Kayak Koz

My 12 year old son and I were out fishing today at one of our usual haunts and nothing was biting. This spot has been pretty consistent bank fishing spot for 2-5 pound largemouth and 1-2 pound crappies so it was a bit disappointing and frustrating. My son got bored and stopped fishing so I gave him my phone and told him to dig into my tackle bag and set up the iBobber to see if anything shows up on the sonar. In the fish finder mode the iBobber shows red markers for fish under 18" and green markers for fish over 18" and it provides a readout of the depth of the fish. So my son casts the iBobber out and then starts calling out, "Red - 4 feet. Green - 6 feet. Green - 9 feet..." At the same time I am beginning to see some fish feeding on the surface out towards the middle of the lagoon where my casts won't reach. All I'm thinking is, "Why aren't all of these fish hitting anything?" I'm fishing slow, fast, medium, topwaters, spinners, buzzbaits, Senkos, crankbaits, and not one nibble. Then he calls out, "Green - 24 feet" and I'm thinking to myself that can't be right. Unless some sinkhole opened up under the water it's not that deep anywhere in the lagoon. So I ask him, "Is that in demo mode?" and his response is, "No, but it does say 'demo' at the top of the screen." AARRRGH! As it turns out, the iBobber wasn't charged so the app defaulted to demo mode. I was cracking up because here I am thinking there's all these good sized fish around and I can't even manage one bite no matter what I throw! We packed it up a few minutes later and called it a day. The morning may not have produced any fish, but at least it produced a good story.

For me, the great thing about this time of year is that it's not 98 degrees with 80% humidity outside, Daytime temperatures are in the 60's and sometimes 70's. The only thing I don't like about this year is that it gets dark so early that I can't get any fishing in after work. The alligators are still active this time of year and I'm not about to go bank fishing in the evening and take any chances. The other afternoon I was inspecting a remote (wooded) retention pond for work and I did not see the 8 foot alligator hidden in the brush on the bank just 15 feet from me. Luckily, he saw me and got scared instead of defensive. Nearly pooped my pants when he hit the water.

Until this year I hadn't done much fishing in years and picked up a 6'6" MH Ugly Stick with a Pfleuger President spinning reel. It was a decent setup and I was catching my fair share of bass with it with all types of lures. Later this summer I decided to pick up my first baitcaster and found a Lew's American Hero combo on sale at Dick's and with the points I had on my Dick's Scorecard it was even cheaper. In just one day of using the new Lew's combo I realized how much "feel" I was missing with the Ugly Stick whether it be a fish tapping at the bait or moving the lure across the bottom or through weeds. In comparison, using the Ugly Stick was almost brute force fishing compared to the sensitivity and feedback I get using my Lew's rod. I'm sure that when I upgrade my Lew's rod I'll be saying the same thing about it as well. I still use my Ugly Stick setup now and then, but knowing what I know now I probably wouldn't buy another one.

I find that by the time the ice gets an eighth of an inch or more that the bass have a hard time punching through to grab any topwater that I throw

Where I live in SC things are just starting to cool off a bit. Daytime temps are in the mid 60's and it gets down to the mid 40's at night. And right now what matters most in my area is not where the fish might be hiding, but time of day. I've caught fish between noon and 2:30 or so, but after that not even a single bite. When they do bite it's in both the shallows (2 ft) and deeper water (10-12 ft). So perhaps they are more active when the sun is high. One caveat is that I have not fished in the mornings this fall. I may have to try that time period when my son finishes his fall baseball tournaments. In the meantime, when I fish I'll stick to midday until the bite stops.

By all means keep that up. I won't go into details, but I have raised my 12 year old son with the mantra "Always do the right thing" and that simple random acts of kindness can help people in untold ways. As frustrating as my pre-teen can be at times (you'll learn!), he is still grounded in those lessons he learned at an early age.

Not one bite here in SC late Sunday afternoon. This time of year the bass are active in the "go to" spots in our lagoons between noon and 2 pm and after that the head somewhere else. Unfortunately for us, the bulk of that lagoon is bordered by homes on the water (grass yards go right to the edge of the water) and we don't fish on private property unless invited.

I thought this was a joke until I looked it up. That's what I call "stupid money". You have to be stupid rich or just plain stupid to spend your money on things like that. The most expensive lures I own are some Whopper Ploppers and I bought those when they were "buy one, get one half off". The truth is, fish bite at just about anything. It's just a matter of throwing the right lure in the right place at the right time.

