The weekend weather report was for hard winds from the northeast, so a trip to the beach was out. I decided to launch my kayak and fish one of the local creeks that I recently fished for the first time. I had pretty good luck on that trip, so I was hopeful that today would be even better, now that I knew a little something about the fishy spots.
While I was rigging up my kayak I realized that I had a single small spinnerbait rig (Beetle Spin) on the small rod. I had left my small spinnerbait box in the garage. This was not good, because that's the only rod I caught anything on last time. I elected to launch and fish it until I lost it. My backup plan was to fish the 8 wt. fly rod using a small green/white Clouser minnow that I'd had some success with recently on White and Yellow Perch.
At about 8:45, I launched straight into a 15-20 MPH northeast wind and paddled away from the shore and around the end of the dock. After I cleared the dock I turned sideways to the swell and paddled like hell to get into the lee of the point on the opposite side of the mouth of the creek. While taking a couple of waves over the side of the kayak, I realized that I had left my stakeout pole in the truck. While it would be an inconvenience, it wasn't a show-stopper because I had an anchor and a drift chute.
Upon reaching the opposite side of the creek and tucking in away from the wind, I was surprised that my first catch was a respectable Croaker. Quite a surprise to find this fish that I associate with the ocean in this little creek. I boated the Croaker, but unfortunately he took the tail off of the curlytail grub. Not a problem, I soon found, as the White Perch were more than happy to attack what was left.
I swapped the grub for a self-tied bucktail on the spinner frame and picked up this small Striped Bass. Like the two caught in this creek last month, it measured about 10".
Further along the shoreline I kept catching more White Perch. It's pretty easy to locate them as the bust the top of the water while feeding on minnows. A little farther up the creek and I hooked a species that I've been chasing locally without much success. Too bad this little guy was only 8" long, but at least it was a Red Drum. The fish had an interesting pattern of spots, too.
I worked my way up the creek and found this fat little 13" Largemouth Bass hanging out around some old pilings. He didn't put up much of a fight.
Shortly after this I got hung in a branch around a duck blind and watched my spinnerbait break off just before I was able to reach it. That was the end of the catching. The rest of the trip was flailing in vain with the fly rod and reeling in a Redfish Magic while White Perch pecked, and pecked, and pecked.
The next couple of shots are landscape photos. The first is smoke from a wheat field fire. I was surprised that they burnt the field with the wind blowing as strong as it was today.
The final photo is a shot I took from shore after I landed in my friends' yard. The wind picked up about 2 PM and was gusting up to 30 MPH when I made the downwind run across the creek at about 4:30. The hairiest part was navigating through the areas in the creek that are shoaled up. Those waves coming in from the river break in those spots. I was working hard to avoid them on the way back.
Until next time, go fishing!
No comments:
Post a Comment