Stripers On Flies
September 12, 2008
Fishing striper boils at Lake Powell is an original thrill. Tossing topwater stick baits and watching hungry fish slap at them and chase them back to the boat before taking the bait deep…wow! There’s no other fishing like it, but take this tip for some extra fun - once the livewells and coolers are full, put down the spinning and baitcasting tackle and all those crankbaits, and pick up an eight-weight fly rod. Tie on big streamers for some exhaustive striper battles.
On the Water
“Okay. We’re in four feet of water here,” says Wayne Gustaveson, project manager at Lake Powell for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “Stripers like to run shad right into the very end of a canyon. Right now we’re on a brushy flat,” Wayne says, while piloting one of his research Jon boats looking for another big school of boiling striped bass in late September. “Sometimes that favors the shad because it’s too shallow for the stripers to really maneuver well. The shad don’t have any problem because there is a lot of brush around to hide in.”
Wayne has chased stripers at Lake Powell for over 25 years as the chief biologist there. Today, Paul Figgot, an avid fly fisherman, has come along to challenge these fish with a different method for success. Instead of using Zara Spooks, or Rebels or other topwater stick baits, he has chosen to throw three-inch white, weighted streamer patterns on his eight-weight, Winston fly rod.
“Boiling stripers on a fly rod is something that every fly fisherman needs to experience,” says Paul as he ties on a weighted shad pattern. “It’s just an awesome feeling. They’re a strong fish. They love to fight and there are several different runs they take you on. The feisty stripers have already had this eight-weight rod doubled over a couple of times already.”
Prowling the main channel of the San Juan arm near Piute farms, any splash catches your attention. Binoculars help spot boils close to shore but sometimes as you approach a single boil, stripers may erupt all around you.
As we moved along rolling splashes caught Wayne’s attention against a steep red rock wall. He kicked the 40-horse outboard up a notch and we headed into the fray. “Boils are not a lake wide thing. You have to go to an area where there’s been a good shad hatch.”
Traditionally, anglers enjoy good success for stripers at Lake Powell using anchovies and flashy jigs through springtime. But as the water temperature rises and the shad population grows, stripers seem to forget about other baits. They get a taste for shad and that is about all they will eat until the shad outgrow striper palettes.
“We’ve found that once a striper tastes shad and chases shad, anchovies are almost totally ineffective,” Wayne says standing next to four spinning rods all rigged with topwater lures. He says he doesn’t like to have to take the time to pull a hook from a fish while the boiling action is intense. For him, it is easier to let the fish wiggle itself free on the bottom of the boat while he pulls in another and then casts a third rod. The fourth is for spare parts or nesting monofilament.
“They just don’t eat anchovies anymore. They have to be hungry. It’s what’s called a search image. They’re looking for a particular type of food. Once shad are found, which is their preferred food any time, other baits are not that effective. You’ll have to use a shad imitating bait like a reaction type lure.”
Stripers are crafty predators. They often use a steep rock wall or the seclusion of a no-escape back bay to corner shad. When they drive the shad to the waters surface to trap and feed, a boil erupts. “You’ve got to have shad before you can have a striper boil,” Wayne says. “But we also need a certain type of structure. If we have a U-shaped canyon, kind of a boxed canyon – think of trapping wild horses in the back of that canyon, well that is the same thing stripers are doing. They’ll run shad right into the back of the canyon, pin them there right up against the end and just sit there and wait for them to come back.” During surface boils stripers frantically feed on young of the year shad.
“There we go,” Gustaveson says spotting the splashing action. Gulls and cormorants fly overhead looking for a quick meal too. Wayne grabs a spinning rig and casts it fifty feet into the middle of the boiling fish. Paul begins his backcast. Wayne hooks one and reels it in as fast as he can. The striper is just about to the boat as Paul makes his first cast. SPLASH! Fish on!
Wayne grabs his second rod and casts back into the malaise. Now the boat is closer to the boil. No sooner does the stick bait hit the water then he hooks up and reels hard. This fish takes him deep. Paul continues fighting his first fish. The tip of his eight-weight rod is bent so far that it nearly touches the water.
Wayne pulls in his second fish and grabs his third rod and casts again. His cast is left of the main body of fish. He reels quickly. It is easy to see the fish chase his lure slapping at it and popping it out of the water. Halfway back Wayne hooks up again.
Paul finally boats his first striper. He checks the knot and casts again. As the fly lies on the water fish explode around it and Paul holds on to his rod with both hands. His reel sings as line spools off rapidly. This exchange lasts about 15 to 20 minutes before it’s over. The fish have moved on.
It is not uncommon to hook several different sizes of stripers in a boil. Younger fish may begin the feeding frenzy and push the shad to the edges. Larger fish will also move in and take advantage of the carnage too. The first striper hooked may only weight a pound but by the time the boil ends and the shad school moves on, there could easily be five and ten pound striped bass wiggling at your feet. In this boil Gustaveson takes 10 stripers, Paul takes three. Wayne just shakes he head at Paul and starts the outboard. It is time to look down another side canyon.
“Our goal at Lake Powell is to balance the striped bass population by reducing the numbers and allowing anglers to harvest as many fish as possible. A fly rod takes longer to get to the fish. It takes longer to land the fish, so you can get a few fish on a fly rod as opposed to a lot of fish on a spinning rod. So for our management purposes those fly fishermen have to fish a lot longer to catch their share.” Wayne chuckles as he heads the boat uplake.
Paul ties on a fresh streamer. The last one lasted only three fish as they tend to thrash around and destroy the fragile pattern. “Things are happening so quickly that you don’t have time to think,” Figgot says. “Yeah the guys with the spinning rods are catching more fish. But let me tell you, there’s nothing like the feel of a fish that strong on a fly rod. It’s an absolute rush to catch that type of fish, in that type of environment where so much is going on at once, it’s just great.”
The most effective way to catch boiling stripers is to use topwater lures. These shad imitation lures mimic the action of wounded fish that stripers just can’t ignore. “There’s something special about the fly rod though. You feel things like ten times more on the fly rod than you do on a nice stiff spinning rod,” Paul adds.
Striper boils at Lake Powell usually begin in late July and intensify into August and September. They end in late October. Striper fishing on Lake Powell is intense. Try it with a fly rod for the fishing challenge of a life time.
What You'll Need:
Fishing striper boils is the most unique pond activity anywhere off of the ocean. The tackle is simple. Keep plenty on hand because after just a couple of feisty stripers, monofilament will fray and break. Most hard baits like topwater lures are preferred. These include Heddon Zara Spooks and poppers, Rebel Jumpin’ Minnows and other stick baits that twist and wiggle on the surface with a quick retrieve. Spinnerbaits and buzzbaits also known as wire baits work well as long as they are retrieved fast enough to keep them on top of the water. The splash and flash attracts the fish and entices them to strike hard knocking the lure out of the water before they take it home.
Because striped bass will range in weights anywhere from one pound to over ten pounds in a boiling frenzy, heavyweight line tests are recommended. Use at least 10-pound monofilament and 20-pound works best if casting in heavy cover or debris in the backs of canyons. The beefy line will more easily pull your lure free of any snags to keep you fishing.