Fairtax4me

Pics from my adventures over the last few weeks. Had one of the best fishing days I’ve ever had at a small mountain lake. Caught my first ever Northern Pike, somewhere in the area of 30 LM bass, and a couple small smallmouths out of the river that feeds the lake. Several LM in the 2-3lb range, one that went 4.5lbs, and a couple smallies in the 2-3lb range out of local waters! Then caught a pile of rainbow trout this last week fishing mountain streams in the Western NC area. Heading to a couple other local lakes today and tomorrow, and hoping the whack weather over the past few days here hasn’t stirred the water up too bad.

I thought it was just me because I’ve been in the mountains for the last week and have had very patchy service anyway, and I’m in the “tornados and flooding” part of the country. No errors have shown for me yet, but if I get one I’ll post it.

Similar experience here. Caught over 20 in an hour fishing a 10 acre pond last week. Spinner bait or swim bait in shallow water over grass or near wood cover. I had started with a 3” swim bait, and caught about a dozen pretty quick, then changed to the spinner bait for a larger bait, and that brought a couple bigger bites. Including a 4.5lb out of less than a foot of water. This was very clean water, mid 50s surface temp, and we’ve had midday temps in the upper 60s to low 70s, and low 40s overnight temps for a couple weeks now. Throw Something that swims. When the water starts to cool off bass get fired up and into feeding mode when they know the winter is coming. They will very likely be in all depths of water in a deeper reservoir, which can make them difficult to find if they decide they don’t want to eat that day. A smaller pond, they will more likely be in shallower water and will be willing to chase down and hammer a moving bait.

So I’ve caught bass that have yellowish coloration before. I know that FL strain bass tend to have yellow coloring. Have caught plenty of those, and they’re usually pretty distinct. I’ve never caught any bass that was this color before. This fish came from a Cold mountain water lake. About 40 acres, mid to upper 50s water temp, with clean clear water. Between my buddy and I, we caught probably a dozen fish on this trip that had this type of color. Very prominent Bright Orange on the lips, mouth, fins, and belly. Basically anywhere on a bass that would normally be white, these were orange like they been eating Cheetos. We caught a few that were sort of in between, and all the rest (majority of the fish we caught) were normal colored northern strain LMB. I just don’t know what would cause this kind of coloration. Anybody?

Sorry for your loss. I hope you’re not heartbroken about the ex-wife. If she left you when things got tough, she wasn’t worth it anyway. Keep rippin those lips!

Seeing Deep having a blast on Lake Faraway I thought about going there today, but decided against that since we just got smacked hard with a cold front and a lot of cold rain. Figured the bass there would be Po’d for a few days. Back on the james river today not with huge hopes, but I was in a very promising area that I’ve never fished from the kayak but have seen monsters there fishing it from the bank. First fish of the morning on a whopper plopper 130, easily 4lb smallie, mitt have been close to new PB territory. After having it pull me Upstream against heavy current I get it over to the kayak and INCHES from the net it backflips and shakes the hook. Gaaaahhhhh!!! Fish two I hook on a 4” swim bait and gamakatsu I think jig head hook. Solid 2.5lbs, It jumps three times, I get it to the kayak and somehow it shakes the hook under water. Fish three within a 50 yard stretch. Different swim bait, VMC jig head. Nails the thing, hook set, fish immediately goes airborn like a rocket and as soon as it’s out of the water the bait flies over my shoulder. That was all the excitement of the morning before 7am. I didn’t get bit again until after 11. Finally caught my first of the day on a small jerkbait. Spend another hour chucking that with 0 takers. Time for lucky ned! Noonish I Found a submerged log that produced three small brownies, and a flathead! Not that big, but was a really fun fight on the ultralight! Another hour later I got one more good brown fish on the ned rig, and it made the drag scream on the ultralight! Thought I would never get it to the net! Something like 2.5lbs. About 4:00 I got one more maybe 1lb, and an itty bitty smallie on the ned rig on the way back to the ramp to head home.

Spots are all kinds of fun! If you ask me it’s just a smallmouth with different colors.

I think she wanted to eat that 5” swim bait! 19” long, just under 4lbs! Caught just a little after sunrise. Caught about a dozen today mostly smaller. One was maybe 2lbs. Bite was tough but I could get some of them to eat IF I could get a lure in front of them. They wanted to follow around all the enormous clouds of bait minnows that were out drifting around. So getting their attention meant doing a lot of chucking and winding, and hoping to get a bait within the 3 feet of visibility where they could see it!

