Lake Mohave 03-2025

[FSH 210 Sport]

Well, it doesn’t seem like it has been a year…….

Even if you do not fish, these maps are pretty handy to have along for navigation. Check on line to see if there is a map for your location, they are waxed paper so they will last a long time in the boat.




Took off March 9th and headed for Lake Mohave and the same hut I rented last year in Bullhead City. First days hop was to Little America WY, about 550 miles, to stay at the old school motel.. found out when I called that major renovations were under way and I couldn’t get my usual room. I explained my situation to the lady at the desk and she opened up a room similar so that I could pull up right next to the room to off load my gear into the room from truck and boat.. hopefully I’ll have that solved before next years travels. A friend of mine has a Diamond Back heavy duty aluminum tonneau cover like this

DIAMONDBACK HD

Plus I’d add an alarm of some kind of my own making, a super loud horn with a latching relay so that closing the lid doesn’t turn it off. Sure would be nice to just roll up to the hotel and grab my duffel bag and go to the room.







The room situation was minor considering the rest of the travel day.. out in the middle of WY high winds were blowing, head winds of course. As I came across this wide open valley not too far from Rock Springs I could see that the wind was really blowing down this valley and picking up the snow and blowing it into a cloud. I started slowing as I approached this area and up ahead I could see something that didn’t look right, then there were yellow flashing lights, about the same time I noticed a lot of snow on the highway, about 6-8” deep in the center and it appeared to have the consistency of a slurpee.. There was a snow plow approaching towards me, and I could see a few cars off on the right shoulder. I was slowing further still and was down to about 20 mph, hazards have been on for a while at this point, when the snow plow came by, the whole front of the cab was almost completely iced over, as it went by a lot of stuff hit my truck and windshield, it was sand with good sized pebbles in it, you can imagine the sound it made. Up ahead was a semi truck and trialer off to the side of the road, mildly jackknifed, the tractor was in my lane so I had to slow to a stop so I could let oncoming traffic pass so I could go into the now empty oncoming lanes to get around that truck.

Once I got up to the top of the continental divide the snow on the roadway went away, and when I used my washer / wipers I could already tell my windshield was pitted badly.



After getting on I-80 west bound I could cruise at 70 mph, into a quartering head wind of about 20-25mph, so the wheels were doing 70 and the paint job was doing 90-95. Pretty soon I noticed my navigation was saying something like 60 miles to go and 2:45 mins.. wait what? I was messing around with then navigation when I could see brake lights up ahead.. traffic came to a stop, and we all were just sitting there. Apparently some one had wadded it up in the west bound tunnel just before Green River WY, so all west bound traffic was being routed off the highway and run through town.. this put me about 2 hours late into little America WY.

Arrived little America and got the truck and boat unloaded and stowed in the hotel room, off to the hotel restaurant for a Rib Eye dinner and some ice cream for desert. Great nights sleep in the hotel as always.

Next morning up O dark thirty and loaded up the truck and boat in about 25* temps with no wind and on the road again for the second and longer hop, about 650 miles to Bullhead City. Got into Evanston WY a while later and stopped at the Mack a doo Donaloes for a breakfast sammich and some of their coffee. McDonalds is one of the few chain type stores who’s coffee I like. Last year when I stopped here and got out I took a breath and started coughing as it was 4*, this year about 25* or so





Passed through Salt Lake and on down in the wide open spaces of UT on I-15. I took the 215 cutoff from I-80, I think this a much faster and less hassle way than going through Heber City, a bit longer but way less stressful.

The drive down through Utah was stunning . I always love Virgin Gorge..









Last year my navigation took me through a not so great part of Las Vegas, this time I just cracked on and got off I-15 like I was going to the airport but passed by the airport and kept going towards Henderson.





I got to Bullhead city with plenty of time to off load the truck and boat and head over to Laughlin for my first In N Out meal since I was there last year. And it did not disappoints.




That was a great bedtime meal and off to the see the sandman.

Next day I was up early and headed to the Golden Nugget casino for breakfast. Then back to the hut to wash the boat and rig up the poles as my two former work mates would be there in another day. I ended up washing my boat and my truck, it did start raining a bit but passed quickly.






Up early the next day and hit the casino again for breakfast then over to Sam’s to pick up food and beverages for the next two weeks.




