Koz

You have to launch and land from their list of published launches. Lots of guys launch at one place and fish for a bit, then load up on the trailer and launch from another spot,

Sounds good. Weekdays often work better as I have my kids’ fishing program and other activities at the hotel on weekends.

I’m jumping into the deep end and I’ll be in that tournament in a few weeks. I’ve never fished there before so I’m going in blind, but I will be practicing on the 17th and maybe in the afternoon on the 16th. I have a few spots picked out to fish, but some are 3 - 8 miles from boat ramps. That’s probably too much travel time and not enough fishing time. It’s time to go study some maps for a week and find spots other than Goose Pond.

We should get together sometime and fish Oconee or Sinclair. I live in the Buck Creek area of Sinclair, near Haslam’s Marina. You’re right about the boat traffic, especially on this narrow lake. Now that it’s getting hot I’ll probably be doing some night fishing as well.

I was going to say fish the points, but looking at the depth map and your water temperature I'm not so sure. I'd move away from the banks and look for suspended fish along the ledges. I'd also look at fishing some of the underwater points that are near where the bass will spawn.

The Damiki Rig is a technique that uses a specialized jig head and a plastic minnow. The line tie is on top of the jig head instead of at the nose so when it's lowered in the water the minnow sits level. It's used in conjunction with forward facing sonar as it works best when you suspend the bait about a foot on top of the bass. This technique dominated the first 2 or 3 Bassmaster events this season.

We’ve seen how FFS has impacted pro bass fishing with many elite pros moping / strolling with a suspended minnow. Do you think any of the pros will try a plastic minnow hanging under a bobber? Before answering, think about it for a minute. Let’s say it’s a cold water event or a hot summer event and there are a lot of bass suspended at 12 feet but when the angler gets close the bass are spooked by the FFS ping. So the next time the pro stops outside of spook range, sets the minnow at 11 feet under the bobber, and makes a long cast to the suspended bass. As bass get more sensitive to the constant ping of FFS, I think this is a real possibility.

Ask @flatcreek I think he’s fished there a lot.

Big cotton candy or green pumpkin on a Texas Rig. If I’m a tournament co-angler and the boater is using FFS in deeper water leaving me fishing in the blind this is what I throw for a bottom contact bait.

Before I bought my Autpilot I really liked my pedal kayak. It didn’t take long to get to a point where everything became intuitive where I would jog the pedals and bump the rudder to maintain relative position without missing a beat while fishing. But let me tell you, it is much easier with spot lock. But again, intuitiveness still comes into play. For example, when I hook on to a fish while in a tight spot I will grab the iPilot remote hanging around my neck and kill the motor or pop on spot lock without looking at the buttons or even thinking about it while still reeling in the catch. Have fun with your new kayak!

They are tolerable on a normal fishing day, but on tournament day they are aggravating as heck.

It was ridiculous. On tournament day my boater caught one that was at least 30 and another about 20. I fished for an hour after work yesterday and managed to avoid the catfish and land a couple of 3 pound LMB. One was an FFS catch and the other was targeting docks. Now that I am figuring it out I am enjoying FFS.