Nice save A-Jay! One more reason to use better line and make sure to re-tie your knots. I caught one one over the winter that had a very small circle hook in its mouth, line still attached, that disappeared down its throat. I removed the hook but the line would not budge, so I trimmed it off. Then it had about 3 feet of tangled line and a couple split shot weights hanging out the other end. It was obviously still eating, and still able to “go” because it went all over my hand as I attempted to lightly tug to see if that line would come out. It wouldn’t budge, at least not easily, so I cut the tangle of weights off, released the fish and hoped for the best.

Fish it while you can. Theres an old farm pond about 2 hours from me that is now part of a fair sized wildlife management area and very popular for trout fishing. It also had a very healthy population of smallmouth bass. My buddy and I fished there several times and have caught tood numbers and he has caught several smallmouth over 20” out of there. We went there to fish it a few weeks ago to find it totally empty. A couple of puddles about 50 feet wide and 150 feet long were all that remained, and in those were about 50 stock sized trout and a hundred or so bluegill that were barely hanging on. Scattered along the banks were the carcasses and skeletons of several hundred smallmouth bass, some that were probably in the 22”, 5lb range. The drain pipe at the base of the dam failed, and the entire pond drained. VDGIF has no apparent plans to repair the drain structure, because the dam itself is well over 70 years old. It may take several years for them to repair it, if they choose to repair it at all. Fishing for anything there may not be viable for another 10 years or more. If they at least have a plan to repair the damaged area that’s a plus, but if there are 8+lb smallmouth in there now. You NEED to fish for them Now! If they have to drain the entire lake, it may take 15-20 years for the biggest smallmouth in the lake to grow to that size again.

More pics that wouldn’t upload before! Thanks for the comments guys! It was a great trip!

