Fishing Lake Powell for Largemouth and Smallmouth bass has always been a ton of fun. This report on fishing Lake Powell is no different. We counted every fish we caught, and at the end of 2 days our tally read 190 between both me and my dad. We found some solid baits the bass just seemed to chomp. Here are all the logistics of the trip of where we fished, what we used, conditions we faced, and the other little details of how we flat out “Kraked” some bass!
Fishing Lake Powell is incredible. The scenery is amazing, and the fishing is typically always good. This trip was no exception. We counted every bass we caught, and ended the trip with a final tally of 190. When was the last time you caught that many bass? We caught nearly 100 bass a day! My hope is this report will help you get into them like we did, so you can have a fun time “Kraken” those Large & Smallmouth bass at Lake Powell.
Below you will find the fishing conditions, and a detailed report of each day with some tips to try and help you catch even more fish than we did. You will also find the baits we used, and you can purchase a bag of them for yourself to throw. Plus, there are tips to locating the bass, so you can fish productive areas. Last but not least is a video compilation of some of the bass we caught with a run down of the baits we used. Hope you are stoked to get “Kraken” some bass with this info.
We timed our trip to miss a nasty rain storm on the weekend. We fished two full days up the San Juan river arm of Lake Powell on Wednesday and Thursday, April 6th & 7th. We spent the night in Page, Arizona Tuesday night. Then headed up the lake first thing Wednesday morning. We camped on a beach up the lake Wednesday night. We fished all day Thursday, and headed off the lake for home that night. It was a hit and run trip to say the least. Here were the conditions during those two full days of fishing.
The water temperatures were climbing fast. It was typically between 58 – 60 degrees at any give time on the lake.
Bright and Sunny. Mid-day air temperature was around 75 degrees on both days.
0-5 mph. Very calm on both days.
Varied. Crystal clear on the main lake. Visibility up to 10 feet. The water became gradually more and more stained, and eventually turned muddy the further up the lake you traveled. The bigger fish seemed to be in the clearer water.
Every day we learned something new about Lake Powell. The fishing was so white hot it was fun to experiment with different baits and different types of areas to see what we could discover. There were some fundamental things which worked better than others. Here is what transpired each day to help you get a feel of what you could do to go crush some bass at Powell for yourself.
The first day was awesome. My very first cast a bass ripped my bait off of the shaky head I was throwing. We knew we were in for an epic trip. We worked the same area of shoreline all day. It seemed as if more and more bass were moving into these shallow spots as the day wore on. They were moving in to make beds and spawn. Our timing was perfect. We fished a little bit of the tinted stained water where the visibility was about 5-6 feet, and the water was also a little warmer in this area. It was amazing to me how shallow we would catch fish. Several times as soon as your bait hit the water inches from the bank, a bass would smack it. Weightless senko’s, shaky heads, and all my best Lake Powell baits caught bass for us on this day. All the best baits are mentioned below. It was a lot of fun. Here’s some of the fish from the first day.
The second day started off a little slower than the first. We traveled up further into the dirtier stained water to do some flipping and pitching. We caught several bass, but in the dirtier water the action wasn’t as fast as the day prior. We decided to head back down the lake in the afternoon into some clearer water, and wound up catching better and more fish. By the end of the day we saw several Smallmouth bass beds, and some crappie starting to spawn. They were definitely in shallow water enjoying the warmth like we were. Here is a selfie of one of the Smallmouth I caught flipping a jig up shallow in the stained water.
One of the cool highlights of the trip for me was catching several big crappie. The swimbait I was throwing mentioned below was amazing at getting those guys to bite. I put a scale on one and it weighed in at 1.86 lbs, and was 15 inches long. Super impressive for a crappie. One of my favorite things about fishing Lake Powell is you never know what you are going to catch.
In hindsight, here are a couple things we learned I wish we would’ve known before hitting the lake. The first was the clearer water held bigger bass. We caught bigger bass, and saw big bass in the clear water coves. In the dirtier water up the main river channel we caught bass, but just not as big. The other thing that would’ve helped is simply sticking to the baits below which consistently caught fish. I had a lot of fun trying new stuff, but sometimes when you have something working you shouldn’t switch it out. The baits below hands down caught me the most fish. Hard to complain though with 190 bass caught in two days of fishing. Really dope.
To help you catch more fish out at Lake Powell I’ve put together another couple Kraken Bass Bags you can purchase. These two bags have the baits we used on this trip. My goal is to make it even easier for you to get your hands on what worked. Plus, you won’t spend as much money purchasing all these things individually. The fist bag contains 2 of the best baits for the trip, and the other bag has 4 of the best. The baits are rigged ready to throw, so you don’t have to do it yourself. I’ve included below a list of these top 4 baits and how to use them. There is one little trick for each of these baits not mentioned here which seemed to make a big difference. I’ll add it into your bag. It will be something fun, you may or may not know about. My goal is always to keep you stoked on Kraken Bass.
