By Loren Brooks

According to Boyd Brown’s moon chart, the best time to fish on April 18, was between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. But I reviewed the IN-FISHERMAN moon chart which claimed the best time to fish was from 8:00 am to 11:00 am. S we were up early and at Marker 18 at 7:15 am.

We marked lots of fish near Margaret’s Cove. But we never got a strike while trolling for 3 hours.

Then it happened.

Between 10:45 am and 12:30 pm we caught 15 fish. Up in the shallows (15 feet of water); doubles twice. We caught several on the “RAT TRAP” lure. We lost one lure in the brush.

Roy and his buddies made contact with us at 11:15. Roy is the captain of a pontoon boat from Fun & Sun. Roy and his fellow fisherman got in on the tail end of the fish frenzy and came home with some nice fish.

Dave and Wayne had a real hey-day at Marker 18, on April 16-17, catching 32 Monday and 30 Tuesday.

When we arrived back at the dock, Wednesday, It was 88 degrees at Echo at 1:15 pm. Out of the 14 Striper, Four of the fish were on the skinny side., The rest of the fish averaged about 1.5 pounds each.

Stan and Pat said the last 8 Striper fish they caught up in the shallows of the Overton Beach area were skinny.

Stan said that the catfish are hardy fighting fish, running from 5 to 8 pounds each. Stronger tackle is needed for the big Catfish.

Watermen are finding more and more skinny fish. Fish biologists claim Stripers which are skinny, suffer from malnutrition. I have found that some of the striper in Lake Mead are feeding on crawfish as well as shad.

Striped bass have full bodies with long horizontal black lines. Striped bass can grow to lengths of up to 59 inches (149 cm) and weights of 55 to 77 pounds (25-35 kg). The largest striped bass on record is a 125-pound (56.8 kg) female caught off North Carolina in 1891. Big or small, they are delicious and we can be very grateful for the large numbers of striper in Lake Mead.

“Keep your lure in the water, the waters of life.”