My fishing buddy and I have been itching to take the kayaks on a camping trip and fish for as long as we possibly can, and last weekend we finally got the chance. The weather and our schedules lined up, and on Saturday morning at 4:30am we rolled out for the upper James river. We hit the water shortly after 6:30 after loading the kayaks with gear and coolers, cracked a cold breakfast beer, and headed upstream. Our target was about 4 miles from where we put in, and we knew the first 3 miles, but really didn’t have a clue what we would get into in the final stretch. Most of the water we skipped over on the way except a few spots we know that have produced fish in the past. Not much happening this morning, but I managed a couple itty bitty smallies on the ultra-light, and one tiny spotted bass. Back to paddling we stopped at a few rock points and picked up a handful of 8-12” smallmouth, and I found a few small largemouth hanging out in the slack current. Not exactly what we’re after but still fun to catch on the ultra-light. And the same goes for the next few spots until we reached out first “big” spot, where the river re-joins at the base of an island. Lots of current there and a 15 foot deep hole that’s a favorite spot among locals who know what hides there. We both picked off a couple better brown fish here, but still not quite what we’re after. Heavy current on both sides of the island but one side is shallow enough to get out and pull the yaks through, while the other side is 6-8 feet deep most of the way up. We paddle on and we start getting bit more consistently in areas of current and breaks right off the current. We’re now in water that only sees jet boats on occasion, and not many people bother to paddle this far up. Once we clear the island our next big spot comes up in a few hundred yards, the outlet of a turbine house for one of the many small hydro-electric stations along this upper stretch of the river. Lots of current and big rocks scattered around for fish to hide behind. They weren’t in the rocks today. After fishing for more than an hour without a bite, I dropped anchor on a small point right on the edge of the heaviest current and tossed a 3/8pz jig into the foaming churning water coming directly out of the chutes. Swimming it back in the current and BAM! It gets hammered, I set the hook on the first good smallie of the day, about 2.5 lbs! I reset and re-tie, and a few casts later BAM, another good smallmouth! This one was probably 3.5lbs but it jumps right next to the kayak and shakes the hook. I cast in again and on the very next cast BAM, set the hook on another solid fish! I net this one and it weighs in at 3lbs on the nose! I’m onto them now, and I’ve got a pattern! We spend another 20-30 minutes there and I get one other smaller fish and have a few bites that only result in lost claws off my jig trailer, so we move on into the un-known stretch of river. Lots of big rocks and heavy current between them, and no way a boat is getting up this far. We have to get out and pull the kayaks through 4 or 5 more areas in about a half mile stretch. Along the way we’re flipping jobs and small swim baits into the current and picking off smallmouth! Everything from 10 inchers to 2.5lbers! It’s a little after 2:00 now and we’ve both started racking up numbers, probably 20 fish total between the two of us. Anywhere there’s current, there’s a fish! But you catch one, and have to move to the next current chute to find anoher one. We make it through Boulder City and round the bend and then we finally see our destination, Holcomb Rock dam. And the place is beautiful! Perfect current spilling all the way across the dam, and we can paddle right up to it to fish! We immediately found a perfect spot to set up camp, got the tent set up and took a short break to eat some snacks and have another cold brew. We fished on foot a few spots on the dam and we both caught several fish in the 2-3lb range. Then hopped back in the kayaks and fished all across the dam and down stream about 200 yards through the high current spots. We saw tons of good fish, and managed to catch a handful. The bite wasn’t stellar, but the spot sure was! Around 8pm we took a break to cook dinner and have another couple cold ones, and talk about the fun of the day so far. After dinner we paddled back over to the dam and fished by the light of the moon and our headlamps! Probably crazy AF but I caught one more 2.5lber and my buddy caught a couple good ones and lost a giant something that we figured was probably a catfish. It pulled him around for about 45 seconds but never broke the surface. 11:30 we finally hang it up and head for bed. Next morning 6am I wake to the sound of a train horn as it approaches a crossing on the other side of the river. It’s just getting light out, and that means top-water time! I crawl out of the tent, crack a cold ice coffee, and grab a rod and a whopper plopper. Nothing doing on that so I switched up to a buzz bait, and then to a hollow frog. Caught a 2lber on the frog so I kept that on and headed up to the corner of the dam. Made a couple casts into the churning foamy water and then about halfway through my retrieve on one cast, suddenly noticed my frog was gone! No blowup, not even a little splash, just slurped under and then I felt the line start to pull just a bit. I set the hook and immediately a huge smallmouth jumps 4 feet out of the water! I have to scramble to get down off the rock I’m on and into the water, and the fish is running and jumping all over the place. Not much room to work with between rocks and a tree trunk that’s washed up in the corner, but it eventually tired out and I landed my biggest fish of the trip! 3.9lbs and 19.5”! I’ve tried for a long time for a smallmouth on a hollow body frog and have never had one strike until this trip. Made it that much more awesome to catch a freakin stud smallie on the frog! We continued to fish top waters and then switched to jigs as the sun came up. My buddy got his big fish of the trip, a 4.0lb 19.5” tank, and by about 9am as the sun was fully up our bite had pretty well shut off, or the fish had wised up to us. We broke to eat some breakfast and cracked a couple more cold brewskis. We tried a few other different tactics and had limited success through about noon. At this point we knew the fun was over, and we needed to start packing up to head back. We fished the dam one more time and then started back downstream. Got a couple more smaller fish going through the boulder field, and I had about a 25” Muskie come up and crash a small swim bait about 10 feet from me. Way cool to watch it smash that bait, but the 8lb line stood no chance against those teeth! Driftint back downstream I couldn’t even get a dink on a micro-jig at this point, and then we rounded the next bend to find the wind coming out of the east. The wind was quite a bit stronger than the current, so if we stopped paddling for a few seconds it was turning us back up-stream. We had to fight the current getting there, and now have to fight the wind getting back. We make the boat ramp parking lot about 8pm. Load the gear and strap the yaks to the trailer and head for home. I finally make it home that night about 11:30, thoroughly pumped from the awesome catches of the weekend, and thoroughly exhausted. Trying to get photos sized down so they’ll upload... this may take a while

The 5.1, and a couple other solid bass!

Howdy folks! I haven’t been on much lately, I’ve got some catching up to do here, looks like a lot of nice fish being caught out there in the BR world! Life has has been a bit busy. Not too busy to fish, but for some odd reason I just haven’t made regular posts on the BR lately. I’ve lurked a few times though. Fishing hasn’t been exactly prime the last few months. After mid spring it has been a dink fest, but with an occasional nice 4-5lb fish thrown in the mix. Fishing some local ponds and lakes from the bank or from the kayak when I get a chance. I did just just get back from a stellar smallmouth trip, which I’ll make another post about with some in depth on how I caught my second largest smallie, and my best number of good sized smallmouth. I’ve had plenty of high number days catching 8-14” smallies, but this trip I got on some bigguns, and was able to keep a pattern going that caught me somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 smallmouth over 2lbs. Other notable catches are my biggest largemouth yet from the kayak. A 5.1lb 21” fish out of the Shenandoah river. I caught that one and two other largemouth out of the exact same tree all within 10 minutes of each other. The large bass may have eluded me for a while, but I was still able to pile up tons of small smallies and largies from some local waters. I think now getting into late summer I’m getting back into a groove. I’ve also been on the hunt for new fishing spots that get less pressure now that I’ve got comfortable on the kayak. Let the stud-fest continue!!!

