Saturday, March 20, 2010

Heading South

Fishing Time: 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Weather: warm, calm, high 60's
Moon Phase: 23% Moon
Water temp: 49-52.3 degrees
Location: Sand Hollow Reservoir
Bait: Everything, but drop shot with roboworm is what all fish were caught on
Who Went: Hunt, Me My buddy Hunt was in town this week from Portland and wanted to get away for the weekend and go fishing somewhere. We talked about places to go, but with most the lakes in the ice to no ice transition mode, we decided that we might as well head south to warmer weather. Sand Hollow, near St. George is the lake we decided on, and it holds nothing but largemouth bass and bluegill. I have heard a lot of good reports about some big bass down there and also about how beautiful the lake is resembling Lake Powell, on a much smaller scale of course. Well I can tell you that one of those reports is not true and that is that Sand Hollow resembles Lake Powell. As we pulled up to the reservoir we were very disappointed to find a catch basin in the middle of the sand dunes! It has one outcrop of red rock sandstone that is pretty cool, but besides that it was storage water held behind a big rock dike in the middle of some sand dunes! It also bordered the town of Hurricane and gave no feeling like you were getting away from the hustle and bustle of life. We were not allowed to camp on the lake and were forced to stay in a designated campground overlooking an empty subdivision that has obviously been humbled by the recent economy! We joked about the name of our camp spot and called it, the Sand Hollow Retreat overlooking the beautiful Sand Hollow Bluffs Subdivision. What a selling point that would be in their brochure! As far as the fishing, it ended up being about as productive as us finding a good camp spot! We found out from the camp host that the wind had been blowing for the last two days with gusts up to 85 mph and when we got there the good old american flag told us that the wind wasn't over yet. It was so bad we didn't even fish on Friday.This left the water temperature of the reservoir at a chilly 49 degrees on Saturday morning. There was also a bass tournament going on Saturday and the small reservoir was littered with boats. I only saw two bass caught by other boats all day long, and I only managed to catch a total of four. This was the first and smallest of the four I caught, but none were really picture worthy, all were under 2 pounds. Hunt had a rough day and didn't land any bass. I’ve heard that in mid April to May you can have 100 fish days on this reservoir so I would maybe return during that time frame, but it definitely wouldn’t be for the great camping or scenery that was rumored to be at this lake. We hit it wrong once again and I’m getting very tired of the weather not cooperating with the weekends that I go fishing. We did get gorgeous weather on Saturday and it made for a very peaceful day and evening on the lake, but the wind the previous three days in a row just killed the water temps and fishing. I’m headed to Lake Powell in two weeks and I’ve already started praying to the weather gods to let it shine, please let it shine!