The long-awaited early spring trout fishing is busting loose in the high country, but some of the higher elevation lakes, such as Big Lake, Crescent, Woods Canyon, Knoll and Bear Canyon are still not accessible due to deep snow drifts.

However, Ashurst, Long Lake, Chevelon (via Winslow or the FS 504 Road from Heber), Blue Ridge, Willow Springs, Dogtown, Kaibab, Luna, Nelson and a host of others are accessible and you should be able to catch nice hold-over trout. The Greer Lakes (all full) should be stocked this coming week.

It’s also stream time in the Mogollon Rim country. Beaver Creek, East Clear Creek, Canyon Creek, Haigler Creek, Christopher Creek, Tonto Creek and the East Verde have all been stocked. So has Oak Creek. If you want a treat, get a cane pole and a can of worms. The flows are a little high yet, so catching might be a little challenging. Try worms and a cane pole.

We have stocked 28,000 trout into Lower Lake Mary. Some anglers have reported slow fishing while others have been catching plenty, especially on small spinners and KastMasters. If you don’t catch trout here, try Ashurst. If you are worried about gas prices, read the next paragraph.

For the first time this season, we stocked the Lower Salt River with trout at the Water Users Area just below Stewart Mountain Dam and at the Blue Point Bridge. This is a nice 11-mile trout fishing bonus a few weeks early. Get out there and enjoy this unique fishing while it last this season. We’ll quit stocking in late spring when the water temperatures (and dissolved oxygen levels) get too low in this desert river along the edge of the Superstition Wilderness.

If you have been waiting for the great April striper bite at the Arizona portion of Lake Powell near the dam and the power plant intakes, it’s started. Check out the Powell report below, then grab some frozen anchovies and go catch a livewell full of these hard-fighting fish. Be sure to catch and keep all you can to help the resource!

For you warmwater anglers, this weekend there we will see the quarter moon, making it a good time to fish at night under submersible lights for crappie and bass, or for striped bass at lakes that have them (Pleasant, Mead, Mohave, Havasu).

Once the waxing moon gets past the quarter stage, it becomes more and more difficult to out compete the moon glow to attract plankton/shad/predatory fish, in that order.

Right now should be prime time for largemouth bass spawn. Keep in mind that while there will be bass actively on beds, there will also be bass staging for the spawn, and bass still holding in deeper water in more of a winter-like activity pattern. Plus, some bass have already spawned out, so you can expect some post-spawn bass as well.

For the angler, this means that if you are not successful for spawning bass in the shallows, try for staging bass along secondary points inside coves, along submerged creek channels (underwater roadways) inside coves, along the edges of large flats, possibly across the mouths of coves, or along those long points just outside the coves.

For bass still in the winter mode, try at the 25 to 35 foot level off the major points, atop submerged humps in the main lake, and along deep submerged creek channels or other well-defined drainages (fish highways).

For post-spawn bass (can act like they have lockjaw), try points, islands and reefs in the main lake, with an emphasis on the latter two. Until these fish recover from the spawn, they can be tough to catch. Once they recover, they will feed much more aggressively. The cadre if post-spawn bass will keep growing the next several weeks until they become the predominant bass to fish for at the lakes. Stay tuned.

We haven’t received reports of spawning crappie yet, but if it isn’t happening, it will soon – possibly by the time you read this. Crappie love to spawn in recently submerged grass, cockleburs or other vegetation along large, shallow flats or in the backs of shallow coves. When crappies are staging for the spawn, expect to find them off the mouths of coves or the edges of major flats, especially if there is good woody hiding cover (like all the recently submerged vegetation at Roosevelt).

The crappie spawn isn’t spread out like the largemouth bass one –it can take place in a relative hurry in comparison.

Places to go: Roosevelt, Bartlett and Alamo are the top crappie and bass fishing locations. Lake Pleasant is good for bass, but a dark horse for crappie.

I have heard some nice angler reports out of San Carlos, but we don’t get routine information on fishing at that lake so it isn’t included in this fishing report each week.

We are experiencing some of the best fishing conditions we have seen in two decades or more, so don’t miss out. Go catch some memories. Maybe I’ll see you out there.