For those who don't know, the hot side of Lake Anna is a series of 3 cooling pools from the power plant totaling to somewhere in the ballpark of 3,000 acres I think. 

  I went kayak fishing there yesterday with my brother and two of my friends, this was our first time taking a fishing trip there. We launched at dike 3, the water there was 55 degrees and I had caught a 12"er on a jerkbait before we even got all the kayaks in the water, my friend caught a 15"er on a shakyhead shortly after that, and my little brother landed two on a 3XD---All within 30 minutes of launching, a very good sign. We decided to explore some so we paddled about 2 miles before stopping to fish, the water was up to 58 degrees at this point (getting closer to the plant). My brother and my friend Kevin stopped to fish a school they marked on the bottom on a drop off that went from 18' to 30', and my brother caught a nice chunky 4 pounder vertical jigging a 1/2oz redeye shad. My friend Ethan and I fished a couple of docks, and found a good school of dinks that were eating drop shots pretty well, we caught about 6 of them before heading on.

  From that point we paddled all the way to dike 2, only stopping once to fish a school we marked in 40 FOW, we landed 3 catfish and assumed that was all that was down there, but then I landed a little largemouth, by far my deepest bass ever. The water at dike 2 (a very long riprap bank) was 64 degrees and the dinks were schooled up cruising the bank.We fished weightless plastics, drop shots, and shakyheads, landing a bunch of them in the hour and a half we spent there. After that bite started shutting down, we went to fishing drop shots and shakeyheads in about 12-15 FOW  parallel to the riprap, we caught some more of the usual 12-13" bass, I got one that was 15".

   So overall we didn't catch anything of size besides the 4lber, but to crush the dinks in the middle of December was something I needed BADLY. Next time we go I think we will try to work on those offshore fish some more, this was my first time catching offshore bass successfully. 

This would be the average size, but in December I don't care how big they are!

Here was the little one I caught 40 feet deep

WTG on the December Bass

 

Great Pics too

 

btw - the Santa was a nice touch. 

 

A-Jay

Excellent report and great pics.

 

Like A-Jay, the Santa hat added some fun to the pics.

 

The Hot Side is unusual to fish.  You can be freezing your fanny off and fishing in 60* water.

 

Everything is a$$ backwards.

 

Sent you a PM.

Thank you.  Much appreciated the report!

Excellent report and great pics.

 

Like A-Jay, the Santa hat added some fun to the pics.

 

The Hot Side is unusual to fish.  You can be freezing your fanny off and fishing in 60* water.

 

Everything is **** backwards.

 

Sent you a PM.

We said, there are no rules when the water is hovering around a temperature that the bass are supposed to spawn in!

Got to love those warm water discharges! It's the only thing that keeps me sane in the winter 

Good going!