Emiquon in August

Alan and I arrived at Emiquon by mid-afternoon on Saturday.  It was the Labor Day weekend. Our goal was simple. We wanted to catch bass.  We heard from several of Alan's tournament friends and DuPage Angler's own Soonerbass this body of water off the Illinois river has some fantastic bass fishing. That was enough to get three kayak anglers to drive two plus hours to fish what you can see in the photo below has a generous expanse of matting grass before you get to open water.  

This was our first day fishing the lake so as we unloaded our kayaks we discussed our game plan.  We decided to paddle out the narrow, deep channel at the boat launch to the edge of the weeds.  We figured by the time we got to the edge of the weeds we'd have a chance to figure out if we wanted to go right or left. We knew there were probably fish in either direction so we made our choice and started fishing.  

Both Alan and I had rods with frogs tied on.  We figured out quickly that the bluebird skies and the bright sunshine would kill any frog bite so we'd have to adapt and adjust.  Alan scored the first bass throwing his favorite soft plastic.  It's the bait that gave him his forum handle; a green Zoom Fluke.  The bass wasn't huge but it took the pressure off Alan.  Now I had to figure out what to fish and how to fish it.

I caught a few and Alan caught a few more but none of my bass were long enough to count for Kayak Wars points.  It was fun catching them mind you but I like most anglers end up wanting to catch something bigger.  We did catch a beautiful sunset.  I'll end the first day play-by-play with that.

Day number two we unloaded our yaks and got in the water around sunup.  Alan noticed something yesterday that was reinforced at the boat ramp today.  He noticed boats all heading to one end of the lake.  Well they might know something we didn't so we launched our kayaks and began to paddle like crazy after the boats.

We got to another big chunk of weeds.  It looked like anywhere there was water that wasn't 12 feet deep there were thick matted weeds.  Boats were fishing the weed edge but they couldn't go deeper into the mats without clogging up their motors.  Our kayaks could.  Did I mention Alan and I both had frogs tied on MH rods, high speed reels, braid what you'd want to use frog fishing.  Alan got the first points fish before I got the hang of the retrieve the bass wanted. It was explosive!  I paused the frog for a second in a hole in the weeds and the bass just SLAMMED it!

I love frog fishing! I do!  We had several hours of bass after bass smashing up through the mats.  My Live Target frog was taking a beating. Both Alan and I were giddy from the adrenaline.  

What worked here was simple, just cast the frog, rod parallel to the water start to reel.  For me three turns of the reel handle then stop.......wait.......one, two, three stop........wait....SMASH!!! Wait to feel the weight of the fish then set the hook.  

Scott got in on the end of the topwater bite but his frog got nailed enough times for him to be excited about the fishing tomorrow.  The sun was setting on us as we paddled all the way back across the lake to the boat launch. 

We got something to eat and headed back to the hotel to pass out.  Day two was absolutely fantastic!  Big bass, beautiful surroundings, and sore arms from paddling our kayaks over the weeds.  It was a good kind of sore.

Day three the wind kept us in the hotel until mid morning.  It was blowing strong in gusts and spurts.  Paddling was hard but it would get harder; the wind was at our back as we paddled to yesterday's spots.

I managed more fish including this nice 4# largemouth caught on a Texas-rigged toad that I dropped into a hole in the weeds.  Fish were sparse but catchable today our final day.

Pretty soon we had to paddle back to the boat launch.  It was time to load up and drive home. Our three day totaled a bunch of bass.  I didn't keep count, I was just busy having fun catching. Scott and Alan both caught a ton too.  I'm guessing we'd all agree coming back to Emiquon is a real possibility.  

I'm sure as the ice starts to recede at the end of the ice season 2014-2015 our thoughts will turn to warmer fishing and our trip to Emiquon will come up.  I'd fish there again; it's a frog-fisherman's place to be!  It's very friendly to kayak fishermen and offers us spots to fish where the motorized boats can't reach.

