Water temps over the last few days have been holding in the low 70s during the mornings and climbing to around 72° by late afternoon. Sunrise has been right around 7 AM, and overall conditions have been steady with light winds and mild fall weather. I’ve been all over the lake the past few days running charters and scouting, so here’s a breakdown by location and technique. Sod Farm to the Casino: I haven’t spent a ton of time up this way recently, but I did dedicate a morning to checking it out. We started working the Sod Farm and had mild success pulling fish on a 6” paddle tail. I marked a fair amount of bait, though the shad are still grouped in smaller pods rather than big, dense schools. Once the water cools off a bit more, we should see those shad bunch up tighter and attract more aggressive striper. Out in front of the Casino, the bite has been fast and furious right as the sun hits the water, but it slows quickly. You’ll often see a solid school on the graph one minute and it’s gone the next — they’re clearly chasing and feeding on the move. Thompson Bay to Steamboat Cove: There’s tons of bait in this stretch, and it’s been producing good opportunities for striper boils. Many of the fish in this area have been quality 2–4 pounders, especially if you can get on the boil early. The biggest fish this week actually came from this area — my 4-year-old son landed a beautiful striper just over 5 pounds! The boils here have been short-lived, firing up as soon as the sun breaks the horizon and tapering off within the hour. Once that happens, switch gears to bait fishing or throwing lures. The lake is still turning over, so visibility is limited, but as that clears, expect the jig bite to improve once the morning boil dies off. Be sure to keep a pair of binoculars handy — scanning for birds working the water is the best way to find active fish. On Sunday, despite 15 mph winds, I located a large group of birds over Thompson Bay. Even in tough conditions, we were able to throw lures and pull a few solid fish from those boils. From Pilot Rock to Steamboat Cove, I’ve been marking good striper schools working shad, and we’ve had excellent success casting jigs directly above them for quality fish. Black Meadow Landing, Three Dunes, & Cattail Cove: These areas have been producing boils with much more consistency. I’ve also been marking tons of bait, and they’re balled up tighter together than in other parts of the lake. My customers have been throwing blade baits, paddle tails, and jigs in all the coves throughout this stretch and continue to catch high numbers of striper of all sizes — even when we’re not directly on an active boil. Bonus Note – Catfish: Channel cats are starting to school up with the fall pattern in full swing. We’ve been catching back-to-back channels in the same holes — often while fishing for striper. Don’t hesitate to drop a bottom rig to take advantage of the opportunity. If you catch one, there’s a good chance another is nearby. Fishing is only getting better as the lake cools down!

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!

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.