Tony showed up and he brought fixings for dinner for the next three nights, he’s a great cook! Tony runs a Parker Pilot house off of the west coast with his family, they are over at Catalina or out off shore fishing for blue and yellow fin.. Hector had to work so we waited for him to roll in before we sat down to dinner.. both of these guys are top shelf!

So the weather was cool and windy, threatening to rain and possibly some low level flurries so we trailered up to Willow Beach again, just like we did last year. This time there was hardly anyone around. We got set up and trolling and I made breakfast by boiling water and we all had a Peak Skillet breakfast, freeze dried meals that actually taste great,, look great and there are no penalties to be paid later. I brought along a thermos with coffee, so there was hot food and hot coffee for our breakfast on the water.








As the day wore on the wind came up and and the skies darkened.. and no fish. If you’re catching fish at least once in a while its easy to take less than favorable conditions. We all had our thermal layers and rain gear, but thankfully the rain never showed up. What did show up was some intense wind gusts coming up the canyon, the wind was picking up sheets of water and throwing it on us.. right where the map said it was “windy point” LOL! We toughed it out till late in the afternoon and finally had to call it when the gusts were picking up to the 35-40 mph range.



We headed back to the house and got back just about dark, Tony got dinner ah workin while Hector and I got the necessaries out of the boat and got the cover on.

Next day I was up early and got coffee going and the ice box packed and then Tony whipped up some awesome breakfast sandwiches on giant bagels. Off to Katherine landing to fish for the day, it was an awesome day on the water just no fish. Just about the time we finally marked the first school of fish John Law decided to come over and check our licenses.. they were nice enough, just really bad timing. We made a big swing out and back and came back over the school and nothing.. We pulled in our trolling rigs and got on top of the school and jigged for a while, nothing, so I broke out the bbq and made some hot dogs.. all good on a beauty day. Its so cool catching up with these two guys they’re a lot of fun.











Next morning and those two had to get back to the world.. the wind had come up so I just hung out at the house. A day later and my friends who snow bird down at Lake Havasu came up for the day and Ted stayed with me for a couple days until we were going to trailer my boat down to Lake Havasu and meet his wife Cindy there. The weather had kind of turned unfriendly so we just cruised Bullhead and Laughlin for a couple of days, we ended up going to Don Laughlin’s Riverside Casino and going to the Car Museum, second time for me since I went last year. There are so many cars there it would take a few times through to really appreciate all of the exhibits. I headed over to the book shelf to check out the vintage boat magazines that I saw there last year.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Cont’d

Ted and I did check out Guadalajara Mexican restaurant which was reeeeely good.





Ted and I headed down to Lake Havasu the next day, the weather was pretty good, with just a slight breeze when we got to the boat launching area.. I ‘d never been to Lake Havasu before so this was a new experience.. We were going to meet Cindy over by Kokomos






After we picked up Cindy we shot across the lake and had lunch at the Indian Casino..



Then we headed down lake a ways to go see Copper Canyon.. I guess this is a huge party spot during the hotter times of the year.



After copper canyon we went down lake several miles just to look around,





These are some super high end places under construction where the movie stars and such are having places built



Then we cruised back up towards where we picked Cindy up earlier, saw some spring breakers, but not as many as I thought there would be.





We tied up over by Kokomos again and walked around and saw a couple of shops.



We left Cindy there and she headed back to their rental to get enchiladas going for dinner and Ted and I took off up north, I wanted to check out this shallow area where the river comes in. I had wanted to run the river down to Lake Havasu but there are a couple of issues with that. First the way the hydro power plants are now dispatched means that the flows are low during the day and pick up at night, totally opposite of how it used to be when flows were high during the day and low at night, this is being done to support all of the solar power going off line in the afternoon, this meant I could not launch my boat unless I got down there at 0500 and would have to wait until like 2000hrs / 8:00PM to take it out. The second reason is, that river, like a lot of rivers, takes some local knowledge to navigate safely, and with low flows during the day the margin for error was even less. One local guy I talked to said that there needed to be two hydro units on at Davis Dam, 9000 cfs, for the river to be safe to navigate.. So the shallow area at inlet side of Havasu is kinda shallow.. there are no markers showing where the deepest part or channel is, and I didn’t see any other boats headed up into that area. So Ted and I headed back to their rental in Lake Havasu city.