DuPage Angler - Lake Patterson Challenge

Early Sunday morning I load my kayak on my car, load my gear in my car and head to a parking lot in Aurora, IL to meet 14 who share my sickness; needus bassthumbis!  Actually, the parking lot was a meeting point to all check in for this month's DuPage Angler Challenge.

Roughly each month of the late spring and summer DuPageAngler.com organizes tournament style challenges.  This challenge was held at Kane County Forest Preserve's Lake Patterson.

My kayak was in the water and I paddled across the lake to a spot I thought would produce.  After nothing bit my Arbogast Buzz Plug I decided to use a finesse plastic that is a favorite of mine; the 4" curly-tail worm.  The bass in the picture ate the 4" worm.  Unfortunately that bass wasn't large enough to count toward our team total.  Here are the rules for our friendly tournament:

Qualifying fish will be (3) largemouth at a minimum of 12 inches, (2) panfish at a minimum of 6 inches, and (1) bonus Carp at any length.  Total team length of these top 6 fish will dictate 1st - 3rd place.   Big fish pot will only count towards Bass! A picture needs to be taken of the length.  We will measure up to the nearest 1/4 inch but will not round up for a fish to qualify...so if a bass is 11.8 inches...we will not round up to 12 for it to count.  Shore anglers and boaters need to have a camera and ruler or bump board to take pictures.  A picture of the entire fish and a picture of the final length are needed to count.  If you are having problems ask for help from your fellow anglers.

Live bait can be used for panfish and carp but not bass.  If a bass is caught using live bait it will not count toward your total inches.  Only one line can be in the water at any one time.

Fishing time will be from 6:30 AM to Noon.  Please be back in the parking lot for Patterson lake by 12:15 PM or you will lose 4 inches of your total.

So now you can see why my small bass didn't count. I was throwing a swim jig, not getting bit when I heard another angler hook up with two quick bass on a Z-Man chatter-bait. I have a bunch of those! I had success with chatter baits a few weeks ago.

Bam! A 14.25" bass hits my chatterbait! That'll count toward our inch total! I hope we get to cull him though. Time to release the bass and make another cast.

BAM! 14.75" A better bass and another one to count. I still hope we can cull!

Take a look at that chatterbait! This wasn't unique, EVERY bass CHOKED the bait! They really wanted to eat it!

Woot!!! A 15.25" bass! That will add to my teammate Titus' 15" bass to give us 30.25" with 2 fish. We can still use my 14.75" but I'd rather keep trying for bigger.

BOOM! There's my bite!!! The chatterbait scores a nice 17.5" largemouth! She weighs in at 3.25# on my Boga-Grip.

She's thick just like the other bass here. Well fed! Well fed on bluegills!

Speaking of bluegills my other teammate Steakified who had been fishing from shore scored two nice bluegills! That's additional inches for our total.

So our three bass plus two bluegills turned in 63.25" of fish. My 17.5" was big bass of the challenge and it was the tie-breaker as another team had 63.25" too. The big bass winner tipped the scales in my team's favor! We won!

After fishing a bunch of us returned to the parking lot we met in this morning to get a burger and beer at a local bar and grill. It was great to get to talk with and get to know new members and not new members that don't get out with the group too often.

We come from all walks of life, fish different ways, use different gear but all of us know that part of us needs to feel the tug and struggle of the fish on the end of our lines. We share that common trait and what better way to show it? We descend upon a 55 acre lake en masse' and work it from land and by boat to catch what the lake has to offer, take fish-pictures, then ease our fooled fishy friends back to the 55 acre lake to eat other fish, grow bigger, then bite my chatterbait next year!

What, it could happen!

DuPage Angler Kayak Cadre

Five of us arrived at different times this evening.  Several came after work. I picked up my fellow DuPage Angler Alan AKA Fluke after he had arrived home and we headed with our kayaks to new water. We were fishing the Fox Valley Park District's Lake Jericho in search of Kayak Wars sized bass.

