This might be a fun weekend

[Koz]

That is, if the thunderstorms hold off. My plan was to be out on my kayak all day, but the weather is calling for thunderstorms in the morning and later afternoon.

 

The other day I fished off the docks of my hotel for about 30 minutes, and every time my bait hit the water it sent the baitfish jumping and scattering. Then I started hearing some big splashes. In the back end of the lagoon the bass were pinning the baitfish up against a seawall and just feasting. It was constant blowups the entire time I was out there.

 

I saw some decent size (3-4 pound) bass breach the surface as they were feeding, but it was out of my casting range as there are a few trees that blocked casting to that area and I did not want to go on the neighbor's property. But I still landed four 1 - 1.5 pounders within that thirty minutes.

 

But Lake Oconee is in rough shape right now after the severe storms last week. There's a lot of flotsam and jetsam throughout the lake, but where it piles up and the end of coves it does provide some cover. But the sedimentation is unreal. See the picture below.

 

Last weekend I kayaked to a cove about 2.5 miles away (45-50 minute pedal) that I had not fished before, but the water was even murkier then. I landed a few, and saw one bigger girl breach but couldn't get her to bite. I want to fish there again this weekend and was planning to hit another cover further out, but I'm not sure if I want to head out that far with impending storms. Both these coves have access to deeper water than is found around my hotel, and there are a few points I passed on last weekend because it was really windy on open water. Maybe I'll just try my cove first down in the area I could not reach when bank fishing.

 

Other than a few 4 pounders, I haven't run into any decent sized bass so far, but it is exciting that the numbers are coming back on Oconee this year.

[Koz]

Well, that was a bust. I woke up Saturday with blurry vision that took 5-6 hours to clear up and by then I was binge watching Ted Lasso and didn't feel like heading out.

 

I headed out today and the weather was beautiful - for a while. It took me about an hour to pedal out to where I wanted to fish, and after less than 30 minutes the clouds rolled in and the wind changed. The showers and thunderstorms were due in much later in the day, but being that far out I didn't want to take a chance so I headed back.

 

As luck would have it, the storms held off. But I got some good exercise in today, so there's that.

 

I'm finding that I don't like making long pedals to get to a fishing spot. Now I don't mind covering miles and miles drifting and fishing most of the time, but these long runs to get to one particular spot are no fun. It's days like today that I miss bank fishing bank in SC where I could hit dozens of lagoons in a day.