Welcome to the Colorado.
I’d like to write that buckets of fish are biting in the Topock Marsh except that it doesn’t appear too many anglers are fishing in the marsh. Anglers were fishing this time last year because they reported the mosquitoes biting. Rather than mosquitoes, largemouth bass up to 3-pounds were biting for Ed Courtney of Bullhead City who caught five at North Dyke on a watermelon colored 6” trick worm.
A medley of fish are being plucked from the Topock Gorge. California resident Dave Oechsner caught four line-sides between 1.5- and 4-pounds on one of his favorite lures, the Bomber Long A. Artificial lures work on stripers, but they still favor plain old anchovy. Stripers are either biting or they’re not. When they are, they are being taken in ten to twelve feet of water and averaging between dinks and 5-pounds. When they aren’t biting, other fish are there to take up the slack. The Gorge is giving up fair numbers of channel cats. Paul Wildum from Tucson, Arizona garnered a plump 6-pounder, and Bob Meltzer from Golden Shores, Arizona plucked a nice 3-pound cat trolling with a Rapala inside the channel of Park Moab. Also netted in the Gorge have been a 6.5-pounder and several averaging 1.5-pounds. With a preferred bait of either night crawler, chartreuse power bait, or Mepps spinner bait, trout continue to be taken in small numbers. While a number of fishers favor releasing all their catch, the fragile trout succumbs easily to the stress of the fight and the prick of the hook. It makes more sense to eat them rather than to toss them. Other fish being taken in the Gorge include bluegill and, although the bite has slowed down a bit, smallmouth bass which can be enticed to the strike with night crawlers, anchovy, or curly-tails worm rigged on a 4/0 hook with a split shot about a foot above it.
See you on the river. Until the next time, Keep your sinker in the water and the plug in your boat, and remember no matter what time of day or year it's always FunFishing on the Colorado!
Capt. Doyle
“Fishing is just fishing. But, catching is a gift.”
~ Quote from a long ago and forgotten fishing magazine