Sept 13, 2007 - Falls (Beaverdam)

[Jeffonc]

Chose Beaverdam for a change of scenery this morning. Set out from Old Weaver around 7:15 (late start). Headed toward the Old Weaver bridge with intention of C-rig, deep cranks and jig&worm around the channel drop. Thought I'd drag some shad raps on the trip over and watch the bottom contour (there really is no bottom contour to speak of).

About 75 yards outside of the launch cove as I was slowly progressing from 7 to 8 feet of water one of the rods went nuts. Clearly a fish and clearly a good one. It didn't come up at all, but it was too big to be a white, so first thought was a nice catfish. After about a minute it came up and sloshed the surface - LM. It had inhaled the shad rap and both sets of hooks were safely imbedded inside the mouth.

Measured 23+" long, 4.6 pounds. Biggest fish on the kayak so far.

Got restarted and gave myself a little extra speed so I could spend some time tying up my C-rig (shame on me for not prepping). Just when I had laid down the paddle and gotten the tackle box open I snagged my other shad rap on a stump or something (submarine?), spooling myself and snapping off at the knot between the braid and backing before I could even get slowed down. Dragged the bottom in that area with some big cranks but couldn't come up with it - oops.

Eventually made it to the far side and got a couple of light taps on a finesse jig&worm but nothing to stick.

I Didn't find any water in that direction over 10 feet, or even any very exciting underwater structure. The "channel" is only about a 1 foot depression from the flats around it up there. I didn't get all the way to the bridge - probably 100 yards downstream, but there the channel was down to about 6 feet with 5 foot flats all around.