I ran the gamut this weekend fishing off my back yard, as a co-angler in a tournament, then out on my kayak. On Friday evening I was setting up my gear for the Saturday tournament and experimenting with different jig head / swimbait / minnow combos with various rod & reel combos. As a co-angler, I don't want to pack the kitchen sink and I was trying to limit myself to 3 rods and 4 trays plus a few bags of plastics. I really, really, really like the Reaction Innovations Big Dipper and Little Dipper baits and was seeing if I could find a jig head suitable for both sizes to reduce time spent cutting and tying baits while in the tournament. As luck would have it, I landed a nice 4 1/4 pound LMB. And did I mention that the tournament was on my home lake? Off to the tournament the next day and draw a boater with over $100k in career winnings, so I'm hoping he puts us on the fish. But it was brutal out there. The winning boater bag was only 14 pounds and the winning co angler back was only 12 pounds. I had only one keeper on the day for 2.5 lbs, a few that were too small, and a 15 pound catfish. My boater caught 4 for 7 pounds and two big catfish. We fished the same 3 spots all day and on any other day I'd bet those spots would be productive, but the bass weren't biting. I went home and because I can't get enough punishment, fished along my seawall and caught a few two pounders. Too little, too late. So early this morning I was fishing off my backyard again and skipped a Big Dipper under some trees along the shore and caught a few small bass gorging on the shad spawn. Later that morning I skipped under those trees again and pulled out a 15 pound catfish. My son and I ran some errands, I fished off my seawall and I swear I caught that same catfish once again. About 4pm I headed out on my kayak and instead of loading up with everything I packed three rods and four trays instead of bringing 7-9 rods and a crate with 600lbs of tackle (sarcasm on the tackle). I run two graphs on my kayak. The Garmin provides FFS, DI, SI, and Sonar and I used a Helix 7 for mapping. I also have Smartstrike on the Helix. My plan was to fish close to home in the creek channel where I live instead of contending with boat and jet ski traffic. Targets were sea walls and docks, but the wind was a constant 12-14mph with gusts 20+ so I ended up casting around docks instead of setting up and picking them apart. I caught one small one, then headed to an underwater point highlighted by Smartstrike. I'm finally starting to get better with FFS. I don't care what anyone says, it's not as easy as some believe. It would be wonderful if I could set up, toggle on spot lock, then pick apart targets and catch bass all day long. But the reality is that spot lock on a 12 foot kayak getting blown around by swirling winds and current can be a giant pain. So I get the current moving me, spot lock trying to put me into the wind, and then having to keep turning the FFS transducer mount to where on the point I want to look for fish. It doesn't matter if I first position myself with the nose into the wind because the current is trying to move me and the wind is changing direction. I was in 7 feet of water and wishing I had Power Poles. I scoped around the point and targets lit up my FFS display. One of the things about targets is determining their relative size as the size of the target return can be large or small depending upon how far out you're scanning. Lately I have kept my scanning at a constant 60 feet. This way when I see a target I can immediately slow down to a crawl or spot lock so I don't get too close to the target and potentially spook the fish or run past it. I find one of the bigger targets about 45 feet out and cast my trusty Reaction Innovations White Trash Big Dipper out there and it gets hammered right away. I set the hook but then it runs right at me and breaches not once, but twice and that second time it goes past me. It was pure luck that it didn't spit the bait at that point. I didn't have my scale, but it was bigger than the 4 1/4 I caught the other day so I put it at just over 5 pounds even though she was spawned out. I made my way out to the major point at the end of the creek channel but didn't hook up so I swung back around and immediately saw a big target, casted my big dipper, and it hit hard. Catfish. Ugh. This one was was over 10 pounds. I head back towards the underwater point, making blinds casts along the way and BAM - another 12-15 pound catfish on a Big Dipper. I get to the underwater point, don't see anything, and head back towards my house, then spot lock on a secondary point when I see a bunch of targets. But this time I put on a Riot Reactor 1.5 crankbait (check out this crankbait - they have been great for me), take a few casts, and BAM - another 15+ pound catfish. But this one ate the trebles. Ugh. I don't want to get it on the deck of my kayak and slime everything up, so I tire it out so I can grab it with my fish grippers. There's no way I want my hands near those trebles if that big cat starts to thrash again. Then I realize my long pliers are in the crate that I didn't bring and all I have are short pliers. It took me over 10 minutes to get that thing out. I was out there for only about 90 minutes, but I had enough catfish for the night and headed home. It's amazing how aggressive the catfish have been hitting everything. I have never seen that before. My guess is that the shad spawn has them in a frenzy. One good bass made it a good day, but what made it a better day was FFS is pulling me out of my comfort zone. When I fish, I prefer to pound the banks and docks. Some of that is because I fish out of a kayak and I try to stay away from boats and jet skis. But the other part is as a kayak angler and bank angler that banks and docks have been my comfort zone and now I'm moving away from that. I'm also throwing different baits and working on new techniques as I work with FFS.

Most of the cicadas in my area are a little bit off in the distance. Their sound reminds me of the hovering UFO's in 1950's B movies.

Make him pick out his own backlashes. He’ll learn very quickly to thumb the spool. I have a couple of Curado DC’s that I like to use when fishing in pitch black darkness.

I’m a braid angler. But if the water is clear or I’m using finesse type baits I will add a flouro leader.

I have a small a tournament this weekend and a small Pop-R will be part of my arsenal. Light tugs do a good job of imitating a cicada on the surface.

That was the odd thing last night. With the cicadas flapping on the top of the water not one stray fish gobbled them up. I was hoping for a feeding frenzy.

Congrats! New toys are F-U-N.

The cicadas are starting to emerge in my neck of the woods although not nearly as bad as in some areas. I saw a story about Newberry, SC where people were calling the police because of the constant sirens all night long. It was the cicadas. I was out fishing in my back yard this evening and saw a few flop into the water. Oddly enough, not one predator fish went after them. Later in the evening their were bait balls everywhere and not one predator fish chasing them that I could see. I tossed spinnerbaits and minnows for an hour and not a single strike. Odd since last week the fishing was very good off my dock. I haven't been out on my kayak in over a week, but my guess is that with the full moon the spawn started up in my section of the lake and the bass pulled out of the area for a while. I've got a tournament here on Saturday and I hope I can find a section of post spawn lake where the bass are getting active again. Have the cicadas emerged in your area yet?

This is the question that almost every amateur angler asks themselves every time they head out. It’s also the question almost every pro angler knows the answer to BEFORE they head out.

I have a safety flag and nav lights on my kayak and a whistle clipped to my vest. But it can still be scary out there. The lakes I fish now are dammed up rivers, so they are comprised of a twisty, narrow main channel and both big and small creek channels. What that means is tight traffic throughout most of the lake. Where it gets scary is when I have to cut across the main channel to get where I need to go. I look for where it’s narrowest and make my way across at 3 mph keeping my head on a swivel at all times. If a boat comes perpendicular to me, when it starts to get close I may turn parallel to its path. Because the lakes are so narrow the only time I fish the main channel is early in the morning. Once the pontoon boats and jet skis hit the water I’m staying in the narrow creek channels as much as possible. That’s too bad because that’s often where the fish are.

Hmmmm... I seem to switch back and forth between favorites. Right now I'm liking my Curado K over my MGL and DC's. I also really like my Lew's Pro SP for pitching and skipping. I have a hankering for a new reel, so tomorrow I'm heading to my local tackle shop and I'm considering a Tatula SV or a Lew's Custom Pro Speed Spool. While I've upped my spending limit on reels the past few years, I still have not crossed the $300 barrier. Update: I bought a Tatula SV TW today. It’s good, not great. Handles feel weird and it doesn’t seem to translate feel of the bait as well as my Curados.

With a jig.

The first one for about a year and 6 months for the second one.