A SMALLMOUTH
OASIS
If ever there’s a time to
give thanks to the folks
who tamed the American
West, it’s when a fiery
sunrise blazes across the
sky over Lake Havasu
before a day of small-
mouth fishing in the mid-
dle of the Mojave Desert.
Lake Havasu is, in
some ways, quite out of
place as a smallmouth
fishery, far from the well-
known smallie factories of
the Upper Midwest, Great
Lakes and Tennessee
Valley. Yet there it is, an
oasis built on the
Colorado River along the
Arizona-California border
and home to some of the
West’s most outstanding
smallmouth opportunities.
Havasu has become a
semi-regular stop for the
Costa FLW Series
Western Division, and it
hosted this year’s opener
back in February.
Associate Editor Jody
White snapped this pic on
day three of the Havasu
tournament, while idling
through the Topock
Gorge area north of Lake
Havasu City.
PHOTO BY JODY WHITE
aprIL 2017 I FLWFISHING.COM
7