We were on the water shortly after six PM.  The sun cast a golden hue across the lake.  The five of us that made the trip, Ted (SoonerBass), Scott (CrankinKing), Titus (Titus), Alan (Fluke), and me met in a corner of the lake that was sheltered from the breeze.  Fluke and I arrived in time to see Titus hook up with a nice bass on a plastic craw.

I stopped throwing a crankbait and tied on a craw. We all tied on craws. Flipping and casting the lures yielded a few small bass but nothing that compared to Titus'.  I decided to tie on a Strike King KVD Heavy Cover Bluegill Swimjig with a 4" Big Hammer swimbait trailer and paddle away from the group.

Soon I was rewarded by a better bass!

  
A fine largemouth, nice and thick with a full belly.  A nice largemouth but it only measured 15.25" so it didn't count for Kayak Wars Points.  While I was paddling around CrankinKing scored his first ever kayak bass!

The sun was going down as we made our way around the lake.  We were casting and catching a few but no one had Kayak Wars points yet.

I paddled near Fluke and CrankinKing and pointed at the sun indicating how much daylight we had left.  Fluke looked my direction and said "Just a few more casts".

BAM!  Fluke hooks up with a bass over 16" and proves it on a bump board before taking his own picture to submit to the Kayak Wars website.  Scoring 10 points for DuPageAngler2 on a nice chunk!

BAM!  I hook up throwing my swim-jig again!  This time it counts!  A 17" largemouth bumps my DupageAngler2 Kayak Wars team up another 10 points.

Mine was the last bass of the night. We paddled down the shore to the boat launch and loaded up in the dark.  The Facebook chat was buzzing with pictures and reports of our trip.  We will be back. We'll bring another group and fish for the giants that are rumored to be in the depths of Jericho.

Anchor Away

I had a lake I wanted to kayak before I had a kayak.  I had been taken to this lake a few years ago by Marty and Patrick from DuPage Angler in the summer for shoreline bass fishing.  We did ok but not great.  The next year I was taken here to fish for crappies.  There are nice crappies here and as I learned VERY nice bonus bass!  

Like most lakes and ponds in the Mid-West the shoreline weeds make it tough to fish from shore during the summer.  Enter the kayak.  Ok, so it was a literary device AND the next thing I did before I started paddling.

I pitched my minnow bucket over the side of the kayak and began to look for a spot past the shoreline weeds to look for crappies.  I anchored my kayak and positioned the anchor line at the rear of the kayak with my homemade anchor trolley.  Satisfied with where my boat was positioned I nose-hooked a minnow 1.5 feet under a float and cast to a spot clear of the weeds.   Soon I was rewarded with crappie.

It wasn't the largest I'd ever caught at this lake but at least the skunk was off.  I could concentrate on fishing now that my boat wasn't drifting across the lake.  In some situations the drift would be welcome but not when I had minnows under floats.

I wanted the minnows to get eaten by hungry crappie but the bass had other ideas.  After catching several small largemouth bass I decided to stop wasting minnows and pull anchor.  Anchor away I started paddling to a new spot.  My effort was rewarded with another crappie.

I used the rest of my minnows and caught more crappie and comparable size largemouth. 

The wind had been light but steadily blowing.  I say had been because it all of a sudden stopped. The surface of over half the lake glassed up and became still.  It was then when bass started rippling the surface eating bugs and minnows.  I quickly got my tackle box out and tied on a large perch patterned Chug Bug topwater plug.

I cast near a surface weed clump and chug-GluG-GLUG-chug-p a u s e-GluG-chug- l o n g e r pa u s e........SMASH!!!!!!

My plug disappeared.   I saw the strike and had the presence of mind to wait and reel my 15# fluorocarbon snugly to my custom spiral-wrapped casting rod.  My Lew's BB1 held tight as the rod bent and I felt the weight of the fish.  Ok, now it's time to set the hook!

