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Lake Pleasant Fishing Report

Updated Fri, Oct 23, 2026 from live gauge and weather data

Phoenix's deep blue playground: stripers, white bass schools and desert-clear water.

3/5
Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.
Flow
6 cfs
Air / High
77 / 78 F
Wind
SSW 3 mph

Sources: USGS gauge 09512800, Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.

Satellite view
Friday
23
October 2026

Today's Fishing Report

Generated this morning from live readings: gauge, weather model, sun and moon. A fresh report is published here every morning.

3/5Fair. Fish the windows.A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Lake Pleasant offers the kind of conditions this water was made for. The main inflow is running 6 cfs, falling. Today brings clear skies, wind SSW around 3 mph, steady pressure near 1010 hPa and a high of 78. Water sits around 74 F for the season (estimated). With the waxing gibbous, the solunar majors run 9:08 AM-11:08 AM and 9:36 PM-11:36 PM: the windows to build the day around.

The plan, species by species

Striped bassExcellent

Use electronics to find shad schools in open water, and watch for birds working over bait.

Largemouth bassGood

The main feeding season after the spawn: work moving baits along weed edges, points and wood, and follow up with a soft plastic where a fish swirls.

Catfish (blue, channel)Good

Spawning season from late May into summer: Iowa DNR suggests drifting bait under a float along riprap and snags where males guard nests in cavities.

CrappieFair

Early in this band crappie are spawning in protected coves; afterward they move to docks, brush piles and standing timber near deeper water.

Tomorrow: Cooler at 72 F. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.Next report: Sat, Oct 24, 6:30 AMHow this report is made β†’

Before you go

Arizona requires a fishing licence from age 10, from $37.00 for residents. What a Arizona licence costs and where to buy it β†’

Chasing largemouth bass here? Check the size and bag limits with AZGFD before you keep anything. The season dates for Arizona, read off the agency, are on the Arizona seasons page.

Water and weather

Live readings from AGUA FRIA RIVER NEAR ROCK SPRINGS, AZ (inflow).

Flow, last 30 days

USGS gauge 09512800.

862454046 cfs09/2310/0310/1310/23

Right now

Latest readings

Air temp77 F
High / Low78 / 58 F
WindSSW 3-4 mph
Pressure1010.3 hPa, steady
Sky / Rain1% cloud, 0%
Sunrise / Sunset06:40 / 17:45
MoonWaxing Gibbous, 91%
Water temp (seasonal)~74 F est.

Bite planner

Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today. Tap a bar to see why.

5 AM8 AM11 AM2 PM5 PM8 PMsunrisesunsetPRIMEPRIME

Which day to fish Lake Pleasant this week

The best day on Lake Pleasant this week looks like Saturday Oct 24, at 4 out of 5, against 3 today.

Best day this week: Saturday, Oct 24 β€” good at 4/5, steady pressure, neither help nor hindrance.

Today, Oct 23 β€” Fair

A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Solunar majors
9:08 AM-11:08 AM and 9:36 PM-11:36 PM
Minor period
3:31 AM-4:31 AM
Sun
06:40 to 17:45
Moon
Waxing Gibbous, 91% lit
Sky and wind
Clear, 7 mph
Rain chance
0%

Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out: how the score is built.

Species guide

The species that matter on Lake Pleasant: seasons, structure and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.

Largemouth bass illustration

Largemouth bass

Best: the spring pre-spawn and the fall feed

A warm-water sunfish of lakes, reservoirs, ponds and slow river backwaters that holds tight to cover: weeds, logs, rock ledges and docks. In Texas, TPWD surveys rank it "by far" the freshwater fish anglers most want to catch. The main feeding season after the spawn: work moving baits along weed edges, points and wood, and follow up with a soft plastic where a fish swirls.

Striped bass illustration

Striped bass

Best: spring and fall inland; on the coast, during the seasonal migrations

The largest of the temperate basses, a sea-run fish of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that now also lives in reservoirs across much of the country after hatchery stocking. Inland, it follows schools of shad and herring through open water. Use electronics to find shad schools in open water, and watch for birds working over bait.

Catfish (blue, channel) illustration

Catfish (blue, channel)

Year-round, best at dusk and after dark

Three big catfish share most of the country's rivers and reservoirs: the channel catfish, the most widespread; the blue catfish, the largest; and the flathead, which hunts live fish. All feed mostly on or near the bottom. Spawning season from late May into summer: Iowa DNR suggests drifting bait under a float along riprap and snags where males guard nests in cavities.

Crappie illustration

Crappie

Best: the spring spawn; summer around docks, brush and the thermocline

Two slab-sided panfish, the white crappie and the black crappie, that gather around submerged timber, brush piles, docks and bridge pilings in lakes, reservoirs and slow river backwaters. Texas Parks and Wildlife counts crappie as the state's most popular panfish. Early in this band crappie are spawning in protected coves; afterward they move to docks, brush piles and standing timber near deeper water.

