Family and friends are gathering to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Page residents, Corky and Maryann Grace on May 31st.?? The family did the houseboat trip, rented a ski boat and then went striper fishing for the day on May 30th.?? With?? warm wonderful weather, the beauty of Lake Powell, and great fishing, it appears we may stay for the next year to see if we really like it here.??

We fished anchovy bait at Warm Creek wall without any success.?? The next stop was Cookie Jar where the first school of stripers was found in a sandy cove behind two houseboats.?? Stripers hit bait right on the bottom in 30 feet of water and then came shallower as the chum got them stirred up.?? We caught about 20 fish here before it slowed down. We thought that was wonderful but there was more to come.

Stripers were holding in sandy coves with brush on the shoreline instead of slick rock cliff walls. Bottom depth of 30-40 feet was best but fish would rise in the water column when they started to feed. Fish responded aggressively to chum and bait but lures were taken as well. The nest stop was the brushy shoreline on the east side of the channel between Rock Creek and Dungeon Canyon. We trolled the reef ends with shad raps while graphing for striper schools.?? Stripers were seen on the sharp breaks where bottom depth quickly fell from 20 to 40 feet.

We graphed a good school of fish, anchored the boat on the break, and chummed 4 anchovies cut in chunks. The striper school went ballistic. They hit every bait we put in the water.?? We had four fish on at once many times over. We found out that three bags of anchovies allows you to catch about 125 stripers before the bait is gone.?? We quit fishing at noon with a full live well of thin fish and a big?? cooler of smaller fish on ice. We ate stripers for the first time last night using our Minnesota recipes and they taste really great. We have had a wonderful trip!