Chasin Bass in Harbuck Heaven

 

 This past week I got the opportunity to chase some green gold with one of the Bayou Pirates Kayak Fishing Club members, Adam Harbuck, in his home waters around the Shreveport/Bossier, La area. 
I was excited about the trip for several reason, 1st I was getting to fish freshwater(always a welcomed change for me), 2nd I was getting to explore some waters that I had never been too, and 3rd we were going to be fishing an oxbow lake that was developed off of the Red River.  I have fished plenty of lakes, marshes, and bays in my life, but fishing an oxbow full of flooded timber, stumps, and never ending grass beds was going to be a first for me.
It didn't take long for me to fall in love, as we crossed over the levee I could see the lake, and it was riddled with cypress trees throughout.  All that was running through my mind was jig and pig and black & blue worms.
Adam was rigged with his infamous spinner bait that I have heard so much about from other Bayou Pirates known to fish with Adam, but against the odds and against local knowledge, I chose to run with the lures that have yielded me larger fish in the past. After all, I was on this trip in hopes of pictures with a double digit largemouth, no way was I gonna throw a spinner.
Well, almost an hour in and only two fish landed, both on a jig & craw, Adam and I crossed paths.  I was fishing the deeper cypress tree riddled bank that was covered in the shade, and Adam was working his way back to where we originally launched.  I was a little confused as to his tactics, but when he told me he already had three bass in the boat, I started to take notice. 
Adam was working the edge of a grass bed as the sun was falling, he knew that the bass would congregate here as the water cooled and the shadows fell over the area.  As I sat and watched Adam land a nice bass on the edge of the grass while working a topwater frog, it didn't take me long to change tactics.

I held my ground until Adam made it several hundreds yards away and then it was on.  I took a 180 and made my way to the grass, the next 8 cast with a puppy spook, landed 5 bass.  I then went to ole faithful, the shad colored fluke.  First cast landed a largemouth in the mid 4 pound range, about 10 cast later landed one in the 6 lbs range, and as the sun fell, I continued to land fish after fish, with a total of 12 in the last hour of daylight.
I continued casting until I saw Adam's headlights come on in his lime green colored Jeep, and at that point, I knew the day was over.  If I didn't have to work early the next day, and Adam was willing to stay, I'm confident I would have sat in that lake until the sun rose the next day, but in no way was I going to push the limits or wear out my welcome. 
Fishing for bass is a past time I grew up on, I have done it for fun, and I have done it competitively, and although today, saltwater fishing is what fuels my fire, bass fishing will always make my blood boil.
I would like to give a very special thanks to Mr. Adam Harbuck and the Bayou Pirates as a whole.  Adam, you were a great host and guide, and I guarantee you that next time, I will heed the words you speak, and to the Pirates, you guys have done a great job promoting and growing the sport of kayak fishing in the northern region of Louisiana, and even if it was only for an evening, I was happy to be associated with all of you.

