The lake level has risen a little to 642.7 feet above msl.  The black bass are hitting soft baits when worked slowly especially on grass beds in 20 to 30 feet deep.  Ed and his grandson Jacob caught 4 nice largemouths on brown colored spinner baits.  Their largest was 4.48 pounds at 21 ⅞ inches long.  Reports of using artificial crawfish jerked through the weed beds have worked well.  The reports from my black bass fishing contacts say that the numbers of smallmouth bass are overtaking the largemouth in tournaments recently and that the smallmouth and just as big as the largemouth. Trolling with LONG A BOMBERS has been producing some nice stripers. I received a report that the striper fishing is picking up a little.  While the number of stripers in Mohave has been decreasing, the quality of the fish caught has increased.
Submersible lights fished during the new moon are an effective way to catch stripers. Next new moon is tonight, April 10th.  Cut anchovies usually work the best.

Biologists from both Arizona Game and Fish Department and Nevada Division of Wildlife with the help of volunteers, National Park Service and Bureau of Reclamation personnel have continued to install fish habitat in Carp Cove, Box Cove, Shoshone, and Arrowhead.  Fish habitat consists of PVC structures, wood pallet structures, tamarisk bundles, and some Christmas trees. The largemouth, smallmouth, bluegill and catfish are really utilizing the new structures. Additional habitat will be added at several locations over the next two years. These structures are fish magnets.

There is a wheelchair accessible fishing pier just south of the main launch ramp at Katherine’s Landing. If you fish Mohave and are having luck, please e-mail me at gcummins@azgfd.gov so I can share your successes with others.

Angler’s report: Smallmouths are in full spawn and aggressively guarding, making them easy to catch. Caught over 20 SM’s over the two days with the smallest at 14 inches and the largest at 18. The largemouths were moving into the spawning areas but not yet on beds. Only caught about a half-dozen over the two days but did manage 2 in the five-pound range. One comment: ran into another angler at the dock and he showed me his eight smallies including one that went about 18 inches. I asked if he took them off beds and he said “yup”. I said, “And you kept them? Seriously? Come on, bed fishing is fun but you have to put them back if we want the population to continue to grow.”