Turning Big Lakes Into Small Waters

Even the fastest kayak is still slow right?  Even with pedals and motors you're still not running and gunning main points on any lake in a reasonable amount of time.  That's why you need to increase your chance of success by shrinking big waters.  I personally fish Wheeler Lake a good bit during the winter and I try to shrink the lake by picking spots that provide me a good selection of structures and depths without having to spend all of my time paddling.  With tools like Navionics web app and Google Maps you can quickly find spots that have rip rap, creek channels, and stump flats within 2 or 3 square miles.  By fishing this target rich environment you can quickly pattern fish and figure out if they are deep or shallow and if they may be holding to rock or wood.  Once you have the pattern figured out then you can decide wether that 2 mile paddle to another stump flat or rip rap bank may be worth it.

I've never fished here even once, but it looks like it has a lot to offer in a small area.  Shallow stumps, creek channels, road beds, and rip rap with enough deep water nearby to keep fish during the winter and enough shallow cover to hold them during the spawn and throughout the summer.

The Difference Is Often In The Details

Every time I'm on the water I always want to take something away to help me be a better angler.   Sometimes it may be something as simple as increasing efficiency so I can get more casts in or it may be a certain presentation that I haven't tried before.  The other day I realized I was once again ignoring the details instead of following the clues.

I love a swim jig.  I've had one tied on since late fall and have been really successful with it catching multiple fish over 3lb., and a handful over 5lb.  That success sometimes blinds me to the fact that I need to tie something else on and not drag a lure down a grass line or by shallow stumps.  One particular scenario happened last week after a particularly cold snap, the water temps were struggling to get above 40 degrees even though this particular day the air was in the mid 50's.  I had marked shad on one deeper spot near a shelf and had tried a jerkbait, crank, and swimjig with no luck so I quickly gave up and moved on to fish how I wanted.  After searching the shallows with the swimjig and bouncing cranks off of rocks to no avail I finally decided to hit the reset button and ask what I was missing.  40 degree water?  They may not be willing to chase down a swimjig, so I set it down.  Shad holding at 10-12 feet?  Why am I running baits across shallow cover? 

The Strike King SwimJig was on fire in the fall for me, add a Keitech Fat Impact and hold on.

Recently the Damiki Rig (small jighead with a finesse bait) helped Jacob Wheeler win a Bassmaster Elite tournament on Cherokee lake targeting inactive smallies deep in cold water.  That little tidbit came to mind as I was looking at these fish suspended in deep water with a small school of shad over them.  Also knowing that we had just had a shad kill I knew the bass had likely been picking off dying shad for the last week or two. So in order to match the hatch as best I could I rigged a fluke onto a 1/4 ounce jig-head and lowered it down barely moving it over the bottom. Within minutes I had my first bite of the day, a 14" little bass, not a wall hanger but it was a bite that told me I was doing something right.  So I replicated the technique again and within minutes  a 17" fish was splashing at the surface beside the boat.

Damiki rig

So what was the takeaway?  I always want to listen to the fish, but sometimes you have to use the clues to get you within earshot so to speak.  Location, location, location, it applies to more than just real estate, and if you can't find the fish you can't catch them. Even if you are doing the perfect technique with the perfect bait. 

Do you ever get in a rut of catching fish?

Yeah that's a problem most people would like to have but hear me out.  Last year I had a handful of spots that all required similar presentations and I figured out how to be successful in those spots.  If you know me you know that presentation was throwing a frog.  Well around comes the winter when the frog bite died down and I didn't do as well.  Fish were still there to be caught but I had focused so much on a particular technique I had left others behind.  This was never more apparently clear than when I fished a tournament at Mud Creek this year and felt so out of place and confused on what to do and where to go.  How did this happen?  I felt like a competent angler last year, why am I so out of place now and not able to get on fish?  Because I got locked into a rut last year of catching fish in reliable, easy spots.

I hadn't become a better angler, I had become a honey hole fisherman.  I'm fairly certain that you take any seasoned angler to the spots I was fishing and they would wear it out.  So I decided this year to make a change.  I was not going to be a honey hole fisherman, instead I wanted to find new areas, new places that would challenge me to figure the fish out.  Have I caught as many fish as last year?  Nope.  Have I learned more and felt more competent finding and catching fish in new areas?  YES!  Have I been skunked a few times? Definitely, but I feel like in the long run I will be a better angler and more able to compete against other fisherman when not in my honey holes.  I have to admit that going to a new spot blind and figuring the fish out and being successful has been more rewarding than catching lots of big fish in a honey hole.

So what have I learned?

- I need to learn to throw soft plastics more, when the bite is hard natural presentations can make a huge difference.

- You can catch fish subsurface and it can be fun too. (lots better than none at all)

- A chatterbait is a wonderful lure that is a jig, spinnerbait and wakebait all in one.

- The hotspots that I found in the honey holes still hold true to big water, find the points, find the transitions, find the fish.

- Be willing to change presentations, many times I leave with a preconceived idea of what will catch fish and often those days that I end up getting skunked.  On the other hand the days I leave understanding I don't know what they will bite I'm more willing to adapt and be successful.


Do you have that special spot that is easy catching?  Enjoy it, fish it, and don't tell anyone!   However, I think to become a better angler you can't rely on it.  You have to break your routine to grow as a better angler, to become more versatile, and to be more successful.  Trust me, the new stuff you learn will only help you catch more fish even in the honey hole on those off days and you're not guaranteed that honey hole forever.   One of my favorite spots experienced a fish kill last year and it has not been the same since.  Hopefully I'll discover a few more spots that will be honey holes in the future by exploring new water and learning new things.  Maybe some of the spots I don't consider honey holes now really are and I just haven't unlocked their secrets.  One thing is for sure, I won't ever know if I don't break out of that rut, so to speak, of catching fish.