Winter Kayak Pickerel Fishing

I finally got back out in my kayak after well over a month long hiatus.  This trip was planned a year ago when I first arrived in Virginia. The plan was to hit the Severn river the day morning after making the 16 hour drive from New Orleans to Northern Virginia. Needless to say we didn't wake up that morning and we opted to head to a closer small local lake where we didn't catch anything. So after a full 365 days passing we finally scheduled a day to make the trip. We Loaded up the gear the night before and got out early Monday morning. We launched and immediately began fishing I headed for some branches in the water Collin began fishing a transition from rocks to a wooden break wall. On what seemed like his second cast I hear him yell fish on and he landed a 20 inch Pickerel.After fishing that area with nothing else to show we relocated to another area with more boat slips and docks. Collin was using a 3 inch paddle tail jig on a 1/4 ounce jig head and erratically working it through the middle of the water column. His technique was working well as he landed 18inch another pickerel while I was shuffling through my rods and lures looking for a the perfect solution. After trying a fluke ,spinner bait, and the same jig Collin was using with no success.

Daily Routine: Winter Warm Spell

 Yesterday I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and an unexpected day off to do some pond fishing. Despite the air temperature being in the mid 60's  the water has long been in the 50's and dropping. As I learned last winter cold water fishing is not my strong suit but I am always trying to learn new tactics and improve my skills. I consider myself a patient fisherman and am willing to spend hours without a bite but I am horrible at slow presentations. 

Neglect

This is the  last fish  I caught way way back on november 2nd. 

Daily Routine: Temperature Falling

 The Temperature is dropping and the fish are preparing for winter this could only mean one thing the fish are feeding. Lately we have been chasing big  river Smallmouth in an attempt to get a Virginia Citation fish 20
inches or greater. We have been hitting the Upper Potomac pretty hard in search of that elusive fish with mixed results. We have caught good numbers of 14 to 16 inch bass which is an upgrade over the abundant 10-12 inchers that were biting a month ago.

Daily Routine: The end of september

 My daily routine of fishing has continued even though my writing routine has not .  I have not dedicated much time to writing as I have been researching new spots to hit after work and competing in the KBF state challenge series.

Daily Routine: Business Park Grass Bass

Today we did a quick 2 hour session before the Football game came on.We decided to try out a secluded pond off of rt 7 it is surrounded by a business park a shopping center and an apartment complex so its not very visible from any streets. I had only fished this pond once before with no luck so I was interested to see what size fish were in there. This pond is full of vegetation of various types there is a ton of floating pond weed and it is also covered in submerged vegetation as well. That gives some good overhead cover for the bass . I opted to punch through the floating mats while Collin  opted to glide over the weeds with a weightless Yum mighty bug.

Daily Routine: Rainy Day Goose Creek Topwater

I took a few days off from writing but not from fishing. Labor day My brother and i took the Hobies to Point Lookout Maryland he promised me that we may encounter some familiar species like speckled trout and red fish. We got out early Monday morning and fished along the rocks the marshy areas and deeper channels but the only thing we could find were the ravenous hordes of bluefish. My weekend day off I think we will take a ride down there again and see if we can make some trout and reds bite.  The past two days we have hit up our old stand by Goose creek the river has been super low making locating the smallmouth pretty easy in the deeper areas. I figured that this would be  good time to pull the fly rod out to catch my first smallmouth on the fly. I had a popper fly and Collin stuck with the pop r which has been working well lately. The past two days we have caught a bunch of sunfish and bluegill. The smallmouth however have been hard to find I am  still looking for that first smallmouth on the fly and Collin has only landed two  that were over 12 inches the past two days.

Daily routine: Smallmouth at Brunswick Maryland

Explored a new spot today on the Potomac river in search of more big small mouth like the one my brother caught earlier this week. We got out there around five to fish the evening topwater bite but I started with a Reaction innovations Sweet Beaver on a Shakey Headand was able to catch a little 14 incher. There was grass everywhere which made you have to throw precise casts into the open areas rather than fan casting and covering the river. When I would find a large opening in the grass I would fish it slowly dragging the jig from a couple different angles would trigger multiple strikes from the same hole. 

 As the sun dropped we tied on the topwaters and the action was quick.

