BY MIKE STEVENS
BULLHEAD CITY— Lake Mohave’s resident striped bass are settling into summer mode making them easier to pattern and catch. This is true of the school-sized-and-up stripers on the lower half of the lake down to Davis Dam as well as the trophy fishery out of Willow Beach to the north.
According to Mike Huseman of River King Outdoors, “water temps have moved up into the high 70s and the stripers are finally getting into the summer pattern and are on the chew. A lot of these fish have moved up shallow and are starting to feed making them very catchable. There are quite a few large schools of the school-sized fish around shallow points, much more than we have seen in years past. Bigger fish are being caught in 20 to 49 feet of water on the troll and casting large swimbaits. Smaller fish are being caught with a variety of moving baits: spoons, jerkbaits, crankbaits and early-morning topwater baits.
While this fishing from Cottonwood down through Princes Cove, Katherine Landing and ultimately the dam has been ticking in the right direction as far as consistency, Willow Beach came out of nowhere to steal the show this time around with a trophy catch that rang the bell after a legit quiet stretch.
That fish was a 32.68-pound tanker of a lineside bagged by young angler, Noah Escobedo who was putting in work with a trout-pattern Livingston Lures B-Venom. It wasn’t the only eyebrow-raising striper caught in recent days out of Willow Beach, but it’s certainly the most notable for now.
Moving back down to Lake Mohave’s “main basin,” Huseman said striped bass aren’t the only species on the upswing
“Smallmouth have moved out into deeper waters in the 20- to 40-foot range but can also be caught on topwater during the first hour of daylight,” he said. “Largemouth bass have moved to back of coves in shallow water and grassy flats and are in the chew, eating a ton of different baits with the spinnerbait being the top bait along with swimjigs being pulled through the grass.”
