped to fish the stream on the way back but couldn't find our worms.  I caught one fish on the first catch on an old worm on a pole from the lake.  It was good sized but ate my worm and we went home.  Jason is up next year and since he's moving to Idaho we think that may be our destination.  (Better catch a lot for that long drive.)  

2010 Sand Hollow

It's was Dad's turn to pick this year. Since he and Mom were heading to Brazil in early June we couldn't find a weekend to get all the boys away.  So in May when Jason was down we all spent a day at Sand Hollow and decided that it would count as our Fishing Trip.

We don't have good numbers/stats on the fish caught.

According to our recollection.

Each of us caught 1-3 fish. 

(Except Jason, he got skunked.)

Josh had the biggest. Not sure the length. A modest large mouth bass. Maybe the one in the pic.

Ethan and Trent were clearly there, perhaps Grant? Annie?

Best thing about this year?  Our first "trip" with our own boat.
YEAH BABY!!!!!!

Anyway, Jason came through with a few photos. 

2009 Fish Lake - Year 5

Travis's turn to pick our destination. Fish Lake sounds like a good place to catch fish right?!?
Reports were that fishing was good so we were pumped. They also pull lake trout over 25 lbs out of this lake every year. (Mackinaw as they are called.)

Dad secured a cabin for us to stay in at the Hansen's in a nearby town. That was excellent. Josh and I drove up in my car. We stopped in a little stream and josh caught two decent brookies that we cooked and ate that night. Trav and Dad drove up in the green T100 earlier in the day and Jay drove down early friday morning.

Dad also rented us a pontoon boat. It was aswesome as well. Large and comfortable.
The temperature was also great.

The only thing that wasn't spectacular this year was the fishing. (No suprise as our luck is almost always bad.)
We spent all day on the lake 7 to 7. Total tally?
Josh 3 trout 2 small perch.
I caught 3 trout. And yes the largest as well by a small margin.
Dad 2 small perch.
Trav one trout in the last half hour of the day.
Jason? He got skunked.
He spent most of the day trying to catch one of the giant lake trout at the bottom which gave him less chance of catching the smaller fish that we were getting.
In the stream on the way home I got two more babies, Trav got one and Josh got one more.

Awards
Largest fish - Dustin Yippee. (Only 18 inches.)
Most fish - Josh - 8 Total
Smallest fish - Dad
Least fish - Jay - Zero
I must say it was not as disappointing as Lake powell last year. I definitely relearned that it is not about the fish we are catching but the time spent together. We had a ton of fun.

2008 Lake Powell - Year 4

Josh's Turn to Plan and he LOVES Lake Powell.

So I borrowed my buddy Rick Miles' boat and we headed for what was supposed to be the hottest trip of our lives.

My neighbor had gone done the week before and caught over 50 stripers in one night with 2 of his buddies. He told me all the tricks and we were stoked. Unfortunalty we brought the Woodbury fishing luck and didn't fare nearly as well. (My buddy caught 50 again the week after we went.)

All in all we did decent. We each caugh half a dozen or so. All pretty big lake fish.

Dad took home the biggest fish prize. We're remembering it at 24 inches. First time Josh didn't win. (We need a trophy.) We camped on a private beach across the bay. We fish at the damn and up and down several canyons. It was pretty. We need to do this one again before long.

Looking back this was fun. But if we remember acurately,(always hard to do after time passes) it was one of our most disappointing because our expectations were so high. At the end we were so bummed that we talked about canceling the tradition all together.