Cindy is a fantastic cook! So dinner was great and there was strawberry short cake for dessert! I took off and got back to my place around 2130 or so.. long ass day, I was tired!

Got up the next morning and headed out on the lake once again to do some more fishing.. no luck again but a great day on the water none the less.. I got off the water a bit earlier than normal and went and topped the boat off with fuel.

This is why its nice to have down imaging to see what lies beneath..





Today I had planned on taking the boat up lake to Willow Beach from Katherine landing.. about 52-54 miles or so from looking at the map, so it’ll be at least 104 miles on the day. So I get down to the ramp and I see this mooseknuckle with his truck and trailer backed down to the waters edge and him looking longingly out of the marina, you know, like the old commercials for Old Spice.




So there are people in front of me and everyone is having to use the one side of the ramp / dock because this guy is just parked there waiting for Santa or something.. so my turn comes and I get my boat launched and put it on the end tie, then I have to drive the better part of a half mile to the big parking lot because the smaller one close to the ramp is full. So, I walk back to the ramp and home slice is still waiting for his men to come home from the sea.. mind you, this asshat is not acknowledging anyone else who is there, so I just walk by like he doesn’t exist.. by this time there is one guy tied up to the opposite side of the dock as I’m walking out to my boat. I get in, make a final check and cast off, and head out of the marina. Keep in mind, Katherine landing is a huge, HUGE, marina, about the time I’m getting to the outskirts here comes a sea doo jet boat and they cruise past towards the dock.. I get out past the no wake buoys and turn off the engines to get things rigged up. I look back at the dock and those were the men coming home from the sea.. My friend Hector has told me there are fights at the dock when things get busy, and I can imagine this mooseknuckle is the type of guy that would start them.

Alright, I’m free of the marina and ready to make the longest trip I have yet in my boat, I’ve got a light breeze coming out of the north=headwind, full fuel, coffee, snacks, lunch and I put on my insulated rain gear and a beanie. And I’m off.. this first part of the trip is out in pretty wide open waters with mountains on either side but way off..

Once you start getting up north a ways the lake narrows up and the mountains get taller and closer. The desert definitely has its own beauty.. this was a great cruise up lake and through the canyons.













Arriving at the fuel dock at Willow Beach and the trip distance was 52.9 miles on the water wheel..



I topped off with fuel so I’ll be ready for the trip back to Katherine Landing later in the day, 2.8 mpg isn’t too bad considering I had a pretty good headwind for a lot of the run up here and I was running at 6500 rpm which is not the best in terms of fuel mileage but a great compromise with time en route in mind.

So this area is where the restrictions begin for the 8 miles section that leads up to Hoover Dam. On certain days of the week, no motorized traffic, and at this time of year nothing with more than 65 hp can continue on up river. So, on this day, it was just the 65 hp restriction, so I can use my trolling motor to go on up as far as I want, if I want, but the area around the fish hatchery is where I came to fish. Willow Beach is a big put in place for Kayakers, in this case just Yakers. I thought, they’re worried about motor noise? These people never shut the F up.. I swear, I think these people can talk while they’re inhaling. And, they just acted like I was not there.. literally just rowing out and right in front of me, so easy for them to just alter their course a tiny bit and go behind me, meh, its people. So I get set up and start trolling around in this area where the big stripers hang out waiting on the fish hatchery to release the 8” rainbow trout. I did have to keep my eye on the clock because I wanted to troll the river back down to where it came out of the canyon. I made quite a few laps in this area with no bites, BUT, it was shaping up to be a really nice day!

More and more passenger vans with the kayakers keep rolling in, and the ones who had paddled up stream were now coming back to where they started, so I was dodging around and adjusting course to try and stay out of their way.. my favorite was the line of kayakers across the river coming towards me.. they all had this look on their face as if wondering what they were going to do.. it was getting pretty crowded at this point on a Friday noon time and I needed to start heading down lake.. this is the last kayak story.. I’m in the middle of the river, cruising along and two gals in a two person kayak come out of this little cover and are headed on a course that will take them in front of me, the gal in front stops paddling and turns to start talking to her GF and they both stop paddling, totally oblivious that I am there. When they were about 10’ from me I said excuse me and they both were startled.. amazing.. I asked them if they were headed to the beach over on my left and they just glared at me.. then I said if you just wait a minute I’ll cruise right on past you, or I can check up and you can paddle in front of me.. not a word was said they just started paddling hard and went in front of me.. definitely time to leave these people behind.