Until Next Time,

Stay Safe & Catch1

Mississippi Bass'n

 Last week I got a call from a Russ P. asking if I wanted to go to bass fishing in Mississippi and take pictures for an article coming out in Bass Times/Bassmaster Magazine.  Well, being Bill Dance in my own mind, I jumped at the opportunity to make the trip.  Joined with us were Chris F., Nathan B., and Kent, all fairly new to the world of kayaking, but well versed in the world of largemouth bass. 
I left my house around 2 a.m. and met up with Russ at 2:30 and were on our way.  Now remember, our last excursion together, the everglades fiasco, ended in getting lost... and believe it or not, this one started out that way.  After 3 dead end roads, and I think 5 U-turns, we finally made it to the rendezvous point, where we could follow Chris to the launch site.
As we unloaded the yaks in darkness, you could hear fish slapping the water in the distance.  I felt like a kid in Candy Land, and all I wanted to do was get in my Outback and start pedaling.  As the sun began to rise, the lake we were fishing began to take shape, at least the part I could see.  We were surrounded by 128 acres of pure awesomeness.  I listened to stories about not one, but two 14 lbs bass that had been taken from this lake. Being I have only caught one bass that crept into the double digit range, you can't even imagine the things that were running through my mind while listening to these stories.
Then it happend, I heard Kent yelling, I got one, and then Russ, I got one, and then Chris, I just missed one, and finally Nathan, I got one too.  But, what I didn't hear was my own voice, I hadn't caught squat.  I know we were only on the water for 10 minutes so far, but geez, have I lost my touch?  I looked at Russ and grumbled that they must know something that I don't know, Russ only chuckled and agreed.  As if Russ isn't already a 7 foot man of giant proportions, now he is chuckling like the dang Jolly Green Giant, and NO, that didn't help my confidence at all.
Well as the next thirty minutes rolled around, the quad moved toward an island off of a point, while I tucked back into a small flat with some bream beds on it.  I sat there for about 5 minutes looking at all of my rods, while watching bass fly out from a ledge destroying bait hovering over the flats and beds.  I didn't have one lure tied on that I felt confident in.  With that in mind, I tied on my all time favorite, a Fluke.  First cast, fish on, second cast, fish on and with the next 10-15 cast I put 5 bass in the kayak and then released them. 
As I was bringing in the 5th one, I heard Chris yell that it was now time to move in to the larger part of the lake.  I was like, really...now...I get on fish and now I have to go.  But it was all good, they knew this lake better than me, and technically, I was only there to take pictures, yeah right.. that's why I had 5 rods in my blackpack and the camera strapped on the back of Russ' Pro Angler.
As the morning moved on, I went on my own way and the group was supposed to let me know when they got on to fish or landed a good one so I could come get some photos and action shots.  But it seemed that the direction I went was the right one, kind of.  I got on fish at almost every point and stump I came across, the only problem was that they were 8 inches to 2 lbs fish and not the 8-12 lbs I was looking for.
I was able to land a 4 lbs bass and at that point was the largest for the day, and Russ was nice enough to take a few pics for me.  Then Russ landed one in the 4 lbs range, but because he's such a big guy, the minute he thumbed the fish in the water it magically turned from a great largemouth to a tiny bream.  I think a 14 lbs bass in Russ' hands would likely look like a 4 lbs bass in my hands.  The pictures don't lie, and neither does the scale, had I not witnessed the scale, I would have chuckled his chuckle at the said weight of the green pig.
We then moved to another section of the lake to take part in Nathan landing a long and lean 6 lbs largemouth, the fish jumped and splashed like it had a hook in its mouth. Guess that's cause it had a hook in its mouth. It was a beautiful fish to say the least, and was even more awesome to watch her swim away.

 

 After that show of acrobatics, I was now ready to hunker down and chase down a beast of my own.  The sun was up and the shad were beginning to make their way to the surface in the middle of the lake.  This is a site I know all too well from growing up on the Tchefuncte.  I immediately dug in my box and grabbed an old school favorite, the Little George.  I tied it on, pedaled as fast as I could to 15 feet of water and made a cast that seemed to have traveled 200 yards.  I let the lure reach the bottom, stood up, reeled up on the lure until my rod tip touched the water, and with the largest swoop I could, I raised the rod tip, straight armed, as high above my head as possible getting on my toes at times, and then let the lure fall, and then BAM, fish on. It was a solid 3 lbs bass, and it didn't stop there.  I landed somewhere between 10-15 bass within the next 30 minutes doing this technique.  I know the others were looking back at me doing this insane looking jig & jive move, but as it has in times past, it was working, I can only imagine what I looked like out there.  Growing up on the river and knowing the ledges and holes, this technique always yielded me big bass and I can recall the day my dad taught me this move.  I can hear me saying it today, "what the heck are you doing? Are you trying to scare everything in a 2 mile radius?'' But that day was a lesson in humility, he schooled me like a 3rd grader going into a college organic chemistry class.  After that day, I rarely questioned my dads fishing knowledge or abilities, I just learned to watch and listen.  About three weeks after perfecting the move,  I remember fishing a tournament and in less than thirty
minutes, landed a 5 fish stringer that went over 20 lbs to win the event, but on this lake, the big girls weren't falling for it.  The only conclusion I could figure out was that the water hadn't warmed up enough, the sun wasn't high enough, and the shad weren't as active as they would have been later in the evening.  Unfortunately I had to be in the truck by noon, so today I wasn't going to find out if my theory was correct or not.
Before leaving I eased on over to another point covered in lilies and dropped a Texas rigged worm right in the mouth of another 4 lbs largemouth.
Although I didn't land the fish of a lifetime, I had a blast, and I was able to accomplish the goal of what we came for, getting pictures.  I just wish I would have had the camera close as Russ was struggling to get what would have likely been an 8 lbs plus bass untangled from the matts of lilies that he was working his frog across.  The look of disappointment and the sound of frustration was a devastating, I know Russ has landed some big fish in his day, but you could tell, he really wanted this one.
Overall, it was  great day, the sun shined at times, but was overcast most of the time, the rain didn't hit until I was loaded and a mile down the road, the air temps stayed in the upper 80s to low 90s with the water temps staying around 86 degrees.  I landed fish on crank baits and worms, but the real producers of the day were a Zoom Fluke in silver and grey and a 1/2 ounce Little George in white and gray.  Special thanks to Russ for the phone call, and I huge thank you to Chris F for putting this all together and making it happen.  I look forward to my phone ringing again in the near future (hint/hint), hopefully on a day that I don't have to rush home, and a day were the shad are schooled up in the deep.