I like the SLX but I don’t think it compares to the old Curados. It’s still an entry level reel. Not to say they cut corners, but they had to cut corners somewhere to get that reel built to sell for $100. That said, I’m buying another one soon. And when they wear out I’ll probably buy some more.

I bought a Shimano SLX exactly for this purpose. I don’t run crankbaits as often as other lures, but I needed another decent low ratio reel. Having run some $100 range Lews and Abu reels in the past I figured I should give the SLX a try since my curado 200 and 70 reels have been stellar since I bought those. Smaller crankbaits and squarebills it does very well with IMO. Very easy to wind them in with the 6:1 ratio. I also like it for jerk baits and for slow reeling small swim baits. The very first fish I caught on it was a 3.5lb smallmouth on a 3” rage swimmer. Also caught several other 3-4lb largemouth that day, and within a few trips after that I landed a 6.2 largemouth on the same lure. I’ve thrown that reel a LOT over the last few months and it still feels like a great reel. I don’t expect it to last as long as the more expensive shimano reels, but it’s still a solid reel and definitely better IMO than other reels I’ve used in that price range. I have fished crankbaits plenty with my curado 70, but it’s the 8:1 ratio so they take a bit of work. In a 7 or 6 ratio I think that would be an excellent reel for crankbaits. The curado 200 was the first shimano feel I bought and I’ve fished the heck out of it for two years now and it still feels as nice as the day I bought it. Everything from jigs and worms, to crankbaits, swim baits, and A-rigs I’ve thrown on the 200 and it’s still buttery smooth. If you’re decided on a Shimano, I think it just comes down to how much you want to spend, but I don’t think you’ll regret any of them.

I don’t blame you one bit. I had looked at the SS series and really liked it but wasn’t ready to plunk down that much on a yak at this time, and I figured a slightly smaller kayak would suit me better for where I want to fish. I don’t think you can go wrong with any Bonafide.

I just bought a Bonafide RS117 and I can tell you it is definitly stable, and there is plenty of room at least IMO, to stand and fish for hours at a time. The longest I’ve had it out so far was a 7 hour day last week. Aside from sitting to paddle to different spots of the lake and the 35 minute paddle back to the ramp in the 15mlh head wind, I was standing the entire time. I dont have great balance to start with, so I wanted something in the “super stable” category and the RS impressed me the very first time I put it on water. I stepped on and paddled away from the bank while standing. It will rock side to side, but if I shift my weight just right, I can stand on one leg on one side of the boat and it will not try to tip. On rougher water with boats wakes or big rolling waves that’s going to be different. I have a hard time standing on dry land at times, but I can easily pop up and stand on the RS. I imagine an SS would be even better since it’s a wider and heavier boat. That one was on my short list, but my decision came down to budget and the idea that a slightly smaller yak would be better for what I want to do, which is smaller lakes and small rivers with areas of class 1 and 2 rapids. I haven’t taken it on a river yet, we had heavy rain last week that pushed river levels and current up, and lots of rain today which will probably have most rivers in my area at or near flood stage. I’m sure it will perform just fine, if river levels ever get back to normal.

Paddled 12+ ft kayaks, yes. “Fishing” kayaks 12+, no, or at least not for any length of time. I did try out an Atak 140 at a splash and test day that a local company here has every year but time was limited. The other “fishing” kayaks I’ve been in were 10-12 feet. This paddles very well when under way, and it tracks well, and it continues to coast straight, or at least mostly straight if you stop paddling. I wouldn’t call it fast. Average is about right, but it’s definitly better than some of the cheaper kayaks I’ve been in. I haven’t checked speed with a GPS or anything but I’d guess at an easy pace I do 3-4mph. Usually I’m paddling fairly easy and making a point to not splash around too much so I’m going a bit slower, but really don’t have to put too much effort into it to move at a decent pace. I was paddling directly into a steady 15mph wind with gusts into the 20s the last time out, and that certainly slowed it down but I was still more than able to move forward. Turn on a dime, depends what you mean by that. Yes it can turn a complete circle in place. It doesn’t turn like a white water kayak or a sit-in river kayak. But it does turn better than a 16ft canoe. Wind will always be your frienemy no matter which kayak you get. Sitting down and paddling or fishing it balances well and tracks relatively well in wind. I’ll say it handles how I expected it to for being a relatively tall boat. It does have a tendency to be nose heavy when I’m standing up (weight shifts slightly forward), so if the wind is behind me it will push the back end around. I already knew to expect that, as boat balance makes a huge difference in how it handles wind. The back is also where the highest point of the boat, seat, rods, net, gear crate, etc., are so it naturally catches the most wind. I don’t have a ton of gear with me yet, and I expect that adding a few pounds to the rear would make some difference. I don’t have an anchor system right now because I wanted to see how it handles wind before drilling holes for a trolley system or possibly dropping the $$ on an anchor wizard. I would say if you weigh more than 200lbs, and you primarily plan to stand up when fishing, you probably will want a longer boat. Heres a pic of the scum line the lake left on it the other day so you can have some idea of how it sits in the water. I’m 170lbs, have maybe 25lbs worth of tackle, drinks, other gear primarily under or behind the seat. The sonar and battery might weigh 5lbs altogether.

