May 19, 2009

Rory’s tips:

Rain should change the fishing equation this weekend a little -- the fish will bite with a low barometer, and can get lockjaw once the barometer rises again. This might be a great time to catch a lot of fish and soak up some nice spring rain.

This is definitely smallmouth bass time. Try Roosevelt Lake. But Apache is starting to make a comeback, and althoug hte smallie population is still small, our surveys show lots of fat largemouth bass and maybe even some state record yellow bass.

At the Angler's Roundtable on Thursday night, some of the guys experienced super shad boils at Canyon Lake. Plus, Canyon and Apache are full of nice bluegills. Both of these lakes might be the place to take kids this weekend to fish the coves with worms under a bobber.

As of Friday morning, Salt River Project had ramped up the flows from Stewart Mountain Dam to around 900 cfs. When combined with the great rainy weather, this should make the Lower Salt River a good trout fishing option this weekend.

I also suspect that fishing at Tempe Town Lake might be pretty good this weekend as well for largemouth bass and yellow bass.

By the way, the National Park Service has issued an advisory for Lake Mohave because of a mysterious carp die-off -- the air might be a little pungent in places.

Shore fishing shouldbe viable for bottom dwellers such as catfish and carp. Remember you can have two hooks per line, and two poles if you have a two-pole stamp. Corn and hot dogs provide simple yet effective baits. Remember, it is legal to chum in Arizona.

By the way, carp are the number on sport fish in Europe and once you catch one of these line-burning monsters, you'll understand why.

Another way to escape the burgeoning ranks of recreational boaters is to fish Alamo Lake. Water skiers and jet skiers avoid this lake -- there is no marina and no gas. In all the years of fishing Alamo, I have only seen one ski boat there -- I think they were lost. The weather front and cooler temperatures might just make Alamo even more attractive. Don't forget that Alamo has lots of aggressive channel catfish.

Lake Powell is yet another place where you can escape the crowds -- if you are willing to go far enough. If you launch at Wahweap or Antelope Point, it's a good idea to get to or past Padre Bay. Or take my tip from last week and drive to Bullfrog (about an 8-hour drive or so from Phoenix) and then launch. By the way, if you love to catch walleye and smallmouth, don't hesitate, go now (see Wayne's Words below).

I'd be surprised if Lees Ferry has crowds this weekend. For being a world-class fishery, it always seems strange that it can be a place to escape crowds at times even though the fishing there is pretty good year round. Go figure!

For all of you heading to the mountain lakes, take along some buckets for crayfish. Youngsters especially like to catch these delectable crustaceans. All they need is a piece of string, possibly a stick and a piece of meat (hot dog, bacon or whatever). If you want to get fancy, use a fishing pole.

Crayfish are not native to Arizona. So you can have fun, help the environment, and harvest some great eating. By the way, most folks just eat the tails. My tip for preparing crayfish is to bring your water to a rolling boil, take the pan off the stover (and keep it off), put in your crayfish, and when they turn bright red (usually 3 to 5 minutes), they are fully cooked. You can use a crab boil.

I like to also boil up ears of sweet corn. They are a natural on the camp table, especially with some fresh caught trout and wild rice on the side.

Hungry yet?

If you don't have enough crayfish for all, get creative. Put them in some pasta for crayfish salad. Basically take any recipe that calls for crab or lobsters and simply substitute crayfish. Nice and simple.

Woods Canyon, Willow Springs, Black Canyon. Kaibab, Dogtown, and Bear Canyon are all good crayfish catching lakes in the high country.

For trout fishing, though, it's tough to beat Big Lake. It attracts the most anglers -- and with good reason. This is the largest and one of the deepest of our mountain lakes. Big Lake has rainbows, cutthroat, brookies and Apache trout. But don't expect to fill your creel with recent stockers -- most of the trout you catch here will be wild like, even if they started their life at one of our hatcheries. We stock this lake early and late in the season with hordes of immature trout, then let them grow up wild like.

Bear Canyon is also a nice lake to try. It lacks amenities, requires a short but steep hike in (and out), both of which keep other anglers away by the droves. There is okay shoreline access if you don't mind hill-side living -- this is a steep canyon lake.

