Topock Gorge Colorado River Arizona Fishing Report

 Date:     April 25 , 2011

From:    Georgia

Subject: Fish report from the Topock Gorge

Warm weather is here at last, and the Topock Gorge is back in the running for fish galore. Shore fishermen have been plucking stripers out of the water below the pipeline.  They are also in various locations up and down the Gorge.  Thirteen year old Allie and his sister eight year old Adrain from Dana Point, California caught and released eleven line-sides two of which tipped the scale at 3.5-pounds. In the back waters on live worms, the duo also boated and released two sunfish that averaged 1.5-pounds each. The sunfish bite is smoken and I mean smoken! The bait of choice for fishing stripers has been cut anchovy, and for the sunfish it has been meal worms. In the back bays where the water is shallow the redear have already spawned but in the deeper pools where the temperature is cooler, the fish are just beginning to stage. The smallmouth bass spawn is pretty much over, although there might be one more on the horizon. Typical of a post spawn, the smallmouth bass bite has slowed.  Smallies are still being caught, but it’s going to be around thirty days before the fish begin feeding again in earnest. Largemouth should be all over beds. Speaking of largemouth bass, a couple of Golden Shores’ residents called to tell me they saw a monster of a largemouth bass. It was estimated to weigh around 13-pounds. Kenny from Bay Star Electric in Golden Shores, Arizona took a picture of it with his phone but not thinking of me, he deleted it. Another angler suggested that the lucky fisher stop by Old Western Trader and have it weighed. This didn’t happen so although we have eye witness, we have no confirmed weight or a picture.   As a result the bucket mouth will have to be relegated to the realm of myth. Interestingly enough, if the angler had had it weighed and it did weigh that much, it could have been in the running for a river record. The biggest fish in the running this year is a 10.8-pounder taken near Havasu Landing in February. If you don’t have a scale, a sure fire formula for guesstimating the weight of your fish is to measure its girth, square it, multiply that figure by the length, then divide the total by 800. This method requires you to measure the length of the fish from the tip of its nose to the fork of its tail and the girth from the front of the pectoral fins. I can’t leave the Gorge without mentioning that I glimpsed my very first Boneytail Chub in one of the back bays. They, of course, are on the protected list, so if you happen to hook one release it immediately unharmed!