With winter upon us, I haven't been out on my kayak in about a month. I simply don't enjoy getting out there when it's both cold and windy. I had fished off the dock and bank at my house on Lake Sinclair, but I've caught only two largemouth bass all winter when doing that. But for the past few days I've had success catching alternative species, and today was no different.

 

An emergency at the hotel meant I was up all night and had been up for 27 hours by the time I got home. I napped for a few hours, but did not want to sleep all day so I got up and my son and I had a nice Christmas afternoon dinner. To try and stay awake I decided to fish for a bit. The temperature was in the mid fifties, but a stiff breeze in my face kept me chilly and prevented the long bomb casts that I really needed.

 

Armed with my trusty 7'4" Cashion Icon FFS spinning rod paired with a Daiwa Procyon 2500 I tied on a 5" Damiki Armor Shad to do some minnow shaking. I caught a few small striped bass, but then landed a nice striper that came in just under 22". After about 40 minutes I got cold and packed it in, but returned just as the sun had set behind the trees while my dog had his after dinner outing. With the same setup I landed a nice 15 1/2" crappie.

 

It's hard to tell in the photo because it's spilling over the Ketch board, but the striper had some girth to it. I would guess it weighed about 5 pounds. The crappie was a good size. I probably should start keeping them and eating them.

 

The photos are below. And yes, the fish grippers are still on the fish while on the Ketch board. It's cold out, the water is cold, and I didn't have my winter fishing gloves on and I didn't want to ice up my hands. So the measurements may actually be slightly smaller. But it's my fish tale 😀

 

The crappie and stripers seem to be schooling in the wide creek channel where I live, and hopefully it's not to windy on Saturday and I can chase them down with my kayak and Livescope and have a fun day out there. I'm really enjoying catching the stripers as they put up a good fight.

 

 

Nice ones! 

Good uns 

Excellent. 

Stripers are so much fun. 

Nice!

Nice Striper and a slab of a Crappie, Koz!

FM

On 12/25/2024 at 9:52 PM, Skunkmaster-k said:

Stripers are so much fun. 

 

Agreed!

 

Well done, Koz

Great job finding success in the cold!