Artificial Lure here with your Lake Powell fishing report for Saturday, August 9, 2025. Sunrise painted the cliffs bright at 6:20 a.m., with sunset expected at 8:33 p.m. Weather-wise, it’s another classic August scorcher in canyon country: bluebird skies, highs right around 103 degrees, and a dry southwest wind picking up to 20 miles per hour during the afternoon, kicking some chop onto open water. Water temps in the main lake are holding in the high 70s to low 80s by afternoon, making for classic late-summer patterns. With no tides in play—she’s a reservoir, after all—fish movement today is all about wind, temperature, and light.
The bite has been steady, especially in the early hours and again near dusk, when things cool off. Stripers are schooling up in open water just outside the mouths of the canyons and around structure. Recent catches have been solid, with several boats reporting over 30 fish in a morning’s work. Most of these are eating trolled deep-divers and vertical jigged spoons in shad patterns. If you’re marking big clouds of bait on your electronics, drop a chrome Kastmaster or a jigging spoon right below the boat and get ready.
Later in the day, smallmouth are holding tight to rocky points, ledges, and submerged brush, especially from 15 to 30 feet deep. Anglers using drop shot rigs with watermelon or green pumpkin finesse worms are seeing plenty of action, and rocky shorelines near Bullfrog Bay and Good Hope Bay are producing. Ned rigs and small tube jigs can also get the job done—don’t overlook the shaded pockets under overhangs as the sun climbs.
Largemouth have been a bit trickier, but the grassier cuts around Wahweap and Warm Creek have coughed up a few 3- to 4-pounders for folks pitching Texas-rigged craws or slow-rolling spinnerbaits right at first light. The late summer algae bloom is just starting to green up a few of those warm, still coves, and that’s where you might tangle with a big one if you’re patient.
Catfish are bitey on the flats and along sandy banks, particularly in the evenings. Nightcrawlers, chicken liver, or fresh cut shad under a slip sinker will do the trick—look for a gentle slope with a bit of current near the main channel.
A key tip: the current wind has shad bunched up against the windward banks as the sun sets, and that’s where both stripers and smallmouth will push in to feed aggressively. Look for birds diving and surface commotion in the evening.
Hot spots to check today:
- **The mouth of Navajo Canyon**—great action on stripers right at sunrise with jigging spoons and trolling sticks attacking the midwater schools.
- **Good Hope Bay**—rock points and gravel coves are loaded with aggressive smallmouth, and the occasional bonus walleye on Gulp minnows or crawler harnesses.
- **Padre Bay**—working windy points here with topwater walkers at dawn yielded reports of some “football” smallmouth and even the odd largemouth mixing in.
Best lures right now are chrome/blue or sexy shad pattern spoons, white or chartreuse spinnerbaits, Ned rigs (green pumpkin or natural), and for live bait, anchovies for striped bass and nightcrawlers for panfish and catfish.
Boat traffic will ramp up quickly by mid-morning—so if you want the quiet and the bite, get out early and focus on that dawn window. Be safe; keep an eye on the wind as those afternoon gusts can build up a real chop in the wide bays and open runs between canyons.
Thanks for tuning in to your Lake Powell fishing report. Subscribe for daily updates and on-water intel, and from all of us here in Powell country—tight lines, watch those weather shifts, and respect the canyon. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.
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