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Welcome to Southwest Bass. 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 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.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
I am officially permitted to guide on Navajo Lake. I went out last Friday to pre-fish for a club tournament. Lot's of pike taking my bait but did manage to find a 5lb largemouth that I will try and catch on Saturday. Launched at 6:30am and drew partner Mike. We ran to where I found the big largemouth yesterday to find a pontoon boat camped right on the spot. We woke up the campers bouncing jigs off the pontoon boat hoping the fish would still be in the area nesting but only could scrounge up a small pike and a short largemouth. Ran some other haunts in the area and managed a keeper smallmouth. Ran to a main lake point where we doubled on 2 keeper smallmouth's. On the next pass in the same area Mike hooked a toad smallie. 4.35lbs. Now we have 4 in the live well with a kicker. The wind was now howling and the pike were biting me off every 5th cast. Frustrating to say the least re-rigging in the wind. Ran back to another bank inside the cut where we started and BANG! Another toad smallmouth to complete the limit. BANG! In 20 minutes we culled all of our small fish and I figured we had about 13-14 pounds.
We ran back to see if that big largemouth was there and
nothing. We decided to end the day on the main lake and could only come up with
fish to small. Except for this big pike I did manage to hook in the lip and get
to the boat. After weigh in we had won the tournament and Mikes smallmouth was
the biggest he has ever caught and biggest of the tourament. The fishing on Navajo is already AWESOME! The water is coming up and pushing 60 degrees. All we need now is the wind to go away and the fishing day's will be excellent. The Spring bite is on! Snow, rain, mud and wind can make for a bad day on the lake but wait for those few days that are calm, warm and beautiful and Lake Powell is awesome.
I was on the lake last week getting ready for the first clients of the season and 3 of the four days were spectacular. I started by running south from the Halls launch ramp and started hitting the many fishing holes I have found over the years and they were loaded with bass. Shad pattern rattle traps, tubes and senkos ruled the day and the bass. All bass caught were keeper size (12”) up to 4.5 pounds. The lake level is the best I have seen in years. Underwater reefs and points covered with brush, stickups and chunk rock are the ticket. I would start by searching out aggressive bass with the rattle trap. The bass were just devouring the lure as I made long casts with a 7’ medium heavy Quantum PT casting rod with a burner Quantum PT reel loaded with 12lb P-Line. I would parallel the lure down the banks as tight to the shore as the brush would allow. Once I would complete the back of the canyon with the rattle trap I would fish the same areas with a Texas rigged tube in smoke or green pumpkin or a 5” smoke senko. The tubes were rigged on a 7’ MH Quantum PT spinning rod with a Quantum Kinetics reel spooled with 6-8lb P-Line. Light line or fluorocarbon line is a must on Powell with the clear water. I would flip the tube up on the bank and drag it off and let if fall. When I would pick up the slack the fish would already have it. The senko I would rig on a 7’ MH Quantum PT rod with a Quantum Accurist reel spooled with 12lb P-Line. I would cast out leaving the rod tip high and watching my line. Once the line would jump I reel down and set the hook. Hoping that the bite would hold for a couple of days along with the weather I had 5 clients one day and 3 the next. I did the same tour as I pre-fished and once everyone got the hang of flipping the tubes towards the bank the bite was on.
On Thursday, April 2nd I had the opportunity to fish with the Reynolds family and friends. When you put family in the boat and then make it competitive (guys vs gals) the play by play is more entertaining than any NASCAR race. On our last stop Aaron was pulling in a nice smallmouth that had at least 10 others with him when he brought the fish to the boat. I told everyone to get their tubes in the water and we whacked them for about an hour. Both largemouth and smallmouth were schooled up in the area and it was one after the other. By the end of the day everyone had caught so many fish we lost count which team caught the most or the biggest and called it a draw. It was an amazing day to say the least. All fish caught were released and I think we only saw one other boat all day long. |
Mike
with our 2 big fish.
