Winter has settled into the desert. Nighttime temperatures are around 40 degrees and mid-day warms to the upper 50s. Water temperatures have approached the coolest point and will settle in at about 52-54 degrees. It's winter fishing time.

Stripers have settled into water depths ranging from 80-140 feet. They're lethargic and moving slow. These conditions provide a real challenge to anglers. On a huge lake like Mead, with thousands of acres of water to cover, the "hot spot" can be illusive.

This time of year always brings to mind words of wisdom passed to me by an old fisherman. Over thirty years ago, I had just moved to the Rocky Mountains. Having never fished for trout in mountain rivers, I walked into Chuck Fothergill's fly fishing shop in Aspen, Colorado looking for information. "Are the fish biting?" I asked Chuck. Chuck was tying flys as we talked. He looked over the top of his magnifying glasses and said to me, "Kid, fish eat every day." I've never forgotten this, and when wintertime fishing gets tough, it gives me the incentive I need to keep looking and eventually catch good numbers of fish.

Years of covering the waters of Lake Mead have proven Fothergill's advice to be right. Fish can be found, and caught, any day of the year. Cut bait and a bit of patience, combined with knowledge of the lake, will be rewarded with enough stripers to feed the whole family.

As the colder months approach, and the water temperatures drop, the threadfin shad in Lake Mead are making their dangerous run from the back of Las Vegas Bay to open water. For the past few weeks, the stripers have been waiting for them.

Every day, about mid-morning, waves of shad travel the main channel towards the open lower basin of the lake. The stripers lie in wait. As schools of shad move out, the jigging spoon bite has been fantastic. We've been catching stripers anywhere from 100 to 180 feet deep. The action is fast and pulling a 3-5 pound striper out of 100+ feet of water gives the angler a long, hard fight.

There are still some shad cruising the shallows in back bays. For anglers that like to run-and-gun, occasional schools of stripers can be found and caught with shallow running or top water baits. This requires covering a lot of water quickly, but the rewards can be great.

Lake Mead fall weather is magnificent. The early morning air has a winter chill, but by mid-day the sun is warm and it's comfortable fishing in shirtsleeves. Large flocks of migrating birds are using the lake as a stopover point while heading south. It's not unusual to see groups of Snowy Egrets feeding along the shore, hundreds of Coots resting on the water, and occasional flights of Canadian Geese.

Soon, we'll be setting into winter patterns, fishing deep with bait and Bald Eagles will be arriving along with a few solitary northern Loons.

Summertime has finally come to the Mohave Desert. The weather change is subtle at first and hardly noticeable on the vast expanse of Lake Mead until you get in touch with the natural activity of the fish. When the wind is down and the lake is calm, you can observe the change. If you watch closely, you'll observe groups of small ripples spread across select areas of the lake. Ripples mean that shad fry are up and feeding on the surface algae and will likely be followed by small stripers in feeding frenzies. These frenzies signal the beginnings of the fantastic summer top water bite season.

As the shad grow larger, bigger stripers begin to come to the surface and feeding activity becomes more violent and more visible. On a great day, the angler will be able to see fish boiling on the surface in feeding areas covering several acres. Once you lock into one of these sites, you've found some of the most exciting fishing you'll ever experience.

Feeding stripers are susceptible to any number of baits, including surface baits, shallow running jerk baits, and plastics. If you position your boat alongside the boils and cast across the activity, you're likely to catch fish on almost every retrieve. The action starts early, usually at sun break, or about 5:30 a.m. in the Mohave at this time of the year, and lasts from one to four hours. On good days, the action can extend late into the morning. On rare occasions, if you can tolerate the extreme desert heat, the bite will extend into the afternoon.

The key to avoiding the extreme heat of the summer is to start fishing as soon as it is light enough to safely take your boat out on the lake and return to the dock in late morning before the heat becomes unbearable. Like anyone else, fisherman would prefer to sleep in, but a smart angler wants to be on the lake in the early morning when the fish are eating.

For more information about Lake Mead conditions and chartered fishing trips on Lake Mead, contact Captain Michael Swartz at fishvegascom@earthlink.net or you can talk with Captain Mike personally by calling 702-293-6294. You can visit the FishVegas website at http://www.fishvegas.com.

Copyright 6/10/05

...........With shallow water temperatures rising above 64 degrees, the largemouth spawning season is completed and the fish will be moving to summer holding areas. Threadfin shad have moved into shallow water and are spawning. This marks the beginning of the late spring and early summer fishing season.

