Red Rock Adventure Blog

See more of my photos here.
See Aaron Webb's article about this trip

Smallmouth bass fishing was great on the San Juan Arm of Lake Powell over the weekend. We enjoyed it very much and had a great trip.

We had hoped to stumble upon a striper boil or two, but could not find any of that action.

We launched at Bullfrog and headed straight for the San Juan - about 40 miles away. We watched carefully for signs of striper boils, since wayneswords.com had predicted there might be decent striper fishing in isolated spots mid-lake. But we saw nothing.

We set up camp in Wilson Creek Canyon and fished nearby coves until dark. We caught smallmouth after smallmouth on shad-imitating lures. Hovering within casting distance of shore, we lobbed our lures up alongside weeds and rocks and then worked them back towards the boat. Most of the fish we caught were small but we managed to hook a few nice ones.

We trolled our lures as we boated between coves. In the open bay I caught a fat, 14-inch striper, the only fish of that species we saw during our trip.

Our camping spot was superb. It was sandy and flat, with a place to build a fire and plenty of kindling. We roasted hot dogs as it grew dark. The moon came up late and so we enjoyed an incredible star show during the early evening.

We seemed to be all alone on the San Juan arm. We saw a couple of houseboats anchored near the arm's mouth, and another group camped on the beach in that area, but we were probably 10 miles from them.

As the starlight grew more intense, a profound quietude settled over the lake. No sounds except waves gently breaking against the sand. The starlight was bright enough to allow us to perceive the form of the towering cliffs surround us, but we could not see details. Away from our group, there was no sight or sound produced by humankind. It was astounding.

The next morning a couple bass boats zoomed by early, and then we had the area to ourselves for the next several hours. About noon a couple more boats came by. It is amazing to have that much solitude on Lake Powell.

We explored up into the Neskahi area before turning back. We were cautious, not wanting to run out of gas. We could have explored a little farther had we been willing to boat downlake to Dangling Rope Marina to fill our tanks before heading back uplake to Bullfrog. Dangling Rope is some 15 miles below the mouth of the San Juan, so that option would have added 30 miles to our trip.

In all, we boated about 120 miles on 27 gallons of gas, in my 18-foot open bow. We had a 5 gallon can full of gas saved for emergencies. We enjoyed calm weather and glassy water during most of our trip. Had we faced a head wind, we would have needed that emergency supply.

Years ago I launched a small car-top boat at Piute Farms and explored the upper part of the San Juan arm. Now that I've gotten into the lower part I can honestly say I've poked around on every part of the big lake. To me, that's an accomplishment worth bragging about.

- Dave Webb