Central Arizona
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URBAN LAKES — The last of eight, every-other-week spring catfish stockings was the week of June 23-28. With lake temperatures climbing rapidly towards 90 degrees and air temperatures well above 100, it becomes impractical to haul live fish into Arizona’s Urban lakes. No fish stockings will be scheduled during July, August and the first half of September. Fall catfish stockings will resume in mid-September after lake and weather conditions improve enough to safely transport and stock catfish once again. Anglers can still fish for catfish, bass and bluegill at Urban waters throughout the summer, but the action is generally slower. Urban fishing report: Fishing for catfish should still be pretty good, so the urban lakes provide a good opportunity for anglers who want to avoid high gas prices this holiday weekend. Anglers are having luck using stink baits or shrimp fished on the bottom. Sunfish continue to bite well on small worms fished under a bobber. The cool weather is keeping lake temperatures low allowing fish to be active throughout the day. Where:Chapparel Where: Red Mountain Where: Kiwanis
Where: Surprise Lake Where: Desert West Worms are enticing the catfish to bite. Another fisherman stopped by in the evening for a half hour and caught two bass fishing from shore using a green spinner bait. An angler caught a nice bass in a couple hours from shore on a very windy day last week. He used a chatterbait with a white skirt. Where: Tempe Town Lake Where: river view LAKE PLEASANT – Water elevation is 1685 ft, which is 81-percent full. Anchovies are still a good choice in the same area and near the tires for stripers. Largemouth bass are hitting brush hogs on the fringes of the main lake. Water temp for one fisherman who fished in the early morning was 83 F and the clarity was 15 feet. He was having good luck using clear topwater lures in busting shad. It helps if there is a little color on the belly of the lure. Once the sun hit the water, stripers went deep but the small whites were still taking the smaller clear topwater lures. The shad boil stopped around 9 a.m. This fisherman caught 20-25 fish, mostly whites in one morning of fishing. The biggest striper was 6 pounds and three of the whites were 3 pounds. The best fishing for this fisherman was in the western coves. Try clear swimbaits if the topwater action is not working for you. Night anglers report that the bite is more sporadic now for stripers using anchovies, but it is still possible to load up the livewell when you find a school of actively feeding stripers. Chumming is the key once you graph a school of fish. Try over submerged creek or river channels at night. Important notice: DON’T MOVE A MUSSEL. With the discovery of invasive quagga mussels in Lake Pleasant, proper cleaning of all watercraft is critical to help prevent the spread of these invaders (helps protect your boat as well). Please drain and dry your livewell and bilge on land. Drain all the water you can from your engine. Also, inspect your vessel and trailer, removing any visible mussels, but also feel for any rough or gritty spots on the hull. These may be young mussels that can be hard to see. Angler reports: Where: Lake Pleasant Where: Lake Pleasant (Humbug) Where: Lake Pleasant The night crappie fishing should be picking up right now. Try live minnows or mini-jigs off the mouths of coves, or along extended brushy points in the main lake. Experiment to find the active crappies – remember, crappie feed upwards. Angler reports: Where:Roosevelt lake Fishing is picking up and people are catching fish around the marina. Be sure to try the points where the substrate drops off where the yellow bass and walleye hang out. KastMasters are good lures to use. Catfish, bass and yellow bass will hit worms. Shore fishermen have pretty good luck with worms or minnows. Get your minnows on the way to the lake since they are not sold at Apache Lake.. Walleye: The best site for walleye was around Three Mile Island. All were very robust and over 20 inches long. They like to hang out around points where the substrate drops off. Largemouth: The best site for largemouth bass was in the Crabtree Wash area. One fish was over 5 pounds and many were over 2 pounds. We caught largemouth bass in most sites that were near good habitat. So wherever you have overhanging vegetation you might want to flip your worms in there. We