Daily Routine: Wading for Creek Smallmouth

Yesterdays trip was back to wading in Goose creek. This time to explore another stretch that we had not fished in a while. I challenged Collin to a popper contest each using the Teeny Pop R I had an all white he used a clear one. He took the lead  almost immediately with the little smallie pictured on the left. I then had a big hit on my lure it sounded like someone getting smacked in the face, but the fish missed the lure.

The bluegill and other panfish were aggressive in this stretch and we were constantly getting little hits from the pan fish. We both caught about a dozen bluegill combined and I even caught a kinda rare rock bass. I may need to take my fly rod out there and have some fun catching these guys on the popper fly.

We continued searching for the target species and after a lull in the action we moved down further to the next pool.  There was a ton of action on the surface with minnows and even some large carp moving around the pool. We worked the top end and Collin hooked up again with a 12 inch small mouth this time. Now I was down 2-0 in the popper challenge I stopped joking around and entered into a full tournament focus. I had just laid down a good good cast deep into a downed tree I hear collin say hes hooked up. I could tell this was a larger fish because it didn't just come in like most fish you hook in the creek. After a decent fight he landed it and it ende up being a 21 inch virginia citation smallmouth.

After the excitement of the big fish I went back to fishing and as soon as my lure landed on the water a fish was on. As I reeled in my fish Collin hooked up and we had two high jumping smallies pictured below. I finally was on the board but I was still down by 3 fish and the sun was dropping quickly. As it got darker my white popper began to shine and I caught 5 more  in the last 30 minutes of daylight. The final score in the popper challenge was me 6 collin 4 so I won even though he thinks the big fish should count for two.

Daily Routine: Tavistock Farms pond and Area 51

Today was my day off and I had big plans to go hunt that elusive snakehead. I slept in though and changed plans to take the yak close to home out to yesterdays spot and venture to areas not accessible from the bank. I chickened out when I saw some dark clouds when I did a scientific walk outside weather check. So after two false starts my final attempt was to do some pond hopping .Those dark clouds never rain any more than a light sprinkle and the cloud cover made for some good topwater conditions. The first pond we headed for a pond I will call area 51. My brother and I challenged each other to a head to head competition the person who caught the most bass (no minimum size) in a ten minute span received a point. We both down sized our lures in order to catch more fish he used a Heddon Super Spook Jr and me a tiny torpedo/Rebel Pop R . The first round I won 3 to 2 the following rounds we tied 0, 1,2,2,1. A pretty good day of fishing almost catching one every 10 min. None of the fish were over 14 inches but topwater is always fun.

victim of the pop-r

  Our second stop was at Tavistock farms pond. I had only caught one fish from this pond but I had a feeling the quality would be a little better. The first thing I noticed was there were a ton of bluegill and they pecked away at my little jig I was using. We spent about 20 minutes at this pond and were able to land 3 bass and they were all in the 12 to 14 inch range. Maybe next time i hit this pond I will try some larger baits to see if there are some larger ones lurking.

 

Daily Routine: Keep Loudoun Beautiful Park

 Went out for an after work trip to a body of water where I learned I loved to fish. Goose creek was a quick bike ride from my house and I frequently experimented with a variety of lures casting for the feisty smallmouth and largemouth bass. Today we ventured to keep Loudoun beautiful park a little further upstream than where I usually fish the river. I ventured to this new stretch to find some less pressured fish. As we got out there I noticed much more life in the shallow rapids especially bluegill which are almost nonexistent at some down stream access points.

Going Deep in the Heat

Breaking through on a new technique.

Since the end of the month long tournament in July I have been motivated to improve my bass fishing skills. I ended up in 19th out of 54 anglers which was probably higher than I belonged based on my skills but was not where I wanted to be. I spent a majority of the month fishing shallow that is what I was comfortable with and actually at the end of June and early in July I was catching some nice fish. My first trip of the tourney I caught my largest of the event a 19 incher. As the month wore on though that bite went from big fish to 13 inch dinks. I tried every shallow presentation I knew but I couldn't catch any size. Every day I watched my self slide down the ranks as I struggled to upgrade,I needed to make a change. I finally had enough and decided to break one of my cardinal rules and experiment during a tournament.

