Wayne Gustaveson (www.wayneswords.net) provides this report from Lake Powell. Extreme heat, busy boating activities, and finicky fish have made it difficult to catch fish recently. Bass fishing is still good with plastic baits fished at 20-40 feet. Bass are more active in the evening than the morning. Larger bass are holding in cooler water at 25 feet or deeper. We did catch a few bass trolling while looking for stripers. My recommendation for this week is to fish in the evening. When the full moon goes away, morning fishing will improve. Striper boils will return, particularly in the northern lake. Right now, there are a few boil reports from Buoy 114-118 downstream from Good Hope Bay. The rest of the lake is quiet.

Stripers at Powell are trapped in deeper water by warm surface temperatures. Use bait to find them. The best striper fishing this week was from the Wahweap fish dock beginning at dusk. Drop one-inch cut bait down to 40 feet to find 3-pound stripers. Use a green light at night to attract stripers and catfish to your location lakewide. Bait fishing may be the best striper technique lakewide. Chum the water and then use cut bait from 20 -60 feet. Some potentially good locations include: Warm Creek Wall (cliff face in main channel just before the entrance to Warm Creek), Labyrinth Wall (in east bay before entering the canyon), Buoy 25 cove, Moki Wall (corner leading to canyon entrance). Cooling temperatures this week should lead to improved fishing conditions.