We actually have offices nationwide and will be rolling out this program to those locations in six months. We'll be hiting then.

I recently took a new job heading up and MS4 stormwater inspection program. After years being behind a desk in the tech industry this is a huge change. Among other things I get to spend time out in the field and in our area of SC retention ponds are a major component of stormwater management. In our county alone there are THOUSANDS of retention ponds and the older ones all potentially hold bass. But right now most of these are virtually inaccessible because of the vegetation that has grown along the banks. The good news is that in order to be in compliance land owners need to make these ponds at least partly accessible. My hope is that since there has been almost no fishing pressure in these ponds that when their opened up there will be some great fishing - and maybe even some big lunkers that have never seen a lure before. For me, the even better news is that I'm heading up the nationwide program and while there won't be a lot of field work for me, the potential is there to get in a few hours of fishing now and then.

I look for two things: 1. Areas where there should be bass like laydowns, stumps, lily pads, weed beds and fish those first before just casting around the pond. 2. Signs of fish activity like lots of bait fish, fish jumping or feeding on the surface. As a matter of fact, my son and I fished two new ponds last night. The first one looked promising with lots of laydowns and a few fallen trees in the water. But we didn't see much in the way of bait fish and only a few ripples from what were probably small bream. We tried a number of different lures but didn't get one bite. The only thing we attracted was an annoying juvenile alligator that was aggressive in protecting his turf. If we do fish there again it will be a different time of day, but I doubt much is in there. We hit another open area pond on the way home but it was hard to fish. The banks were clear of trees, but years of sloughing meant there was 10-15 feet of soggy turf followed by another 5 feet of aquatic vegetation. All in all we didn't have one bit, but we gave a few new places a try. We have hundreds of lagoons / ponds in our area so we'll always have new places to try.

Simple solution: http://www.montanaoutdoor.com/2015/02/tantalize-your-tastebuds-with-a-river-otter-recipe/

I did a follow up post here: The next time we went out he grabbed that spinner bait and tossed it in the mouth of the channel where I suggested and caught his PB within a few casts.

Sure, you can spend a ton of money on lures, but hooks and soft plastic baits are cheap. There are also Beetlespins and a bunch of spinner baits for $1.99. Fish in my area aren't snobs - put the right bait in front of them at the right time and they bite I get what you're saying, but you don't have to spend a ton of money to catch fish. I think a lot of us get that mentality that we need just one or two more of the latest and greatest baits to round out our tackle box (kind of like "just one more cast") when we'd be just about as successful sticking to a few basics. But compared to my 11 year old's baseball gear fishing is cheap. But he does chores and odd jobs for neighbors year round so he can treat himself to lures or whatever else he wants.

They have some other good Bite Sized Horror commercials: http://www.adweek.com/creativity/these-bite-size-horror-films-from-mars-candy-brands-are-the-best-halloween-ads-in-years/

Reverse fishing?

Recently I posted about trying to help my soon to be 12 year old son get his PB and how he can be a bit stubborn at times. The post was all in fone, but the quest to help him get his PB is real. What started off poorly for him yesterday ended up being a great day. My son had a half day of school yesterday and to celebrate that time off he wanted to go to the ballpark and work on some pitching for a while and then go fishing. But as we're about to leave he tells me, "Daddy, I think I left my pole at the lagoon last week." Dad is not happy. I just bought him a new reel a few weeks ago. We fished with friends last week and in between fishing and the kids goofing off he forgot his gear. So after his bullpen session we head back to the lagoon and sure enough his rod and reel are gone. Lucky for him he does chores for a number of our elder neighbors and he has the money to buy his own replacement. In the meantime, I give him my Pflueger President /Ugly Stick combo to fish with and this time he immediately puts on the spinner bait I told him to fish with the other week. On his fourth cast of the day he gets a strike and he can tell it's not like any fish he's hooked before. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" "I've got one! I've got one! A BIG one!" At this point the fish is really fighting and he's having a hard time reeling it in. Now a little panic starts to set in. "I don't want to lose it! Daddy, Can you help?" He's got to learn to land his own big fish so I tell him to take his time and keep tension on the line. I know there's 50 pound braid on the reel because I had been using that rod for frogging. He gets it close enough to shore where he can get a fleeting glimpse of the fish in the stained water. His eyes get real big as the fish tries to run parallel to the shoreline and then tries to dart back to the deep but he keeps the tension on and the fish has nowhere to go. Unfortunately for us, our net broke earlier in the summer and I have not replaced it yet so now Matt has to land this fish on the bank without a net. He gets the fish near the bank and steps forward to try and grab it - the line slacks. For a fleeting moment that fish must have thought it found freedom and it picked up speed and breached the surface almost coming eye level with my son at the shoreline. "She's a HAWWWWWGGGG!!!" he yelled. Thankfully he had set the hook deep and he landed his personal best. The look on his face (and probably mine, too) was priceless. It weighed in at 5.8 pounds and as he pointed out right away that was 0.05 pounds better than my biggest catch this summer. He once again declared himself the "Fishing Champion". That's OK, I'm happy to turn over my title to him. For me, this is what fishing is all about.