First Half of July

I have not posted in a while but dont be alarmed I have not given up fishing. I have actually almost returned to my New Orleans level frequency of fishing trips. I have been participating in my first month long  online tournament hosted by Makbf. The target species is large and Smallmouth bass the person with the three fish largest cumulative length wins. I am not very well versed in bass fishing so I figured fishing this would accelerate my bass fishing education and maybe with some luck I can catch three above average bass in a month. Currently I am in 10th place and I have a 16 inch Largemouth that needs to be upgraded hopefully tomorrow. I am still taking trips to the tidal Potomac for chance to land a Snakehead I have had a few strikes on my two trips this month but still have not got one in the boat. I am also working on another online fishing related project so stay tuned for that to be live later this month. If you read this far reward

yourself and make the jump to see more pictures.

Snakeheads Hiding in the Grass

Moving up to Virginia there are so many species of fish I have not caught.that I want to add to my list. I have already added Striped Bass, Bluefish, and would like to add another a Snakehead before the month of June is over . So far I have taken four trips into Snakehead territory with varying success.

Road Trip: Kayak Fishing Classic at Jamaica Bay part 3

If you missed Part 1 or Part 2 you can click to read them.

The Piranha like teeth of the Bluefish

 After Collins heartbreaking lost fish we spent Saturday night re rigging everything with wire and creating a plan of attack. After talking to a couple of locals about the where and how to target the fluke which season opened Sunday. After getting some key info our plan was set to make a final push to get on the leader board. At this point I had the striper which seemed to be the hardest fish to catch throughout the weekend which I still wanted to upgrade. I also needed to catch a sizable bluefish and a fluke to complete the slam.

Road Trip: Kayak Fishing Classic at Jamaica Bay part 2

Read part 1 Here  -Friday night Collin and I devised a plan to head back to the same area we caught them on the second day. Saturday the second day of the tournament is allows you to fish a full 14 hours from 5 am to 7 pm.  We started the morning like we began Friday by heading to snag bait in the Mill basin the bait was thick there every morning boiling on top which made it easy to find and snag. We fished around these bait pods for a while live lining 12 inch bunker as it seemed to be a popular spot for the powerboats. After a half an hour without even a bluefish we trolled away to get our baits a more isolated from the large schools and easier for the predators to notice. 

Road Trip: Kayak Fishing Classic at Jamaica Bay part 1

Loaded up and ready for Jamaica Bay

I have started to cross the destinations off my list (read here) that I made at the beginning of the year. When  I first put this tournament on the list I wasn't sure if I would be able to go but now I cant wait for next year.The format of this tournament is different than anything I had done before It consists of four days of fishing. Starting with prefishing on Thursday and Friday morning then at noon on Friday the tournament fishing begins and runs until noon sunday. Collin and I missed prefishing Thursday but arrived at 2 am friday morning. We slept in the truck until 5am when we hit the water to learn as much as we could before the tournament started at 12 oclock.

Becoming the Compleat Angler

In an effort to become like Izaak Walton the author of the compleat angler read here .I finally made an effort to learn to fly fish I have had a fly rod for about three years now and have never really tried to learn how to use it. This week that changed and I don't know why I waited so long. My training pond would be the pond at the Olde Izaak Walton park in Leesburg Virginia. This pond has a variety of species including crappie and bass ,but my target were the abundant bluegill. The same fish I honed my spin fishing skills on when I was just starting out fishing.  

Catch my Fish Backwards

After working all weekend and missing the Makbf Pohick bay tournament I was itching to get out. Monday was my day off and I wasn't going to spend it watching tv. I decided to get up early and head to Sandy Point state park to continue my education on fishing the Chesapeake bay for Rockfish. In my previous trips I have caught many schoolies but I want to learn to target the larger fish. I initially started out trying to use my fish finder to find marks and  jig the bridge. I spent about 45 minutes

These little guys were everywhere

Jigging around the pilings looking for marks. I gave up on the bridge sooner than I planned because of the heavy boat traffic from the crews working on the bridge.

Another Sunday on the Bay

Collin with the only picture worthy fish of the day.

Catfish and Flies

Spotted channel catfish

 Today My brother and I took a routine after school/work trip that turned into something special. We started out looking for bass but a few minutes in we started seeing large dark masses in the water. As we watched them we could see they were moving and occasionally we could see a flash or two. At first we thought they may be carp, but still unsure of what they were I made a long cast with a spoon.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Preseason Rockfish

Collin with the big fish of the day.

