Anyone ever been to Lake Powell?

I recently got invited to do a trip down to Lake Powell in Utah/Arizona the end of April. A friend of a friend has a timeshare on a houseboat down there and they invited me to go with them. It would be a group of 5 or 6 guys going down for a week on the houseboat and two fishing boats including my new lund. All I would have to pay for is a portion of the food and gas to get there essentially. Sounds like a blast to me but a long drive.

From what I have read online that time of year is really good fishing which is why we would be there. The water should be close to that magic 55 degrees so the bass should be on their beds both the small mouth and large mouth. The crappie should be schooled up hanging on structure. The walleye should be waking up and the strippers should be in big schools as well.

My question to all of you is has anyone been down and fished this body of water? I never have been there but it sounds like a good time. I would just like some general info about the lake and fishing it.

Now all I have to do is convince the wife to let me sneak away for a week with the guys while she stays home.

Nope, but on my bucket list. Mead would work as well.

ANd hopefully before the water is gone.

We recently sold our condo there. The lake is a million miles long so saying, “Lake Powell” is really too generic. Do you know what part of the lake? Our condo was near Page, AZ. The striper fishing near the dam was always off the hook and no limit. We’d tie up near the buoy line and chum some anchovies. Outstanding action on super light tackle.

Haha yeah I should have mentioned that. The houseboat is located at the Bullfrog marina on the northern portion of the lake. I’m not sure which way they are wanting to go out of that bay but that is the general area we will be in. I have heard good things about good hope bay that time of year if the mud line isn’t down too far.

Some like casting to boils with small cranks or kastmasters. I never had much luck that way compared to straight bait.

Yes, I have caught boat loads of walleyes there but have not been there for around 20 years. Feel free to call me to get what details I can offer you as I assume, IF you find/look for the walleyes, location area type/bait etc. will be the same as it was years back.

Last August I was on Lake Powell for work for two weeks. We slept on a house boat and worked off Park Service boats during the day. We started in Page (at the dam) and traveled the whole length of the lake, finally ending back in Page. We went all the way up both the Colorado River and San Juan River arms of the lake. My biggest regret of that trip was not bringing some fishing gear. Couple things I learned from that trip that might help you…

You most likely wont have cell service. We used two way radios.

Storms come fast and furious with little warning, and are very localized. More than once we got caught in some scary weather.

You’ll want to take a lot of pictures. I have never seen anything as cool as Lake Powell. Take an hour and cruise up one the the slot canyons with your boat. We found some that were 20 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Go see the Rainbow Bridge National Monument.

The blue gills are huge and stupid. I didn’t fish, but every time we stopped in a bay, we would see giant gills. When we would go swimming they would come right up to you and check you out.

When we were there in August, I saw almost no one fishing. I only saw one other fishing boat. It seemed like fishing pressure was very low.

You are really really really isolated, so make sure you have your ducks in a row. If you need something and can’t find it at one of the marina’s, your screwed.

The AIS laws out there were described to me and they sounded crazy. Make sure you investigate the rules on launching an out of state boat soon. When we were out there, we worked with a park service guy and he laid out some of the rules (which have changed recently), some of which I find hard to believe. He told me that you have to have your boat inspected by a licensed/certified inspector before you launch. If you fail inspection, you need to have your boat professionally decontaminated and then reinspected. If you refuse to have your boat professionally decontaminated, they can/will quarantine it for 30 days to allow it to completely dry in the sun. Like I said, I found the rules he laid out for me hard to believe and he did mention that they have changed recently. It is definitely something you want to check out right away.