A Day on the Water — Kayak Bass

I started out early covering a lot of water, finding no fish, seeing no beds.  I caught a fish while casting during a random down wind drift. After anchoring to fight it and making a cast from there I got  a better fish. Nothing for the next 2 hours as I explored far and wide.  I saw that the three amigos, Todd, Ken and Scott were getting fish closer to shore.  I anchored on the left flank of the conga line and I also started hooking fish on a couple of brown Clousers.  They were using pink flies including the...

  Wakely Lake is a long drive and a long way to drag a kayak full of fly gear just to land a few (6) bass12 to 16 inches.  I was busy with many smaller  bass, a couple bluegills and a pumpkinseed.    The best pattern was to cast Poppers to lily pad edges across deep, scattered, upward growing pond weed.  Then 3 pops and a pause.  Today, like last week, a Lime Chartreuse Bug Popper pattern was much better than black.  Fishing deep with a bead head Clouser (Popovic's Jiggy) in Chartreuse and White got a small pike and fast action on...

From mid May to some time mid summer, good sized Largemouth Bass run up a short distance into Saginaw Bay tributaries.  Even the smallest, marginal streams can get good numbers of fish.  There are usually some pike with them that are mostly small to medium sized.  Only occasionally do you find what you would call a big pike.  There are also a few Walleye, Bowfin, Channel Cats, Carp, Sheephead or Gar that show up, sometime in big numbers.  They hit flies like Rabbit Strip Leaches, Poppers or Floating Divers depending on species.  Carp hit oversized Hex Nymphs, and the Gar can...

Easy trip, low expectations because the bass here see a lot of pressure. I fished a point forming a narrows on this upper end of this Huron River impoundment. Weed growth was at the perfect stage to allow casting to shoreline cover. About 100 yards down the point toward a shallow bay got an 11 inch Smallmouth then a 17 incher that was  bleeding badly before I got a hold of her lip.  The barbless hook came out of her gills easily, I never lifted out of the water and let her go without a photo.  Bluegills were on beds and...

I fished a shallow difficult to access Impoundment on the Huron River.  I put my kayak in at a shore fishing spot on a shallow oxbow that connects to the river. There were bass right there in the very shallow weedy water. Down toward the river, there were homes on the firm bank and an expanse of weed choked water back toward the inside of the oxbow bend.  The river fractures into a fan of channels at the upper end of this expansive but shallow impoundment.  Upstream into the first small serpentine channel, the water was deep and colder, and appeared sterile...