Kings River Arm - 10/21 & 10/22

[Bassin4fun]

So this weekend was the MoYak State Kayak Bass Tournament. The event was a two-day, roadrunner start with lines in at 730am and lines out at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. As you know, the forecast was high win both days. 

 

I had never fished this section of Table Rock but gave it a shot based on some feedback to a post I made a week or so ago. Friday, I prefished out of my boat and launched at Viola Public Use Ramp. Ther isn't a ton of parking but it is a nice ramp and courtesy dock. There weren't  many rigs there either day. So I basically just wanted to scout the area and see what the bank looked like and the points. I threw a buzzbait, soinnerbait, squarebill, Rock Crawler,  and jig. I caught fish on everything but the rock crawler. I really didn't thoroughly cover the area but just wanted to find fish and get an idea of what was working. I knew that fast moving baits would be my focus due to the wind this weekend. I ran pretty far up the river arm in my boat but knew I likely wouldn't go that far up in my yak using the trolling motor. Most of my attention was on the bank that was adjacent to the river channel and the main lake points. I really didn't go much further than the mouths of the pockets. I caught 4 keepers on practice day and felt pretty good about my pattern and the area.

 

[Bassin4fun]

[Bassin4fun]

On Saturday, I launched from the same ramp and proceeded to fish the steeper bank across from the ramp where the channel ran. I was on fish right away but caught a lot of dinks. We needed fish that were at least 12" to count. I caught two that counted along that stretch out of probably 8 or so. I then crossed over with the channel and caught a better fish...that was about 845am. After that...I think I hung one and lost it on a squarebill. It would have been the largest I had for the day and may have been 15". I did not get another bite for 3hrs!!! I thought about running (more like crawling with a trolling motor) to another stretch that was about a half mile to mile upstream. But, the wind was horrible and by this time, there were several guys posting limits and numbers in the 70's and 80's for inches. I decided to head back toward the ramp and fish the same stretch where I started my morning. Nothing. After that, I decided to call it a day...it was about 1230pm.

 

One of the leaders for the day was fishing the James River arm throwing squarebill and spinnerbait and posted over 80". I did not even bother going out on Sunday as it was going to be as bad or worse with the wind. Plus, I had absolutely no chance to get in the top five. We had 39 anglers and only top 5 were getting paid. The top 10 in the event absolutely hammered the fish...especially given the conditions. You can check out the inches posted and see pics of the catches here:

https://tourneyx.com/leaderboard/standings/2022-missouri-kayak-championship

Big bass was over 20"...probably 3-4lbs. Lots of 2-3lb fish were caught.

 

[Quillback]

It was windy for sure, especially Sunday.  

[Bassin4fun]

1 hour ago, Quillback said:

It was windy for sure, especially Sunday.  

Yeah, I think if I had been fishing from a boat, I could have done well as I would not have wasted so much time in some areas that weren't producing. Friday, I am sure I could have caught more keepers but I would move on after catching one or two fish along a stretch or switch baits. I had 10-12 in the boat that day with four of them being keepers. But, the fish had moved from some areas where I had caught em on Friday. It seemed that the chunk rock areas or ledge with chunk rock worked better than the bluff type banks. I did work a jig on a long runout point on Friday on the side that was closest to where the channel came back across and caught one. I just couldn't work a jig on Sat with all the wind. I tried and lost one jig...on e you were hung it was highly unlikely to be able to retrieve it. My boatvwould have been better at holding position to be able to work a jig...but it was a kayak tourney. 😀 Overall, I liked that area and will definitely fish it again. Another angler in the event launched from there and was in the money (3rd). He is supposed to post a YouTube video on his channel...hope to see where he had the most bites. He started out going toward main lake from ramp....the bank cut left from the point and would have been protected from the south wind we had. So there were definitely fish biting in that part of the lake over the weekend...I just didnt hit the most productive stretches for larger fish.