The storms that bounced the doves around and made the Sept. 1 opener lackluster also impacted fishing. As the storms approached, the fishing was great. After the storms passed, anglers complained that the fish had lockjaw. You have to play the hand nature deals you.

But here’s the good news – sport-fish lockjaw ultimately leads to hungry, aggressive behavior. That should be where the lakes are at now.

There is an exception – Saguaro, which has been going gangbusters for yellow bass and bluegill from shore or boat despite the storms. This is the place to take kids. Think worms under a bobber and KastMasters or small spinners. I also got some good reports of bluegill fishing at Bartlett.

In case you are wondering, this weekend’s dove hunting should be back to normal too – we hope.

This is the first quarter of the waxing moon, so expect night fishing under lights to be viable until the moon can outshine your lights some time next week.  However, be sure to get the bite at first and last light – if you hit it right, the surface action in the warmwater lakes might just provide you some of the best fishing of the year. Timing is everything.

My top picks this week are Pleasant, Havasu, Mead and Powell, mostly because they all have voracious striped bass hungrily chasing shad at the surface. Hooking into aggressive stripers is line-stripping fun. But these lakes also have largemouth bass, or in the case of Powell, smallmouth bass, that will be feeding more and more aggressively as we transition from summer to fall.

Here is a striper fishing tip from Wayne Gustaveson (Wayne’s Words) with the Utah Division of Wildlife: Scattered fish feeding on the surface can be caught with surface lures thrown right into the splash ring. The better approach is to graph the 30-60 foot bottom contour where the single splashes are seen. Find the big school on the bottom for the best fishing experience. These can be readily caught on spoons. Surfacing fish mark the location of feeding events and deep running schools. The feeding action is going on at depth so mimicking a dying shad with a spoon falling to the bottom is the most productive technique to try. This will be the most rewarding technique to pursue while waiting for the big boil to appear.

In the high country, a similar situation exists. As the nights get longer and cooler, the trout start feeding more and more aggressively to put on body fat before winter conditions arrive. This provides some of the best fishing opportunities of the year. The irony is that angler days decrease dramatically in the fall as the fishing gets better. Go figure.  Or better yet, go fall fishing and become an irony buster.

Keep in mind that brown trout spawn in the fall. Want to know where? Fishing for information is easy in cyberspace at our new interactive fishing map on our Web site. Just look at the bottom of the map for a listing of species, click on brown trout, and on the left-hand column you’ll see a list of the best public waters to fish for them.

My top three are: Chevelon Canyon Lake, Oak Creek (in the catch-and-release section), and Reservation Lake (on the White Mountain Apache Reservation). By the way, we don’t have any reservation lakes on our interactive map, partly because they are managed by the tribes, but mostly because the information on the interactive map was taken from our popular booklet “Arizona Fishin’ Holes.” By the way, we are actively working on a slight revision of this popular fishing guide, so stay tuned – our goal is to have the next printing done in time for Christmas.

So go catch some memories. Maybe I’ll see you out there.