:P just got back from willow beach and must say it was the greatest trip ever. fished the river for monster stripers and scored. we fish in the rain all day and night with nothing. then at first light i start to throw the 316 rising sun and it was on. got a few huge boils that i missed. then we found a nice shelf going from 18 foot to around 60 threw the rising sun for about five cast and then a huge boil and bendo. i yell at my partner" I AM ON". fight the fish for awhile and then i could not believe what i saw the biggest striper i have ever seen come up. in panic mood i drop my rod and grab her with both hands and started to scream. pull her in the boat to find she had totally inhailed the bait i mean it was gone. wieghed her at the marine and she went 31.14 pounds. truely amazing fish, also would like to give a specail thanks to mickey from 316 for the baits and helping me get the fish of a life time. :D pics comeing soon

Congrats!! :) Can't wait for the pics.

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Sonny

2004 - 6 Bass 2 Trout $219.20 in Gear

Nice Job! That's a toad!
Way to go fishing through the elements, glad it paid off. Looking forward to seeing the beast.

Josh

Right on!! Good going! Hoping to see the pics too. Which area of Willow Beach were you fishing?

we fished out of cottonwood cove, up about 1/2 mile on a point that came up to like 12 ft in open water. should have some pics today. also a video of the wiegh in and release will be at bassaholics.com

Willow beach is 30 some miles from Cottonwood cove. Cottonwood is on the Nevada side of the river and is more in the middle of Lake Mojave.Willow beach is on the Arizona side and is just about 11 miles down from the Hoover/ Boulder Dam.

If you caught it in the CW area that's cool,and even harder to catch a big fish. Well you sure have allot more water to cover, but supposedly the bigger fish move down to Cottonwood around this time and then head back up towards WB when it warms up.

Either way that's a hawg striper. Did you say you released it? That's cool, I think releasing the big stripers will be important to the big striper population.Maybe not so much in the Colorado river area now, but you see some people haul 3 or 4 sometimes more stripers over and around 30lbs from there in one trip. Mainly people promoting there lures, but I'd say show off your biggest maybe and let the rest go. It just seems like overkill sometimes.

The little guys cool, take your limit and eat em' up but some of these smaller lakes like Skinner for example used to kick out allot more big fish, not so much lately. Almost everyone keeps the big stripers...we might be sorry later??

Trev-

i argee 100 percent CATCH AND RELEASE is the way to go. the is only one way to keep a trophy fishery going and that is to let the trophy fish go ALWAYS.we should have some video footage of the wiegh in and the release at bassaholics.com soon.

here are some of the pictures of the 31.14 striper. and the release picture as well. there will soon be video of the fish and the release at bassaholics.com

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Congrat's Bro, thats how its done! Man that thing is big. I would of freaked out on that one.I have never even cought a striper, maybe I could hitch a ride next time???by the way, I wanna give you a Armageddon as a token of your hard work!tear it up!!! fish hard and go big, Mickey.

Thats a toad for sure,congrats.Was it caught at night and then released the next day?It looked pretty much dead in the daytime pic,did it swim away or slowly sink?

it was about 4 hours after i caught her. she was a little wore out but i pumped her for 5 to 10 minutes and she took off fine. we watch her swim away kinda of slow at first and then took off like a bat out hell. thanks for the comment ALWAYS CATCH AND RELEASE.

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Did you have to wait 4 hours for the marina to open,so it was on a stringer for 4 hours.I dont think that fish survived.You shoulda grilled that sucka.Those big linesiders are very delicate,there not as tuff as largemouth bass.

yea we had to wait about 4 or 5 hours for the store to open. the boat we where in has a bitch livewell she keep thumping in there all night. she swam away great , but i geuss we can just wishh for the best. thanks for all the props guys and much luck to all of you.