I've seen in this and other posts that there are a bunch out there that have never had much - if any - success on the Whopper Plopper and there may be a simple reason for that. Color choice. When I bought my first two WP's I bought one in bone and one in Loon. That was last spring and to this day I have not even had one strike on the Loon while on the same sized Bone I've caught a ton of great sized fish. But if I had only purchased the Loon that day I'd be one of those saying it's not such a great lure. So if you're not having any luck you may want to try it in another color before you give up on it.

I love the Whopper Plopper but I've got to say that lately it's been more "miss" than "hit". I bank fish and almost all of the strikes I have had have been in open water. I don't think I've ever had a strike fishing parallel to the shoreline. I've fished the 90 size but any tiny little weed will foul the rotation and because of that it's not ideal in the lagoons I fish. So I stick with mostly the 110 size and the occasional 130 but they are hard to land soft so I try and cast well beyond my target area so I don't scare off any potential fish. Who knows, it probably still scares off fish further down from my target area. Still, it's my favorite topwater and the strikes on it seem to be more violent than on frogs or buzzbaits. And just about every outing I throw the Bone and Munky Butt 110's. Here's hoping they produce this weekend!

Maybe, maybe not. Down here most of our retention ponds have outlets to keep the water at the appropriate level. In one of the areas I fish here the fish travel through the outlet and under the road to the next lagoon. How do I know? My son fished a storm drain between the lagoons! As for where to fish, if it was me I'd start in the area where the big strike happened and slowly work the length of the pond from there. In a smaller pond I'd operate under the assumption that the area was a primary food source for the bass until proven otherwise.

Lately my 11 year old son and I have been fishing where my Dad lives in nearby Sun City Hilton Head. I've been pulling out 4 and 5 pounders every weekend as well as 2 pound Crappies. My son's personal best is just under three pounds and he's been frustrated watching me catch some bigger fish. He's had his share of 2 pounders, but not the 4 or 5's he's been craving. So my mission every weekend is to get him his PB. I tell him what I think will work best under the current conditions and advise him on technique. If I catch something decent I immediately have him use that same lure. But he's an impatient 11 year old... So we're out yesterday and we've caught a few Crappie and some smaller bass. He had some hits on a beetle spin but it can be a difficult hookset with that small hook and bigger fish. So I told him, "Throw that big green and white spinner bait." Nope. He's having none of it. He's bummed out and doesn't want to fish. "C'mon Matt, put on that spinner bait and throw it right over there." But he'd rather sit and not fish. So I grab the spinner bait, threw it exactly where I told him to throw it, and on the first cast pulled in a 4.5 pounder. And I felt bad about it. I really want him to get his PB. And no, he wasn't happy either. But he was mad at himself and not at me. Maybe next time he'll listen to the Old Man. (But I have to admit it was pretty cool calling that shot. Kind of felt like Babe Ruth in the '32 World Series there for a moment.)

Love it! It's the first frog out of my tackle bag.

Nice pun!

Over the summer the only thing I caught on a Rat-L-Trap was a Bluegill. I have no idea why a fish with a mouth that small would hit a big lure like that. So far this fall the Rat-L-Traps has been the top big bass producer for me this fall. Can't wait to toss it again later today!

A good reason not to kiss a fish - you might die: " The man was kissing the Dover sole in celebration of his catch when the six-inch (14cm) fish wriggled out of his hand and jumped into his mouth, a friend said." http://www.***.com/news/uk-england-dorset-41598493