The Dot Crawler
is a funky looking soft plastic from the Japanese company Megabass, and it was flat out awesome. You can check out the video below to see a little bit more of how to set it up. The Dot Crawler worked well for me on a 3/16 oz. shaky head jig
. The Megabass Dot Crawler is an incredibly soft plastic, so rigging it up on a shaky head was key to keep from losing your baits. All you need to do is bomb the Dot Crawler out on a shaky head, and then slowly crawl it along the bottom. Often, letting it just soak on the bottom would get the bass aggrivated, and they would suck it up.
The MegaBass Bottle Shrimp
and the Keitech Crazy Flapper
were rock solid fish catching machines for me. Both of these baits are such a life like imitation of a cray fish. The bass at Lake Powell regularly chomp on crawdads, so they couldn’t resist these. These soft plastic craws worked really well texas rigged up on a 3/8 oz strike king structure swinging jig head
. This heavier jig head kept the bait on the bottom, and it allowed the bait a subtle side to side wobble which seemed to help get strikes. Slowly moving the craw along the bottom, with an occasional light shake of the rod tip grabbed the bass’s attention. The swinging jig head set up like this on a bait casting rod and reel worked perfectly for flipping and pitching to visible shallow structure. There is nothing much funner than catching bass flipping soft plastics like this one.
Throwing around a jig with a soft plastic craw trailer produced several bites. The jig didn’t get as many bites as the other baits, but typically a jig will get you those bigger bites. We used both a 3/8 oz, and 1/4 oz arkie style jig 
in several different colors. Anything with green, brown, or purple seemed to get bites. My favorite craw to use for a trailer on the jig was a green pumpkin purple havoc pit boss
. The pit boss has some real bulk and awesome action. Bass always seem to get stoked on it. Use a jig by throwing it out, and slowly crawling it along the bottom with an occasional hop. Keep it simple and you will get bites.
A 4 inch ayu Keitech swimbait 
was the perfect bait for moving and locating bass. We rigged the swim bait up with a 1/8 oz. owner darter jig head
. This jig head worked slick to keep the bait laying straight. The light weight darter style head enabled us to work the shallow water a lot of the bass were laying in. Using a spinning rod was key for this light set up. A spinning rod will help you get more distance out of your cast with this ultra light finesse bait. Slowly reel the swimbaits along with an occasional pause, and hold on for when they smack it!
There were two main keys for locating bass when you fish Lake Powell. The first thing you need to look for are the gradual sloping banks covered in boulders, chunk rock, and gravel. Gradual sloping banks are sometimes hard to find on Powell with it’s sheer canyon walls. When you do find the gradual rocky sloping banks, keep moving along fishing fairly fast until you find the fish on them. Some sloping banks are better than others, but if you target them it won’t be long until you run into some bass. The other key is to find slack calm water coves. Especially in the spring, the bass love the shallow coves with gravel and rock to spawn. One cove we pulled into had half a dozen smallmouth bass beds. Here’s a picture of what type of banks to look for, and typically where you can find the bass.
Here is some video footage of all the baits discussed, and several of the bass we caught on this trip. Hope it helps you get some stoke juice flowing to go smash a few.
Fishing Lake Powell for Largemouth and Smallmouth bass is epic. Hope you can head out and put some of these tips and tricks to use and get on some fish. Please share with any of your friends who are thinking of heading out to this awesome place. Let’s spread the love of fishing. Special thanks goes out to my dad. He has always been so supportive of everything I’ve done. Without him these epic trip reports wouldn’t exist.
As Always,
Stay Stoked!!!
The links above and below in this post are affiliate links were you can pick up baits, rod’s, reels, line, and anything else used outside of the items found in my bait bags to “Krak” some bass fishing Lake Powell. Krakenbass receives a small percentage of the sales through these links. I only use links to baits, and gear I personally trust and know work. I put these links to make them helpful for you, and not for the small amount I make for the sale of the products. I hope these products can help you “krak” some bass like they have for me! Thank you for your support.
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11 Responses
Awesome Report. We leave Thursday for Powell can’t wait to get down there
Go smash em man!
Great report love what you do to help out other anglers…keep it up appreciate it brotha
Thanks man!
Great report man keep ’em coming. Crappie are a blast to catch. I’ve pulled a few big ones out of Sand Hollow by accident and they are fightin’ mothers!!
Bro! Epic trip and Unbelievably amazing footage. Your reports along with your videos are top notch brotha. They are legit!
Much appreciated bro. Hope you season is full of some personal bests this year!
Heading to Lake Powell for your first time trip in the middle of June are the fish still shallow at the time of year or have they moved to deeper water. Any info or tips would be greatly appreciated. Loved the video.
Typically you can find fish shallow still in June, but it’s usually and early morning, and late evening deal. The main thing at Powell in the summer is the bass move out onto the main lake points and gradual sloping shorelines where the shad tend to cruise by, and the bass can ambush them. Throwing a top-water popper or spook style bait can be really awesome that time of year. Thanks for the question. Hope this can help point you in the right direction.