Until next time,
 Stay Safe & Catch1

 

Trout Challenge 7

 

 

This past weekend was the 3rd tournament in the BCKFC's angler of the year 5 tournament series, and it was a challenge to say it nicely.  I hadn't been able to fish Louisiana waters in what felt like an eternity and starting a new job this month was the culprit for my lack of preparation. 
As I usually fish alone, this event was different, I had decided to team up with Ty Hibbs, a local angler that spends more time on the water in one week than I do in a month.  Not being able to pre-fish as  I usually do, I was leaving the scouting up to Ty, I felt very comfortable going into the tournament on his knowledge alone being he always seems to find the fish.

Well, at 9:30 pm the night before the tournament, we changed our plans.  Originally we were going to fish Lake Pontchartrain from several different locations, but a last minute scouting trip by Ty had us dumbfounded.  The fish were not where they were supposed to be.  So we decided it was time to load up and head west.  Around 10 pm we hit the road and were on our way to Lake Charles to follow the same route I did the year before for this same tournament.  After several stops, and a dozen cups of coffee, we arrived at our launch point around 2 a.m.  Safe launch light was 3 a.m., we got our yaks unloaded, prepared all of our tackle and were watching the clock with anticipation and a little bit of anxiety.  We were very cautious with where we were launching and wanted to keep it quiet to the rest of the night owls on the road, so with every passing car, we would turn our headlights off and sit in the darkness.  When suddenly a vehicle pulls around the turn and then slows to a crawl, I couldn't imagine who it was, other than maybe the poh poh, coming to investigate what we were doing, but when the vehicle turned in, it was obvious who it was, Brendan "Lego" Bayard and his fishing partner Lance.  I couldn't help but laugh.  As we helped unload their yaks and joke about following each other to different launch spots within the area, the clock hit the top of the hour.  We dropped the yaks in the water and the race was on.  Four us peddling like the Flintstone's heading for a brontosaurus burger, we all headed to the dock lights that were in front of us to pick up a quick 5 specs and then head in another direction for sunrise trout. 
As we pulled up, there was already a boat in place, and they were bringing specs up one by one, I flanked their left, and Ty flanked their right, Brendan then eased around me and flanked my left, and Lance worked another area in the darkness.  Within seconds Lego was bringing in the specs, he would bring them yak side quietly and out of view of anyone, as to not raise suspicion that he was on to something, and he was.  It didn't take him 15 minutes to fill his bag, I knew they weren't beast, but they were more than the croakers and dinks I was pulling in.  Finally the boat left and then Lance and Lego headed off into the darkness.  Ty and I stayed, we landed 10-15 specs within minutes of the chaos disappearing into the darkness behind us, I even pulled in an 18" flounder and a red, but no keeper specs.
We were now 15 minutes behind schedule for our next launch location, so we peddled back to the truck, loaded up and went to spot number two.  You wouldn't believe what we saw when we pulled up.  Yep, it was Lego's truck.  At this point I knew we were going to have to do something different, we decided to run further south than the dynamic duo in an attempt to make it to an area I fished last year that proved productive.  As we passed Brendan and Lance, it was made clear that they had fish in their bags, nothing special from what they said, but anything was better than what I had. 
As we made it nearly a half mile past them, we came across some bait piled up along the banks, and there were some trout in the area, I landed one then Ty landed one, I stayed closer to the bank as Ty worked the waters a hundred yards or so off the bank.  I then decided it was time to find some small reefs, I took my jig rod and chunked the matrix shad behind me and began peddling as I was working a topwater in front of me.  Within 100 yards, I landed a spec in front, while at the same time my jig hung up on a reef and took my rod right out of the yak and to the bottom of the lakes floor.  I landed the trout, put it in the bag, and then began my search for my rod. Within 10 minutes I was hooked up and relieved to be reeling in my Bullbay rod and Shimano reel.  I made some safety adjustments to my reef finding strategy and began further south again, when bam, another fish on, and then another, and then another.  It was obvious at this point that these little reefs were holding some fish.  As soon as I noticed my rod tip bouncing up and down from the jig hanging up on shells on the lakes floor, I would turn the yak and start working the area.  It worked flawlessly all day, find some shells, and you find the fish.  I ended up with over a limit of trout and a limit of reds within 4 hours of working this technique.  They weren't the big female trout that I was looking for, but they would end up being enough to weigh in.
As the time moved closer to 1 p.m. I knew we had to make it back to the truck in time for our nearly 3 hour drive to the weigh in at Cabela's in Gonzales.  Not happy with the fish we had, we had to call it quits and head in.  Being it wasn't far to the truck, I decided I would make a last ditch effort and through out two jigs to troll back.  Big mistake, within seconds both rods bowed over like I just hung a tank, one was going left and the other was going right.  I grabbed the closest one and began the fight, the drag was screaming and I couldn't gain an inch on the fish.  As the yak spun around, so did the other fish on the rod that was still in the rod holder.  Now I had two screaming drags, and the fish were tag teaming each other and wrapping lines on everything, at one point I looked 