also caught some young of year and some of our tagged stocked largemouth. The tagged ones were between 7 – 8 inches. Smallmouth: In October of 2007 we stocked smallmouth and they have distributed themselves all over the lake. We caught them at every site that had good smallie habitat. Look for nice rocky substrate that goes into the lake and they will be there. They have grown a couple inches since we stocked them so they are now around 8 inches or so. All were healthy and lively. Carp and Buffalo Fish: The shallow coves had lots of huge carp and some buffalo fish. One buffalo fish had to be over 50 pounds, I say that because he got away before we got him into the boat, but he was a monster. Catfish: Many coves had some large catfish. Burt Corral area is a good place to fish for them. Yellow Bass: We caught a lot of yellow bass. Most are off the points where the substrate drops off. Some were very close to 2 pounds. Many were over a pound. Apache Lake is a blue ribbon yellow bass fishery that many people just aren’t aware of. They are fun to catch and even better to eat. Crappie continues to be caught around the marina area as reported by fishermen. Trout are still in the system, we caught many in our nets and anglers are reporting catching them all up and down the lake. CANYON — Lake elevation is 1658 ft, which is 97% full. A family caught quite a few catfish and a yellow bass using shrimp. Although some anglers find the bite tough for lunker bass, others are cleaning up on gills and yellows. Here is a special report from a well-known angling correspondent — Jime Warnecke — who retired recently as a fisheries biologist with Game and Fish.
I joined friend Paul and buddy Joe yesterday at Canyon and started at 7:30 a.m. and ended fishing at 3:30 p.m. We caught fish at nearly all of the seven locations we tried, but some better than others particularly if they were on an outside point or outside shelf. Best catch areas were Beaver Landing, Teddy Bear Point, a point near the peregrine nest up channel and Beer Can Point (we were up shallow and not over or into the new habitat, sorry). Tally for the day was 63 fish as such: yellow bass-41 and kept 9 over 10 1/2 inches (see photo of 12 incher), largemouth bass-seven three of which were 4 inches!, bluegills-12 and kept 3 over 8 inches.(photo attached), threadfin shad-2 at 3 inches, channel catfish-1 at 16 inches.
This is a hot spot for large bluegill. Perfect for youngsters fishing worms under a bobber. There are also plentiful yellow bass, channel catfish galore, and plenty of yearling bass to catch. Where: Saguaro BARTLETT – The crappie bite has slowed down but anglers are still catching them with BBC jigs and minnows. Bass being caught on Texas rigs, drop shots and on topwater (first and last light). No reports from flathead anglers, but this is the prime season. HORSESHOE – Lake elevation is at 1,999 feet, which is 44-percent full. They are releasing water at 400 cfs. VERDE RIVER – Verde River flow at Tangle is 80 cubic feet per second. Release from Bartlett Lake is 950 cfs. SALT RIVER – Salt River into Roosevelt is 0 cfs, and Salt River Canyon is 169 cfs. LOWER SALT RIVER (below Saguaro Lake) – Flows are 575 cfs from Stewart Mountain Dam. Trout were stocked last week for the last time until autumn, but it is still possible to catch some. The best fishing for trout is at first light. However, it’s possible to find bass and other warmwater fish in the deeper holes. Don’t forget your Tonto Pass. Where: Lower Salt River Haigler Creek – Nymphs and leaches are a good bet. Canyon Creek – Caddis flies and hoppers are working for the fly fishermen. Christopher Creek — Try using a dry dropper with a nymph below, not just in Christopher but other streams as well. Tonto Creek – Dry flies, Caddis flies, hares ears on droppers are all working pretty well. East Verde – No reports. HORSETHIEF BASIN LAKE – Lake level is up, fishing is nominal. |
Had to try the 1/8-ounce KastMaster magic at Canyon Lake just to see if the catching patterns held there like at Saguaro Lake…..short answer…….YES!
Most fish were in 2-6 feet of water and best catching upto 1:30 in afternoon. We had two fish on that we couldn’t even turn once hooked and following with the trolling motor didn’t help as we couldn’t catch up to ‘em before they simply broke off! I said carpses, other two buddies said giant catfish although we didn’t get to see the mack trucks that took off with our lures!