Oh, that seemed to tick her off!  The bass leapt into the air shaking her head back and forth to let the trebles loose from her lip.  She hit the water and I got her closer to the kayak when she jumped again, tail walking and shaking her head.  I saw one of the two treble hooks that was attached to lip hanging free.  I didn't want to stick my thumb in the bass' mouth at the angle I had her at because I'd certainly get a treble hook in my hand.  I did the next best thing, I reverse-lipped her; stuck my index finger in the bass' mouth and my thumb under the bottom lip.  I had her!

3.5# on my Boga Grip scale.  I have to say that topwater of any type is cool but topwater on a kayak when you're right down at water level is awesome!!!

Nothing else would come on topwater today but that's ok.  Catching a big bass is enough.  The wind kicked up anyway and I was out of minnows.  Time to rig up the 4" Power Worm finesse rig. I can fish that in my sleep and pick apart areas between the weeds for bass.

I caught several small bass and a nice bluegill.

I pulled my anchor back to the center position on the trolley and hand-over-handed the anchor up from the depths.  Ok, it was really only about seven feet but I'm not used to anchoring the kayak yet and the anchor trolley performed flawlessly.

Several more small bass ate my Power Worm on the drift across the lake to where I had parked. I was ready to go.  The bluebird skies with the big fluffy clouds are pretty to look at but they make fishing stink.  I got some sun, I caught some crappies, I got rid of minnows in a way I hadn't thought to before, and I experienced topwater bassin' in a kayak.  All in all a great morning that started because I wanted to test my anchor trolley.

I Learned My Lesson

I got out in my kayak again.  Back at the same catch and release lake as last Saturday.

Tonight I got to explore more of the lake.  I paddled more than I did last time.  I'm sure my arms and shoulders will let me know about it tomorrow morning.  That's not the lesson I learned however.

I started off with a third-cast bluegill.  

It ate the same finesse presentation as all fish did last week; a Berkley 4" Power Worm, a #4 Gamakatsu Octopus-Circle hook, and a single split shot.

I paddled around a corner into a shallow, weedy area.  The weeds were too thick to fish through but there were dips and holes.  Polarized sunglasses helped me see the minnows, small bluegills, and bass that came up top to feed on them.  I saw all of these as they were scared by the presence of my kayak and scooted away to hide.

A few bass came once I cleared the edge of the weeds.  I had a bite that I pulled steadily on to set the circle hook when I felt a loss of tension.  I reeled in to see my line broke.  You can tell when your line breaks versus when your knot slips visually.  A clean break means the line snapped, a squiggly bit of line tells you to tie better knots.  I tied another circle hook on and re-rigged a Power Worm.  Flipping back toward the weed edge caused my line to go tight again.

I had my shirt off to try to get less pasty white not show off like Putin.  Still this bass was over two pounds and looked nice and long; worthy of a photo before being released.

The next area I fished had a small clump of weeds right in the middle of a deeper, clear area.  I cast to it and caught the bass above.  I cast back to the same spot and felt the tug of a fish then nothing.  Reeling in my line I found another clean break.  I cuss myself out for making a cheap, lazy mistake.

Fishing line manufacturers say you should replace your line every year or as you notice it getting roughed up.  My line on this reel was last years line.  No wonder it was brittle.  I'll tie on another hook and hope that I won't break off again.

Casting my rig over a clump of floating weeds caused me to feel a dead or spongy feeling when the Power Worm sank out of sight.  I know this can mean a fish has your bait so I pulled for a hook set and pulled up this nice crappie.

Another quick cast brought up a 2.75# largemouth for a photo.

One more cast to the same spot.  My line stiffens, I pull, the circle hook sets.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz......zzzzz..z.zz......zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Oh!!!!!   This is a big one!!!

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

It's pulling drag straight down trying to get deep.  Ok, just keep tension on it, you don't want to lose this fi.....sh.  *crap*

Line snapped cleanly, just like the other two times.  *sigh*

I didn't retie.  I paddled back to the spot I entered the lake, pulled out and packed my kayak into my RAV4.  

