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Fishing in Arizona isn’t bad
Fishing column: Grand Canyon State not know as hotbed but there are some good options
Doug Newhoff - correspondent
Apr. 10, 2024 2:00 pm
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Snowbirds who flock to the Arizona desert enjoy a variety of outdoor activities.
Some sunbathe, swim, bicycle, go four-wheeling, hike, camp out, play golf, watch Cactus League baseball or go to a rodeo.
A few even try their hand at fishing. While you won't find anything like the Mississippi River or the Midwest's abundance of natural lakes, the desert is home to a handful of picturesque reservoirs that help meet the region's never-ending need for water.
Located within 23,000-acre Lake Pleasant Regional Park — a few miles northwest of Phoenix — Lake Pleasant covers more than 10,000 acres with an average depth of 70 feet, a maximum depth of around 250 feet at full capacity and 100-plus miles of craggy, rugged and rocky shoreline.
For all its beauty, bounty and historical significance, it's a harsh and unforgiving world out there. It's home to prickly cactuses, scrub brush that bites and bloodies, lizards, rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, tortoises, mule deer, javelina, an occasional mountain lion and lots of wild burros.
But once my buddy Mike Wirth of Waukee realized there is a decent population of largemouth, smallmouth, striped and white bass in Lake Pleasant that largely feed on threadfin shad, he dropped his putter quicker than Zsa Zsa Gabor dumps husbands and embraced the challenge of solving a unique and unfamiliar fishery.
"Good lord, they're bass!" cracked Mike, who has been catching largemouth and smallmouth for most of his life. "How tough can this be?"
Over the next couple of weeks, we were going to learn how well knowledge and experience travel. Could a couple of creaky senior citizens with no boat and limited tackle figure out how to catch a bass from shore in an environment largely foreign to both of us? We only had a short window of opportunity before we returned to Iowa.
Mike led the charge. I went along for the ride. Hiking and fishing sounded like an enjoyable activity whether we caught anything or not.
We searched the internet for current and even old fishing reports and learned that the time of year was about right for the largemouth bass to invade the shallows to spawn. We set out with a few essentials such as pliers, scissors, water and a handful of lures in our backpacks.
We saw a few large fish, possibly striped bass, breach the surface during our first couple of outings, but they wanted no part of the spinnerbaits, crankbaits or Rat-L-Trap style lures we threw at them. Mike caught a small white bass one day, but other anglers and largemouth info were scarce.
Burros brayed from the surrounding hills.
"I think they're laughing at us," I said.
Experience told us the north end of most lakes tends to warm up fastest, and a map of Lake Pleasant showed more of the fingers and coves where largemouth were likely to spawn a few miles farther up the lake. Mike was fishing a couple hours every day by then and expanded the search.
Accessing those areas required driving a bit more, hiking a mile or so up and down all shapes and sizes of rock, sidestepping piles of donkey dung and picking cockleburs off our shoestrings and socks.
We were encouraged by the presence of a few bass boats in the vicinity. There wasn't a lot of suitable bedding habitat or water shallow enough for us to see bottom, but there was some, and we began to spot an occasional bass cruising by.
"It's gonna happen," Mike said and kept saying. "Good lord, they're bass!"
By our fourth or fifth time out, I wasn't so sure. The burros were still laughing at us.
Then Mike broke through. Fishing a sharp drop-off in front of a rock ledge with a Ned Rig, he hooked and landed a beautiful, 4-pound largemouth. We celebrated like a couple of high school football players after a touchdown.
Most of our remaining time was spent hunting rather than fishing. From the burro trails 15 to 20 feet above the water, we worked our way along in search of bedding bass. When we found one, we stopped and fished it from far above to avoid spooking it.
"Watch the way it reacts," Mike said. "See the way it keeps circling back and coming to investigate your jig? That fish is gonna bite."
Other fish didn't show much interest or even left the area. Then we would move on and return later.
When we hooked one, we had to find a way to get down the hill to the water without incurring major bodily injury. That was an adventure in itself.
One day, we both landed a bass. After that, mostly on tube baits and Ned rigs, we hooked multiple fish most days.
By the time we left, the burros were laughing with us instead of at us.
It turns out that a bit of angling know-how travels well.