We've had some wild weather come through the normally sunny desert with high winds, rain, flooding and wildly changing river water levels. The cold weather, rain and runoff have combined to slow the fishing down although the weather itself can be spectacular at times, like this thunderstorm rolling across the desert eating up the rainbow in front of the storm as it moves across the desert.
Whenever the weather is not a factor and the wind is calm, we are out on the water.
The conditions may be tougher than normal, but the largemouth bass haven't gone anywhere.
Getting to the river has been tougher than normal. Blown down trees and flooding are not everyday scenery in the desert.
The usual spectacular desert sunrises have been replaced by morning wind and ominous looking clouds.
The conditions may be slowing the bite, but you can still pull a great day if you get lucky. On this day, I caught three largemouth bass about this size
And trolling beneath some diving birds netted me two Colorado River striped bass
When you are lucky to catch a couple small fish with tough fishing conditions, catching largemouth bass and stripers on the same day would be considered a huge success.
With slow fishing on one section of river, we were off to try our luck on a different section of the Colorado River that was a bit more sheltered from the prevailing and non-stop wind. Plus, you only have to go a few feet from sleeping bag to kayak, which is a rare thing these days.
The significant rainfall did not raise the level of the river water here, but it did make the current run about as strong as it gets. Paddling upstream is a job, getting the fishing lure and kayak all heading in the desired directions was a challenge. And if you hook a fish, hang on!
We headed to a nearby backwater to get a break from the strong current and see if the bass were willing to bite off the main river channel. Unfortunately, the backwater was nearly completely clogged with seaweed.
It's difficult to believe that big fish can live in this weed choked backwater, but they do. After catching a few small fish, a cast into a clump of seaweed in water that could not have been more than a foot deep, resulted in a battle in the underwater jungle and a nice largemouth bass.
On the paddle upstream back to the launch, I had enough energy left to paddle a short ways upstream past the launch and drift back for a few more casts hoping for the last cast fish and the "one last cast" strategy paid off again.
The rain seems to have left the area, but the wind has not.
We are currently waiting to see how the wind shapes up for the next few days and we will be back out kayak fishing as soon as possible.
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