Striped bass are following the shad in and can be caught in the early mornings with a variety of shallow water baits. Stripers are also preparing themselves for the spring spawn. By finding areas holding shad, anglers can target large schools of stripers and the catch can be fantastic.

Daytime temperatures on Lake Mead are warming into the mid-80s which makes for some beautiful mornings on the lake. Comfortable temperatures and good fishing create conditions where it's not unusual for an angler to put a limit of twenty stripers in the boat. As the stripers get closer to their spawn, the action becomes faster and larger catches are common.

As we move towards the hot weather of early June, smaller stripers begin the cycle of slurping the surface for bait, moving towards the full boils of summer. As the season moves forward, the shad and the stripers chasing them become larger and more aggressive. You can almost feel the anticipation of the local fisherman waiting for acres of stripers busting surface in the early morning hours.

During the month of May and through early June, the best fishing for stripers will be in thirty-to-sixty feet of water using live shad or cut anchovies. By chumming, the angler can hold schools of striper under the boat and everyone in the party can be hooked up at the same time.

For more information about Lake Mead conditions and chartered fishing trips on Lake Mead, contact Captain Michael Swartz at fishvegascom@earthlink.net or you can talk with Captain Mike personally by calling 702-293-6294. You can visit the FishVegas website at http://www.fishvegas.com.

Copyright 4/28/05

When most people think of the Mohave Desert and Lake Mead, they don't think of winter and seasonal changes. But, it happens here, like anywhere else in the country. As February and March start out our spring season, water that has been 52 to 54 degrees all winter begins to warm. All of the fish in the lake start preparing for the annual spawning season.

Now that the days are longer, the largemouth bass will start moving out of the deeper water of the main lake points and working their way towards the backs of the canyons. Like anywhere in the country, bass are looking for shallow water cover in which to build their nests. March is the peak of the largemouth spawning season. But, in a lake as large as Mead, the season can be spread over several weeks from the upper north end of the lake at Temple Bar (in the Colorado River arm and near Overton where the Virgin and Muddy rivers enter the lake) to the south end, close to Hoover Dam.

At this time of the year, spinner baits work well through the heavy brush and worms and jigs can be used on or near the spawning beds. The clear water of Lake Mead can offer some fantastic opportunities for "sight fishing." It takes patience to entice a largemouth that's concentrating on building his bed, but the rewards can be great.

The striped bass spawn somewhat later in the spring, but the warming water greatly increases their activity level. They are, at this point, cruising the lake trying to find the ideal open water where they can spawn. Stripers will also start moving towards the shorelines to find shad that are coming out of the deep water. As with any fish, stripers need to find a food source to build their energy for the spawn. Shad are the main food source in the lake for all the game fish. Until late May or early June, anglers will continue to fish for stripers with bait at depths ranging from 30 to 100 feet.

As I'm writing this article, the phone rings. It's a customer asking a question that I'm hearing more and more these days. "I've heard the water level in Lake Mead is going down," he says. "Are there any fish to be caught these days?" Fortunately, I'm on the phone and he can't see that I'm smiling. The fish haven't left the lake. They're still there. So I explain to him that Lake Mead is 589 feet deep at its deepest point and, even though the lake is over 70 feet low right now, we still have more than 500 feet of water in depth and probably well over 500 miles of shoreline. The fishing hasn't changed, only the areas to fish have changed. Fish activity still follows recognizable patterns that the fish have adapted over years of living in the reservoir and these patterns continue to be predictable to the savvy angler.

Due to heavy western rains and the withholding of irrigation water, Lake Mead lake levels came up almost ten feet in the months of January and early February. With continued snowfall in the western Rocky Mountain region, this trend could make for excellent spring fishing.

As spring approaches and the water starts to warm, the threadfin shad will start to come into the shallows to spawn. The combination of warm water and baitfish spawning begins to move the stripers into shallow water. By April, the stripers will begin to respond to swim baits in and around the spawning areas. The early morning action can be fast and furious.

As the day progresses, both the bait and the stripers will drop into 30-50 feet of water. The stripers can then be caught while the boat is anchored, assisted by chumming with shad or anchovies.

If the Lake Mead water level continues to rise, the Largemouth will be in the brush in the backs of coves, spawning. Given an abundance of flooded brush, this can make for excellent sight fishing.

In addition to the improved spring bass fishing, the higher water level gives the baitfish a place to hide and has the potential to create a tremendous mid-summer top water bite.

For more information about Lake Mead conditions and chartered fishing trips on Lake Mead, contact Captain Michael Swartz at fishvegascom@earthlink.net or you can talk with Captain Mike personally by calling 702-293-6294. You can visit the FishVegas website at http://www.fishvegas.com