Swan Creek - Sunday 6/12

[MSUFisherBear]

Got to get out and do a little fishing yesterday. The wife and I took the kayaks out and paddled up Swan Creek from Shadow Rock. She was fishing primarily for the big 'gills we had been catching pretty well in the area and was using  an all white Road Runner (curly tail). She ended up catching about 5 decent ones but we turned them all back.

I was going to do the same (in hopes of another pile of fish that I'm still working on for a fish fry/BBQ on the 4th) but catching the sights of some LM's changed my mind quickly. Nothing of major size but there was a lot of them. Started by throwing a 1/4 ounce spinnerbait (White Skirt, Silver Willow Leaf Blade) as I had seen a couple chase shad. Varied speed and style of retrieve with not much luck (although I had several followers). It may have helped to downsize, but my wife hadn't been catching much on the Road Runner which tends to be a sure fire for me when the fish really move to small forage. Switched to a Watermelon Beaver Tail on a 3/8 oz. Arkie Rocker Jig Head and had better success. I ended up catching 6 in about 30 minutes of sporadic fishing (i.e. spending a lot of time drifting and relaxing) before deciding to paddle on back. The ones I did catch were pretty quick to pick up and run with the bait (not a whole lot of the tap, tap, tap, just a strong "wham") On the way back I saw several more in the 10 - 12" range. It seemed that some were chasing while others were pretty lethargic. The ones that were seemed to be shallow but were laying just on breaks from shallow to deeper water (creek channel in this case). I'm not sure if they were just getting going or had already got their fill ahead of the front moving in yesterday afternoon.

I'm sure it's been tried (I didn't have one) but based on what I seen it may be worthwhile to throw one of the downsized Alabama rigs (like the ones made for crappie) to those fish. Again, I wouldn't expect monsters as I may have only counted 1 or 2 the whole time that would have measured out to be a keeper, but if you are in to just catching fish it may be worth a try.

[navery]

We saw you guys.  I was in the black tracker idling upstream. There were some keeper Bass we saw as we were cruising, especially up by the old foundation. We saw at least 6 that would have gone 3 lbs or better. We caught a couple of walleyes up at the pot hole, but we're looking for the man in the striped suit.

[MSUFisherBear]

Well I'll be. I almost said something to you about the fish we had seen, but I saw you were trolling so I was thinking you might be after another species at the time and wasn't sure how much further you guys were headed up. Holler if you see us again. We go down pretty frequently.

I could only imagine how many more there were. Being in the kayak (at least for me) gives a tough vantage point for looking in to the water, but on the flip side, it' doesn't seem to spook the fish as much. It didn't help that I ran off and left my sunglasses at home. I hadn't seen the big ones this time but I had seen several a few weeks back when I had taken my father-in-law and brother-in-law there. We were looking for the 'gills on that day, too, and I had just taken the fly rod with me so I hadn't really even made much of an attempt for them (no streamers, just top water bugs).

I'm not sure if you might have seen the same. When we first made it up there, I saw several chasing shad (lots skipping on to of the water and there were even a few driving them in to the shallow sides of the bank). Not sure if it was just a small school of shad that had moved in or not, but as we were paddling back out the action had slowed some (at least from what I could see).

 

 

[MSUFisherBear]

Nice boat, by the way. I had just commented that to my wife when you guys had passed us up. Still saving the nickels and dimes for one of those.

[navery]

Thanks.  How far back were the bass chasing shad? We saw a little activity, but we didn'tget back there until 10 since we were catching walleye at the pothole.

[MSUFisherBear]

I was finding them well up past the that first shoal/bluff wall. Several of them that I had seen were driving them in to the gravel bars. I thought it was a little bit odd for them to be chasing so much with it as warm as it's been and as fast as the water seemed to be heating up, especially that shallow, but I guess the front really had them really cranking.