By this time the sun was very high in the sky and there was no wind, I had long since ditched my rain gear and stowed it, and now it was time to get into my swim trunks and break out the bbq.. I put on some tunes and was just enjoying having the river to myself, on glassy water with no one else around.













I’m going to guess I spent the next three to four hours trolling down the canyon, I think I saw three other boats the whole time.

As I got closer to the end of the canyon section the wind started to pick up, not bad, just a whisper at first, it was still warm enough that I was hot in just swim trunks and sunglasses.. once out in the open it was bit breezier and I could feel that I’d have to ditch the swim trunks as the wind was picking up the coolness from the 57* water. I got the bbq stowed and everything else secured to make the journey back down lake to Katherine Landing.

I get on cruise at 6500 rpm and 30 mph as I’m not too sure yet about daylight and cruise time to get back.. but I do know I want to get back before night fall. As I start heading south the wind comes up briskly along with the wind driven waves.. it’s going to be a decent journey to get back. When I came into the widest part of the lake the wind waves got bigger so I had to back down on the speed for a while. As I got to the point where the lake narrowed back down I used the Boy Scouts trick to see how much directly daylight I had left, looked far up ahead and realized I had to go quite a bit farther past the part I could see was way ahead so I bumped the rpms up to 7000 to make a little bit of time. To make a wrap on this day by the time I got back and got the boat on the trailer and made ready to travel the 10 mins back to the house it was dark. Total mileage for the day was about 115 miles.

After three long days on the water I took a down day and didn’t do too much, the next day, Sunday I started packing for the trip home. I decided to stay one more day so I could go out on the boat one more time before leaving.

Found this little guy in the house..




Monday morning I was up early as was the wind. I got down to the marina pretty early and was out on the water fishing by the time the sun came over the mountains. Not too cold but it was windy and choppy on the lake, quite a few guys out fishing today. I stayed out until about 1200 then came back in. Got back to the house and made final preparations to take off early the next day..

Saw this Striper in the parking lot.. thats striper with one P.

Next morning I was up early and on the road by 0500 headed north, traffic was not too bad through Henderson and Las Vegas, I was out the north side of Vegas by the time the sun came up. It was another beautiful day driving through Utah, just like on the way down. Stopped in St George for a breakfast sammich.. Getting through Salt Lake on the 215 cut off was easy and then up the big hill… I had to stop at the WY border for water craft inspection and decon, the gal who was running the station made this as easy as possible and I was on my way to Little America WY. The remodel had progressed so I had to stay down in one of the suites, a little bit farther to haul my stuff to the room but not too bad.
I love this place, its like a throw back to the 1950s and or early 70’s depending on the room you stay in.

This was pretty cool… big American Flag on one side of the road.



And a big Bald Eagle on the other side of the road.



Restroom in the admin building at Little America



My room, those faucets are right out of 1970..


This room reminds me of where David Bowman ends up at the end of 2001 ..



Up early the day…..





I just want to say at this point, UT has the smoothest interstate highways, SD’s are really good but UT is billiard table smooth for the most part. So up early the next day and I’m on I-80 through WY, this is not a smooth highway…its rough as a cob in a lot of places. Just before Rock Springs I get this message on my dash, “right trailer light fault”, hmmm okay I’ll check it at the next Maverick Station..



Yep I’d say that is a fault for sure.. I was going to be on back roads 95% the rest of the way home so chose not to try and fix it, but I will be putting my OEM incandescent fixtures in my spares box… I have decided that the Maverick fuel stations are about the best I’ve found in my travels 99% of the time, clean pumps, clean window washing fluid and good squeegees, and about the best fuel prices on the interstates.

Almost home.. Black Hills in the distance..


By the time I got home it was not too late in the afternoon, I had traveled about 2700 miles and averaged 12.9 mpg.. not too shabby.

 

[jthackman]

great write up and pics...it's so beautiful in those canyons