I learned my lesson. I stopped at the nearest store that had a fishing section to buy a spool of 6# Trilene XL monofilament fishing line.

My public service for today is to share two videos.  One that will help you learn how to tie an arbor knot used to join your fishing line to your spinning reel spool. The other is a video that shows you how to position the spool of line while winding to minimize line twist and other spinning reel related annoyances.

Please learn from my mistake.  Replace your mono each year.  It will keep you from learning the lesson I had to learn today.  

First Kayak Bass

I made plans with Chunsum to kayak fish today.  We were going to meet at Lake Patterson when the gates opened, be the first on the lake, and get me on my first kayak bass.

A few weeks ago I turned 41.  For my birthday present to myself I took advantage of a great deal on a decent sit on top (SOT) fishing kayak. The Lifetime Tamarack Angler Kayak was a quality SOT priced well below the other SOT kayaks available.

Back to fishing this morning; It stunk.  I have spotty luck at Patterson and today I had no luck at Patterson.  Chunsum caught one 12" largemouth bass but he had to work his tail off to get anything to bite.  I got off the water at 11 to wait out the heat of the day and head home for some lunch.  

I was back on the water in the 6 o'clock hour but in a different pond a bit farther west.  I started out throwing a swim-jig with a plastic-chunk trailer on my custom casting rod.  The weeds grabbed on to my jig and my line and made it impossible to throw this lure.  I put the rod back behind me in the flush mount rod holder.  I reached behind me on the other side to pull out the first rod I made; a 6'6" MH Spinning rod.

I was already rigged with a Gamakatsu #4 Octopus Circle hook and a single split shot 12" up the 4# mono fishing line.  My finesse bait of choice for this rig is the 4" Berkley Power Worm.  I flipped my rig next to a weed clump and let the worm sink a count of at least 5 before lifting the rod tip up two or three feet then dropping it back down while reeling in your slack line.  On the next raise of my rod tip I felt tightness and a wiggle, then my line swam sideways.  I was going to catch my first kayak bass!!!

Or was I....no I was going to catch my first kayak fish but it was a nice big bluegill!  I'll take that! A nice solid fish that fought well.  My next three casts I caught bluegill roughly this size.  That was nice but if I knew I'd only be catching bluegill I'd have brought my ultra-light rod to make it that much more fun.

I changed spots on the pond, paddling until I saw a feature that looked interesting.  In this case I saw the weeds that had been a foot or two below my kayak had dropped off to a darker bottom deeper than I could see.  I pitched my Power Worm into the water along the depth transition.  

Hooray!  A bass!  Not huge but fun to catch.  After lipping and unhooking I released the bass back to the pond, adjusted my worm and pitched it back at the depth transition.

A better bass!  I didn't think to weigh this one but it was worthy of a picture with me! 

Back to the transition and back to catching bass.  The 4" Power Worm is the perfect size when the bite is a bit finicky.  Daniel Byrne (aka Pondboy) taught me this technique.  I think it's like humans saying I don't want that plate of food but this cookie is just perfect for my appetite right now.

I paddled back to a weed line since I had drifted away from the area I was fishing.  I cast right by the weeds and let the worm fall for a 6 count.  One-onethosand, Two-onethousand, Three-one...hey, why is my line swimming away from me.  

Slack reeled in the circle hook found lip and then a nifty thing happened.  The bass started pulling my kayak.  I took my time and finally got my thumb in the mouth of this lovely largemouth that weighed in at 3# on my Boga Grip .

I would catch more fish but this was the best size wise of them all today.  When the sun started to set I paddled my way back to the launch area, dismounted and pulled my kayak up onto the grass and then a quick drag later I was beside my car.  Gear and kayak were loaded in and I was on my way home.  

The sun set behind me as I drove back to my house.  I'm excited to say I enjoy kayak fishing as much as I thought I would.  I'm happy to be stealthy and human powered.  I'm always happy to catch fish but today I was happy to catch my first kayak bass.