When to come: the Lake Pleasant calendar

Activity by species and month, and how the water warms through the year. Tap any cell.

Species activity by month

1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Largemouth bass
Striped bass
Catfish (blue, channel)
Crappie
SlowPeak

Water temperature through the year

Typical surface temperature for this water type; today is around 74 F (estimated, not a reading).

5060708090JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~74 F now

Angler reports

Real reports from real anglers, reviewed before publishing. The water log below tracks each day automatically.

No angler reports yet this weekBe the first: your report helps every angler who checks Lake Pleasant today, and we feature the best catch of the week.

Water log, last days

Auto-logged from live data
Thu, Oct 22

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Striped bass led the card at excellent. High of 82 F, wind to 20 mph.

Wed, Oct 21

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Striped bass led the card at excellent. High of 87 F, wind to 17 mph.

Tue, Oct 20

4/5 Good. Solid day ahead. Stable-to-falling pressure and workable wind line things up. Largemouth bass led the card at excellent. High of 86 F, wind to 11 mph.

Where roughly, what depth, what bait. Skip anything you want to keep secret.
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Before you go

License

Arizona requires a valid fishing license for adults. Buy online from the state agency; one-day options exist for visitors.

Regulations

No striper limit; standard AZ bass rules. Confirm with AZGFD.

Access

Two marina ramps plus north-side county park; night fishing popular and legal.

About this water

~10,000 acres (CAP storage) on the Agua Fria, Maricopa County, AZ. Pleasant Harbor and county park access.

Fishing Lake Pleasant: the full guide

The Valley's striper lake

Pleasant is the desert's deep one: stripers reproduce here, schooling with white bass over 100-foot water, largemouth hold the tumbled rock, and night fishing under lights beats the summer furnace. Winter turns the lake calm, clear and underrated.

Stripers in the desert

Pleasant's stripers (with white bass alongside) school the main basin year-round: winter jigging over 60-100 ft, spring topwater at dawn near the islands, summer nights under submerged lights. The CAP canal turnover keeps forage and oxygen cycling: the desert's most reliable pelagic fishery.

The largemouth edge

Tumbled boulders, flooded palo verde and the Agua Fria arm hold quality largemouth: reaction baits when wind pushes, finesse when the sun owns the water. February pre-spawn on the north banks starts Arizona's bass year.

Two-story desert water

Pleasant runs a split personality: striped bass fill the open water (dawn boils in summer, downlines at 40-80 ft midday) while largemouth work the cactus-lined coves. The CAP canal inflow keeps the lake cooler and deeper than Phoenix's other reservoirs: white bass and stripers school against the current when pumps run. Night fishing under lights beats the brutal summer days: anchovies down 30 ft fill coolers with stripers by midnight.

Common questions

Why does Pleasant's level yo-yo daily?

It is Central Arizona Project storage: canal water pumps in and out on demand cycles. The fish adapt; anglers watch the trend, not the hour.

When do Lake Pleasant's stripers boil?

May-September at dawn: schools push shad to the surface anywhere from the dam to Humbug. Keep a topwater or spoon rigged and run to splashes: windows last minutes.

Is fishing good at Lake Pleasant right now?

Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day.

Nearby waters

Bartlett Lake37 miSalt River47 miVerde River47 miSaguaro Lake48 miCanyon Lake (AZ)54 miApache Lake59 mi

Where this page's numbers come from

River and reservoir readings
USGS 09512800 β€” AGUA FRIA RIVER NEAR ROCK SPRINGS, AZ (inflow)
Read from the USGS Water Data API (api.waterdata.usgs.gov). Latest value timestamped 2026-10-23 at 20:30 UTC.
Weather and pressure
Open-Meteo forecast model
Queried at 33.8952, -112.2748 in this water's own timezone. A model, not an observation.
Moon and solunar windows
Calculated on this site
Astronomical calculation from these coordinates and the date, not a third-party feed. How much weight it deserves.
The written guide on this page
Pablo Ruiz Quintero
How this page was made. The daily report is computed by our scoring engine from live readings; nobody types it. The written guide was drafted with AI assistance. Unlike our newer pages, it does not yet list the official pages its facts were checked against: that audit is under way, and anything it cannot verify will be taken out. Pablo Ruiz Quintero sets every guideline, the data-verification system and the minimum standards a page must meet to be published, reviews page structure and approves what goes live; the responsibility is his, and the AI carries out the work. We work this way because it is how one person can keep every page current with named sources. Errors are published in the verification log; the full policy is in the editorial policy.

Readings refresh on a 30-minute window. The full method, with every figure and its source, is on how our reports are made. Something wrong here? Tell us and it goes in the log with the date.