Any advice on potential Kayak Fishing spots?

[marcus]

On 5/4/2016 at 8:54 PM, Gavin said:

Paddle into the wind on your way out. Bring an umbrella and ride back. 

i used to do that too it works very well and you can steer with it too

[Haris122]

Well the first day suffice to say, the paddles were enough to use as sails. Problem was when going against the wind the paddles were like sails going against you. It felt much like the equivalent of kayaking on a treadmill for much of the day.

 

Now as to the actual fishing trip, I came, I saw, I got my butt handed to me.

I got to Pigeon Roost boat ramp around noon Wednesday, started fishing that cove, heard from a guy that they were pretty slow, and that he got his in 10 ft of water, 4 ft deep. I got a couple bites, but mainly really light ones, close to the boat ramp even. I mainly fished a 1/32 oz jig with tube under a  slip bobber, retrieving, letting sink, retrieving, etc., and got my first one within an hour there. It was an 8" white crappie, I got from 5-6 ft, in what I think was 15ft water, right by a tree, and pretty much in the middle of the cove. I got another few bites closer to the bluffs in slightly shallower water, but again they were just so light I could never get them hooked. Pretty soon wind started picking up and by the time I got out of that cove into the main arm the going was pretty slow. I tossed out shallow diving shad crankbaits while paddling between spots, trolling it behind me, hoping some white bass bite but they must not have got the memo. Fished most of the coves and edge of main arm on the east side but the bites became more and more scarce as the middle of the day kicked in high gear. I got one 8" largemouth on the tube at one point but that was it. Most of the coves on that side didn't seem to protect that much from the NNW wind even. The anchor rarely kept me in place, and worst of all the wind kept taking me out of position for a good cast and retrieve around structure. Once I got close to the main lake I went over to the western side of the arm and hit it the same way on that side going back. A nice stretch of calmer wind hit, before picking back up but the bites were still nowhere. I went a little south of the initial cove then went back over on that side and into it to finish the day there. Bite picked up a little more again in the evening but still the same problem of never hooking them. Finally I got a green sunfish near some bluffs I hit earlier, and that would be it. I tossed out some shrimp and waited to see if any catfish would hit at night but nothing came of that either.

Thursday I decided to try my luck on the Lick Creek arm and put in at Duane Wheelan rec. area around 9, and headed north towards the dam. Considering most of the bites were in deeper water the day before, I was a bit disappointed that there was a lot more shallow areas there than in the parts of Pigeon Roost I fished. I tried both shallow and deeper structure, fishing the same way as the day before. Again the White bass didn't get the memo with the trolling, and neither did the crappie with the jigheads. I finally got into some real light bites on the east bank near deep water, in a bunch of woody debris floating near, and lining the bank, and by chance at that. The spot looked good, but what got me the fish was the kayak getting blown out of position, and the tube slowly following it, along the debris. A 7" black crappie hit it, and I got my first fish. I followed that up jigging there in a spot where I kept getting more of those light bites, and hooked a similar sized white crappie. Then it died down there too, and I kept fruitlessly hitting up spots further northwards on both banks and inbetween. Finally I got to a cove with some deeper water, at the mouth of which I got a 3rd fish, a little sunfish, as I was about to get back into the main arm to head back towards the ramp. On the way I decided to fish a spot in the middle of the arm where I got more light bites but couldn't connect earlier, and that's where I finally made some real progress. The key seemed to be, as mjk told me recently, to keep slowly reeling the tube (or curlytail), past the spot where the bites where so it never really stopped but still stayed deep enough. That wound up landing me 6 more crappie, all 7" or less. Finally even that shut down, and it was getting pretty dark, so I headed back to the ramp, hoping I'd get there before it got real dark. I kind of failed on that, but I found the ramp anyways, and set the catfish rod out with some shrimp and dead shad I found floating, while packing things up. I gave that about an hour or so, and then headed home with no catfish bite to speak of again.

So in short, water was stained brown, the crappie didn't seem to be spawning yet, were still in deeper water, but might be soon though. Both catfish and white bass were nowhere to be seen, and largemouth were about the same.I got nothing big and in general from what I heard from just a few others it wasn't the greatest of days. Got 12 fish total in both days, all dinks, all released, 9 crappie, 1 largemouth, 1 green sunfish, 1 bluegill/or similar sunfish. The parts of Pigeon roost I fished looked to be better for deeper fishing, while Lick creek seemed to have more shallow (more spawning?) type areas.Wind sucked first day, and was not too bad second day. Anchor ticked me off from time to time, and I did a whole lot of paddling, about 3 miles worth both days. Sorry for the short story that is my fishing report but I figured more detail was better than less. The end.