Chevelon Lake is another hike-in special the crowds avoid. But there is a strenuous, lung-challenging hike back out. Plus, shoreline access is terrible. This lake is best fished with float tubes or other easy-to-transport floating devices. If you are old and out of shape, you might want to consider fishing someplace else.

Don't forget to make sure you boats are free of quagga mussels when heading to our high country lakes. Be sure to clean, drain and dry each time you go boating and then wait five days in between putting your boat on different lakes. Help protect on wonderful fishing lakes.

Go catch some memories this weekend. Maybe I'll see you out there.

Fishing News

Mohave Lake visitors can expect an unpleasant odor
(Posted May 22, 9:30 a.m.) LAS VEGAS - The National Park Service is advising Memorial Day visitors to Lake Mohave to expect an unpleasant odor and to see dead carp on beaches.

Biologists from the National Park Service, Nevada Department of Wildlife and Arizona Game and Fish Department are looking into the cause.

There are no known human heath risks associated with the suspected cause of the carp deaths.  However, as a precaution the National Park Service is advising visitors to avoid handling the dead fish.

Biologists have collected specimens for testing.  Test results are due back next week.

There haven't been any reports of carp deaths in Lake Mead or other fish species being affected.

Canyon Creek Hatchery
Stocking Information (posted Friday, May 22 at 10:37 a.m.)

May 18-22, 2009
• Canyon Creek - 180 Rainbow Trout
• Fool’s Hollow-4050 Rainbow Trout
• Tunnel Reservoir- 1944 Rainbow Trout
• Bunch Reservoir- 2700 Rainbow Trout
• Hulsey Lake- 2500 Rainbow Trout
• River Reservoir- 2250 Rainbow Trout
• Workman Creek- 405 Rainbow Trout
• Black Canyon lake- 1855 Rainbow Trout
• Scott’s Reservoir- 2000 Rainbow Trout

Crappie Report from Bill (Piscolli) Eveland

Night fishing for Crappie is the ticket right now. I've heard good reports from Bartlett, Alamo and Roosevelt. No reports from Pleasant or San Carlos in the last week. Roosevelt seems to be the best. Some guys from Tonto Basin reported catching close to 200 one night last week. If you go to San Carlos be very careful, especially at night. There are no marker buoys.

Last Saturday the Arizona Crappie Association had a meeting at Alamo Lake.  For those who aren't familiar with Alamo, its about 30 north of Wenden, AZ.  It's a long drive and very hot but well worth the trip. Because of its distance from the Valley, Alamo isn't a very busy lake and rarely do you see water skiers or jet skies.

There is a really nice little store at the Ranger Station that sells supplies, tackle, ice and minnows. They close at 5pm.

Also, there are several really nice camp sites there that include restrooms with showers. Alamo is a state park and their web address is http://azstateparks.com/Parks/ALLA/index.html.

When we got to the lake about 5 p.m. it was a balmy 106. So we put the boats in the water and headed up to the cliffs by the damn to find some shade. There were 5 of us on one boat and 3 on another. While working the west shoreline our partners caught a nice Crappie and found another one floating. Then we headed to the damn where we caught several nice bass and a couple nice catfish.

As it started to get dark we moved just a couple hundred yard from the damn into about 35 feet of water, anchored and set up our lights. There was a nice breeze blowing that made it very comfortable. Finally about 9:30 p.m. the Crappie started to bite. We caught them on minnows, soft plastic jigs and feather jigs. The new "Slab Daddy" jigs from Bass Pro Shops worked real well.

It wasn't exactly "on fire" but we did catch fish all night. We boated somewhere between 80 and 100 Crappies of which we took 50 home. Our sister ship got about 30. Some of them were smaller but we got several over 2 pounds. The big Crappie of the night was lbs. 14ozs.

Remember that when you fish Crappie at night you want to put as much light in the water as possible. There are some high dollar LEDs on the market that are awesome. Bass Pro and other shops usually stock green florescent tubes that run under $25 and do very well. If you go with the tubes I would use at least 2 of the 21" ones. Also, the less moon there is the better. If you go on a full moon you will need more lights than on a new moon.

If you need any help or just want to share some tips, I'm working the opening shift at Bass Pro all week. We open at 10 a.m. and I'll be there until 3 or 4 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday.

Visit azgfd.gov.
http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/where_fish.shtml