Sunrise was just before 7 AM, water temps were holding around 72°, and the wind was light. The lake is still turning over, so water clarity isn’t great, but the conditions finally came together for an incredible morning. I’ve been saying for weeks that the north end of the lake had all the ingredients for boils — bait, striper, and birds in the air — and today was the day! I had two Havasu locals on board for a 3-hour trip to learn how to fish our beautiful lake. As we were heading toward Pilot Rock for some early morning trolling, I noticed a shad get tossed in the air by a striper. I stopped the boat, pulled the jigs out, and by then, the birds were diving — it was game on! They ended up landing 9 nice stripers in total! We eventually tried trolling, but the bite had slowed. We finished the morning over in Thompson Bay, where short, scattered boils were still popping off. We switched to bait fishing and picked up our fair share of schoolies to end a great morning. Reports from the south end near Three Dunes show strong morning boils the last couple of days — a perfect starting point if you’re heading out this weekend!

Water temps have continued to drop, holding around 71–72° in the early morning and climbing to 74° by late afternoon. Sunrise is about 6:30 AM and sunset is around 6 PM. I haven’t spent much time on the north end lately, but I’ve heard reports of both bait and striper showing up around Mesquite Bay. Most of my recent charters have focused on the south end of the lake, and fishing has been solid down here. With the full moon behind us and a new moon tomorrow (Oct 21), we’re seeing more surface activity and expect boils to continue increasing. My October 18th charter landed two great boils near Three Dunes—one around 7 AM and another at 9 AM. Tons of fish were caught, with the biggest measuring 23" and just shy of 3 lbs. The hot lures were ¾–1 oz jigs and Little George’s. Trolling has been slower the past couple of weeks but still consistent. We’ve been running 4" and 6" paddle tail swimbaits on ½ oz jig heads, along with lipless rattle traps—dark colors early, switching to white once the sun hits the water. The stretch from Pilot Rock south to Standard Wash continues to produce quality fish for those trolling at the right depths. I’ll be heading out solo tomorrow morning, so stay tuned for part two!

Fishing has been all over the place since October started! Water temps have dropped from the mid-80s at the beginning of the month to holding steady around 77 degrees as of October 12th. This cooling trend slowed the bite early on as the fish adjusted to the changing temperatures. We’ve also had two weather systems push through — the first dropped water temps and made fishing tougher, while the most recent one (around October 10th) seemed to turn things back on. Let’s talk bait and striper boils. There’s been tons of bait all over the lake, especially on the south end around Havasu Springs, Standard Wash, and between Pilot Rock and Ghost Mine Saloon. Just because you’re seeing bait doesn’t mean the stripers are feeding, but if you can find bait balls with active stripers on your graph, anchor or spot-lock and jig them up — that’s been very productive. If you’re anchored, chum the water to keep the school under the boat. Once they start hitting jigs, you can ease up on the chum — the action alone keeps them fired up. That said, marking bait and stripers doesn’t always mean they’ll hit artificial. Over the past two weeks, we’ve had mornings where trolling and jigging produced nothing, but cut bait on small circle hooks did the trick. If you’re missing fish due to light bites, switch to a small J-hook and set the hook yourself. Earlier this month, some anglers reported boils on the north end of the lake throughout the morning until around 2 PM. The recent full moon seemed to slow that bite down, but on October 9th, we got into a solid boil in Thompson Bay that lasted about 15 minutes — enough time to land a few nice fish. With the full moon behind us, I expect boils to start firing up again soon. We’ve recently started trolling 6" Z-Man pearl swimbaits and have been picking up some quality stripers in the 20–24" range. On smaller 4" River2Sea pearl swimbaits and rattle traps, the average size has been 14–17". Anchoring up and bait fishing continues to produce fish of all sizes. One group even had a big striper grab a live bluegill near the boat — we got it up alongside and realized it just had the bluegill in its mouth but not the hook! It ended up spitting the bait boat-side before we could get the net under it. Overall, fishing is improving and it’s only going to get better as water temps continue to cool! Most charters are seeing high-number striper days, and our catfish trips are producing steady action.