 back and every rod in my black pack was wrapped up in fishing line from the rod in the rod holder.  I finally got one of the fish yak side, it was  red, and as I began to clip the Boga grip on the fishes lip, the other fish took off and took the yak side red with him.  At this point, I'm yelling to Ty that I need help, and he's next to me laughing at the circus that's going on.  Ty took my rod from the rod holder, I landed one fish, cut the line after I had him boated, and then cut the line of three other rods in order to free the nest of knots that had been created.  I then began to fight the next red by hand, pulling the line in foot by foot until finally, the red escaped capture and straightened out the hook.  It was a sight to see, and needless to say, after that, I headed straight to the truck.
As we reached the truck, we were both a little bummed, we both had our limit, but we didn't think we had anything close to finishing in the top 10 of tournament.  And with our tails tucked between our legs with 5 small specs each and stories of the big ones that got away, we were on our way east to Cabela's.
As we arrived, I was surprised to see the amount of people in line to weigh fish already, at this point I was now convinced that maybe I shouldn't even take my fish bag out of the truck, but I did.  We signed in, sat our bags at the end of the line and began listening to the stories around the table.  It appeared that we weren't the only ones that didn't have a good day.  In fact, after hearing all the stories of people that didn't catch fish at all, my spirits began to lift.  As the scales opened, the weighing began, first it was one fish, than three fish, than one fish, I was surprised to say the least.  This tournament is usually one where some big mules are brought in, but not today.  The only mule brought in was by Steve Lessard who weighed in 5 fish and one of them broke the 4 lbs mark. Steve is always one of the guys you have to look out for at weigh ins, if he is fishing, you can bet he's going to be at the top of the board come cut off time.  After Steve loaded up the basket, it was time, time for me to grab my bag and see what I had.  All I knew was I had a bag full of fish, but not really sure where they would fall, I opened it up, sorted through the smaller ones and put my five in the basket.  I was very surprised to see the scale floating between the 7.5 and 8 lbs mark. WOW, 2nd place and only two more people to weigh in.  I couldn't believe it when the weight held true to the end.  Steve Lessard ended with Big Fish and 1st place, I had 2nd place and the Trout Calcutta, Brendan "Lego" Bayard had 3rd, Denis Sognier 4th, and Ty Hibbs, in his first kayak tournament, had 5th. 
What I thought ended in a poor showing but a fun day, ended with a bang and a big surprise placing.  I couldn't have been happier with my performance given the lack of fishing conditions that everyone endured this day, the sun shined, the wind blew, the tide moved slightly, but the big fish just were not biting.
Congratulations to everyone that participated and placed in this event, and Thank You to Pack & Paddle and Cabela's for your continued support for the BCKFC AOY Series, it has been a fun year thus far, and with only two events left in the race, it's still anyone's game.

Until next time,

Stay Safe & Catch1