I use 8lb Flouroclear as leader material on my medium spinning setup. Tie an 8 turn uni-knot and I have had no problems with break offs unless it was clearly due to abrasion. Keep in mind it is a budget line. I wouldn’t say it’s garbage, but it’s cheap to buy for a reason. Flouroclear is NOT a true fluorocarbon line, it does not have the strength of a true flouro line. That said, I don’t use it as main line. I did try it in 15lb on medium heavy baitcast setup and it was too stretchy for my liking, plus it tended to have memory issues, and it was not as abrasion resistant as I would like. I fish a lot of brush and wood cover, and Seaguar AbrazX has done very well for me for several years now. I tried Pline tactical in two different sizes last year and had problems with abrasion on both of them. I do use Pline Xbraid Teflon Coated in 10, 15, 40, 50, and 65lb sizes and love it! I literally can’t break the 65. The only downside I’ve found is it’s so slick I have to tie it through the holes in the spool or else it will slip around the spool.

Weightless soft plastics or top water baits that don’t get down to the grass will probably be your only option. Try a hollow frog, or 3/8oz buzz bait. Flukes or stick baits will work as well. Twitch them on the surface then kill them in pockets in the grass. I cast 5” and larger weightless stick baits on 40lb and 65lb braid, depending on where I’m fishing. If you’re fishing thick grass, anything less than 40 will not be able to get a fish out of the grass.

For me a “fish finder” is less useful than knowing water temp and depth. Even the best “fish finder” won’t tell you anything if you have no idea of where to look in the first place. Water temp and depth are really the only reason I have sonar on my kayak. $100 for a 4” Lowrance unit and a $30 ES4L battery that will run the unit all day long (12 hours +) and not go below 50% charge level. Especially on a small body of water, water temp is going to primarily tell me where the fish are, or at least, should be. If you’re fishing large bodies of water GPS is useful. Side scan is nice but hardly required. Sonar doesn’t typically work well in water that’s less than maybe a foot and a half, but if you need to fish shallower than that, you don’t need sonar anyway. Almost all units will work fine in depths of 2 feet down to whatever they’re rated to, unless you have something made for offshore that needs to read 1,000+ feet deep. You’re probably not putting that size unit on a kayak. You would need a 75lb battery to run it for more than a few minutes. If you’ve never used a sonar unit before, all the different settings will drive you nuts. Ultimately it comes down to what you want on your yak, and what your budget is. The bigger the unit, the higher the price tag. But IMO that’s a lot of fluff for fishing primarily shallow water, where simply reading the water should tell you where you need to fish.

Hit a mountain lake yesterday. Wacky rigged 4” senko was all I could get them to eat. They were sitting 5-15 feet deep on trees, literally sitting on the tree. Stomachs touching the trunk. 54° Super clear water. Found a school of trout swimming around just below the surface that were all Giants, but none of them had any interest in the lures I had tied on at the time. Caught a few dink bass then the bluebird calm sunny turned to cloudy windy, then a thunderstorm rolled in so I called it and went home. Kinda rainy cloudy back home, but figured what the heck I’ll go down to the pond for a few hours. Grabbed a rod and a bag of 5” Yum dingers. Bass and bluegill everywhere! Landed 5 and missed several others, but one was a Hawg! 5.9lbs, and she just touched 22”! citation baby!

I know some of you guys have to be OCD about your kayaks being clean. I’m not at that level that mine has to be spotless, but having that grimey stuff from the lake on the sides and dirt and leaves and stuff in the floor and inside just bothers me. I clean it after every trip. Usually stuff just rinses off or comes off somewhat easily with a brush and car wash soap. But today I got into a real mess. Most of it came off, but it took some work, and regular wash soap just ain’t cutting it. So what do you guys who keep your yaks clean use to wash this kinda grime off with after a trip? I have some stuff I can put on the hull that will help keep this from happening again, but I need it CLEAN first before I put the stuff on. The second pic inside Its hard to see the splotches of brown goo, but they’re all over around from splashing up through the scupper holes.