Bass Fishing Good results on Canyon Reservoirs of the Southwestern US
If you are a bass angler and preparing a trip to the southwestern U.S., there is far more waiting for you than the magnificent and beautiful landscapes. Bass fishing gems in the kind of canyon reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead are tucked away in the canyons and valleys forged into existence by the mighty Colorado River.
Fabulous opportunities to cast your favored bait and connect with eager largemouth and smallmouth bass await your offerings, the moment you understand the nature of fishing in canyon reservoirs. Unless of course you are from that area, these watery havens are like nothing most of us have skilled ahead of.
A World of Rocks, Rocks and A lot more Rocks!
These reservoirs are characterized by deep, narrow, rock-rimmed valleys encased by steep rock partitions and bluffs often reaching as large into the sky as they dive deep to the reservoir bottom.
Dependent on the elevation of the drinking water surface area, a lot of of the reservoir shorelines are formed as the surface intersects the around vertical rock walls of the canyons. The nature of these rock bluffs occasionally varies offering an underwater staircase of ledges top into the depths. In other areas, piles of fallen rock debris that toppled from the canyon rim have produced rocky factors in which the nooks and crannies wherever both fish and forage linger.
Every single of these conditions supplies diverse varieties of cover like rock piles, boulders on the ledges or overhangs wherever the bass conceal beneath waiting in ambush.
In locations wherever a lot less resistant rocks are identified at the edge of the drinking water, steeply sloping banking institutions and factors of weathered rock debris maybe present. From time to time, these non-vertical banking institutions also present cover in the sort of flooded brush or even a lonely cottonwood in scattered coves.
The actual river channel in most canyon reservoirs winds its way back and forthacross the reservoir bottom undulating from canyon wall to canyon wall. Though suspending bass could relate to the presence of the channel beneath, the depth to the channel alone is normally as well deep to serve as cover for bass and other warm drinking water video game-fish.
Even in the upper reaches of the reservoir, the h2o depths are at times shallow adequate so fishing the channel edges as may possibly arise on other varieties of reservoirs is rarely an situation until suspended fish are relating to it.
One more big difference amongst canyon reservoirs and the others, this kind of as hill-land or flatland reservoirs is a virtual absence of inundated male-created structures this kind of as bridges, roadways, previous structures, and so forth. Even when they are current, they are usually so deep the only time they might be a factor in keeping fish is when they suspend above them.
Forage species in canyon reservoirs consist of:
- native baitfish,
- some panfish, threadfin or gizzard shad (wherever stocked),
- other gamefish (trout!) and
- crayfish.
A Classic Canyon Reservoir Instance – Lake Powell (Utah/Arizona)
Positioned on the border in between southeast Utah and northeast Arizona, Lake Powell is undoubtedly a classic when it arrives to canyon reservoirs!
This large canyon reservoir is about 185 miles long with > 1950 miles of inundated shoreline formed soon after construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963.
This canyon reservoir harbors wonderful populations of largemouth and smallmouth bass as well as striped bass, walleye and crappie which are also widespread species of other canyon reservoirs in that area.
Though they get a little getting used also when very first fishing canyon reservoirs for bass, they undoubtedly supply some phenomenal bass fishing possibilities for people visiting the location!