My brother and I were eager to return to the Chesapeake after our first trip went better than expected we wanted to build on our early success. I had to work Sunday morning so we decided that as soon as I made it home around 12 we would hit the road. After a couple of brief delays we made it to the Sandy Point State Park launch around 2 o'clock. The sun was pretty high so we initially headed for deeper water along the bridges to try jigging the structure of the bridges with soft plastics. This is a technique I am very familiar with using in Lake Pontchartrain, and I love the solid thump you feel when the fish hits your lure. We jigged the different structures of the bridge including the rock piles for about an hour and a half with nothing to show.

Easter Kayak Fishing Annapolis

My brother and I took our first of many kayak fishing trips to the Chesapeake bay in the Hobies. It was my first time fishing in the bay and my only previous experience targeting striped bass Aka Rockfish were a couple of unsuccessful trips to Lake Anna during the winter.  This trip we set our sights toward Annapolis with hopes that the warming spring weather would have them active and feeding. I let Collin do the planning and research for this trip and he picked out Sandy Point state park as the launching point. On the hour and twenty minute drive to the park he briefed me on the tactics that we would employ to target the Rockfish. He suggested I rig up 4 to 6 inch white paddle tail jigs  on 3/4 and 1 ounce jig heads I also figured they would hit a rat-l-trap so I tied that on as well I also wanted to give an x-rap a shot but never go to use it. He also told me that he had read reports of fish being caught from the beach out to about 20 feet of water. So we would have to search around to find the magic depth to run our baits. When we finally got to the launch we were greeted by a friendly Dnr agent who gave us a few tips  checked our fishing licences and safety gear and wished us well. After the brief conversation we launched and headed out of the harbor.

Optimistic start to the day.

Upper Potomac Warming Up

Collin with a nice Upper Potomac Largemouth

Early Spring Goose Creek

Goose Creek Largemouth Bass

Took a quick after school/work walk along Goose Creek to see if the Small mouth were moving. We spent a while on some of his favorite spring areas but it seems like it was a too early. My hypothesis is the fish move into the creek from the  larger Potomac river as the water warms. We decided to head towards the Potomac to see if any fish were migrating back into the creek. We worked the slower pools and current breaks and my brother was able to land a nice prespawn largemouth.

I found this video today at the 12 minute mark Jeff Little explains the thought process much better than I did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUp1xrd7U6o

Care and Maintenance of Your Fishing Kayak

My mirage fin mast snapped.

Guest Post: Because I Cant Catch a Fish

 BY Collin Oliver - 3/5/2015

 Fishing in cold water is brutal, luckily this weekend the Mid Atlantic Kayak Bass Fishing tournament was on Cozy Lake Anna, even better tournament participants had access to the even cozier 60 degree warm side of the lake.  That doesn't mean my butt wasn't freezing off and every droplet of water on my boat wasn't frozen instantly by the insane 13 degree air.  We launched at 7:00 AM and blindly fished for hours not knowing where to go or what to do.

We fished everywhere

DIY Power Pole Micro Anchor Mount on Hobie

Finished product Hobie Outback with Power Pole
micro anchor.

I finally decided to mount my Power Pole Micro Anchor onto my Hobie Outback.  It took me longer than anticipated to get it permanently mounted. Since Hobie didn't make a mount for the outback like they did for the pro angler I got to be creative in my mounting. I scoured the internet for ideas on how to mount it to the Outback or other kayaks in general. I tossed around Ideas of mounting it on the front of the kayak or right behind the seat but I decided that the pole would get in the way when casting or fighting a fish. So I went with the safe method of mounting it on the back. If you don't want to do it the Diy way the YakAttack kits are a well put together solution that includes everything you need to mount your power pole to your kayak. Since you have made it this far you probably are going to build your own adapter plate to mount your  Power Pole Micro Anchor. You can use Starboardor I used a 1/2 inch Cutting Board.

Essential Kayak Fishing Gear: Safety First

Lake Brittle frozen solid.

This is a list of the major safety gear I carry at all times on my kayak.

Essential Kayak Fishing Gear: Landing Gear

One of the first things that drew me to kayak fishing was the simplicity. Now that I have been kayak fishing for a while it has gotten a little more complicated I now have a trailer to carry all my gear. Carrying all this stuff is not necessary but some of it is necessary to ensure you are able to land your next trophy. I will spare you all my opinions on rod and reel selection. This series of post will highlight the items I would pack every time I go kayak fishing no matter where I am going.