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    Welcome to Southwest Bass. Home of Ultimate Lake Powell Fishing Tours. We are very fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth where outdoor adventures are plenty. I have been fishing and hunting the Four Corners area for nearly 25 years now and would like to share those adventures with you. I specialize in fishing area lakes in the Four Corners and Colorado Elk hunts during the rut.

    Not interested in fishing? No problem. Maybe you just want to get outside and see the most beautiful lake in the world.  I literally have logged thousands of miles on Lake Powell and I still have not seen it all. My jaw still drops when cruising this amazing body of water. Ask me about sunrise or sunset cruises or a photo safari on Lake Powell.

Life is way too short to only fish on weekends. Call or e-mail me today so we can plan your memory of a lifetime. 970-749-2324 / elkrule@frontier.net

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Navajo Fishing Report Spring / Summer

Navajo reservoir never quit filled like they said it would but the fishing was great anyhow. I found largemouth and smallmouth bass in all of the usual places. Submerged boulders with flooded timber close by held just about all the species of fish in Navajo. Even when the water temps were in the low 40's someone figured out the fish.

Crankbaits, top water, senkos and tubes seem to work all spring and summer.

Paul Deshayes with a Pike that ate a Zara Spook.

I caught this 4.7lb smallmouth off a main lake point with a crawdad wigglewart.

Rotary Day on Navajo
Click on image for larger view

	Loryn Casten with one of the largemouth's she hoisted into the boat.
	Rick O'Block with another nice largmouth.
	Jenny O'Block showing Rick what a smallmouth looks like.
	Angie "Catch but no touch" Beach with one of her catches.

High Nnoon Rotary Monte Carlo Night Silent Auction Winners
Elliott and Velbeth Jones

	Velbeth with a nice smallmouth bass on a dropshot senko.
	Elliott with a smallmouth her caught on a drop shot senko.
	Velbeth with a big pike that ate a buzzbait. You should of seen the one that got away.

April 15-27 Fishing Report

    I started pre-fishing for a club tournament on April 15th out of Halls Crossing. The wind has been relentless to say the least.  However, I would be fishing with a special guest during the club tournament. My 16 year old nephew Josh would fish as my guest during our tournament on Saturday and Sunday.  

    My goal was to find enough fish to help Josh win the non-boater side of the tournament. However, because of the weather fronts that kept blowing through, fishing would be tough for all.     

    I began searching the usual haunts from Bullfrog to Iceberg. I had a pretty good reaction bite going on a rattle trap and spinner bait. I found several humps in about 2 foot of water in Halls bay that had plenty of keeper bass on it but could not find the larger fish. On day one Josh and I ran to the back of Halls to fish the humps I had found the fish on. By 9 am I had a small limit and Josh had one small mouth and a nice large mouth. By 1 pm the wind was howling and made for a tough bite. We were mainly throwing spinner baits and Texas rigged power worms and Yamamoto flappin hawgs in green pumpkin red flake and motor oil. On day 2 the fishing was tougher, we went back into Halls bay and worked a bay of submerged tumble weeds with the same Texas rigged baits. We both hit large mouths in that bay just dragging the baits over the tumbleweed on the bottom. Again the wind came with a vengeance and we were only able to pick up one more keeper fish that went almost 4 pounds. To see pictures and stories from our club tournament click here.

On April 15th my partner Chris and I began pre-fishing for the 2008 Bullfrog Open. Last years tournament had over 90 boats / teams participating in the tournament. We started by running to the back of the Escalante. The water temp had not changed from the week before. It would range from 52-58 degrees. We found several fish on spinner baits and crank baits but all the fish were small. We did hit a couple of nice crappie. We worked our way out of the Escalante and started hitting main lake cuts and found some nicer bass on spinner baits. The next day we decided to run North but boat troubles left us with only a trolling motor to get back from the big right turn to Hansen. We fished every main lake cut back and started to pattern fish in the backs of the bays with tumbleweeds on spinner baits. After about a 5 hour troll we made it back to Halls and traded boats. We spent the rest of the day in Bullfrog and Halls with very little action. The next morning we were headed north again and started fishing the main lake cuts and bays and we started hitting some really nice bass. We would leave those areas and start trying the ones that looked the same and kept hitting nice bass. We left the area alone and started hitting the same looking bays and cuts all the way back. We found one more cut that had about a 100 yard canal leading to a nice pond about 12 feet deep. My partner missed a nice bass and I hit about a 3 pounder so we left that area for tournament day. On Friday we tried fishing closer to the weigh area but fishing was tough.

    The day of the tournament found 81 teams ready to launch and off we went north. We got to our first spot and we started slow rolling the spinner baits right down the gut of the bays with the tumbleweed. You had to bounce the spinner bait off of the bottom for the bite. We hit our first and second fish within the first half hour and then went to fishing every cut in that bay. We ran to the back where all the gizzard shad looked like they were spawning and I hit 2+ pound large mouth. On the next cast my partner hit another one that was almost 5 pounds and in the very next cut he hit one that was over 5 pounds. We had about a 13-14 pound limit at 9:30 am.

We did have some boat problems running to our spot in the morning and decided that at noon we would head back and fish a couple of our spots closer to the weigh in. We pulled in and I hit a 3+ pound largemouth and culled out our dink small mouth. We figured we had 15 pounds and it was close enough to weigh in time to head back on a easy run.

At weigh in we managed a 16.43 pound limit. That gave us a 5+ pound buffer going into the second day of the tournament and we needed every bit of it. We decided that since our area had very little pressure on day one that we would fish the same way on day two. Unfortunately we could not find the larger fish. We did manage a limit by 8:30 am but when the day ended we could only bring a limit of 6.14 to the scales. But it was enough to win the tournament with big fish on Saturday.

Chris Douglass with our 2 big fish on day one.

One of the nice large mouths we found in pre-fish.

Ranger Boats