[NorEastern]

So I sit on here every few nights and read and look at all the fish you guys are catching wondering what I'm doing wrong. I've been fishing Harris, Durham lake, Tull's Mill(most recently), Jordan, Cherry Hospital, Falls lake. I try to use lures only but now I've been bringing my old rod as a bait rod just so I can actually catch something!. A lot of the fish I've caught this year (10 max, all under 3 lbs) have been on a pumpkin or purple rubber worm texas rigged with no weight.

A good majority of my fish have been caught as Durham and a two at Harris. Nothing at Falls lake, Jordan or Tull's. I see a lot of guys on here talking about pulling 30 fish from harris in a day and I think I either really have bad luck or I'm not doing something right. My girlfriend and I go out on our kayaks almost every weekend atleast once to one of these places and if we're lucky we catch 1. Now I love fishing and will never stop but this dry spell a long with all the time invested traveling etc is getting a little depressing. If anyone has a second to give some tips it would be greatly appreciated!
A little background history on myself...I started fishing at 5 years old and all the way through now. I'm originally from Rhode Island where the water is really clear and catching fish was no problem at all. Ever since I've moved to the south here I've had a major dry spell fishing. I've adopted a few new lures used down here vs what I used up north like jigs, different top water lures and worm setups. I'm also a new kayak fisherman as I just bought one for this season and can't afford a sweet bass boat like I see most of you zipping by me on and almost capsizing me .


Thanks for the help in advance guys, and maybe I'll meet some of you out there!​

 

[Fish_Fiend]

Zoom Speedcraw on a Carolina Rig.

Catching fish with that setup is so easy there training chickens in China to do it.

 

[OptiMystic]

"have a drumstick and your brain starts ticking" ...

At Harris my go to for bass is a purple T rigged worm. I also use a little 2" white twisty tail grub and catch lot of perch, crappie and bass there on that. Seems to work about the same in Jordan.

 

[misterslowride]

On lakes you probably want to start out with some type of search bait (especially since you are in a kayak not a bass boat), something that you can "chuck and wind", it could be a small grub on a jighead, a crankbait or a spinnerbait or jerkbait. Once you have found the fish, you can switch to a slower more thorough method, T-rig, C-rig, jig n pig etc.

 

[Bleedingblue]

If I had to guess I'd say you are fishing too slow and wasting time in unproductive waters. I agree with misterslowride about the moving baits. I know you are range limited in a kayak but concentrate on likely targets. Try to eliminate unlikely areas, for example shallow muddy areas with no visible cover. Prime locations are laydowns, points, rock, brush, grass and channel banks. Once you have selected the areas with the most potential, fish the moving lures in the areas without heavy cover. The goal is to cover lots of water. When you run across a big tree or other heavy cover area, slow down and pick it apart with t-rig, jig, c-rig whatever you are most comfortable with. Finally, keep an eye out for bait. No bait, no fish.

Here are some lures that produce and are pretty easy to fish.
1. Rattle-trap/Redeye shad: Shad or sexy shad color. 1/2 or 1/4 oz. The 1/4 is easier to keep off the bottom. Just chuck and wind. You can cover water faster with this lure than just about any other.
2. Spinnerbait: 3/8 or 1/2 ounce double willow. White or white/chart skirt. I like one silver one gold blade. Great for covering water where there is more weeds/wood. Again, just chuck and wind. Slow steady retrieve. Bumping cover is preferred.
3. T-rig Plastic: Brush Hog, Speed Craw, or Ribbon Tail worm. 3/16 or 1/4 ounce bullet weight. 3/0 EWG hook. Green Pumpkin is as close to a universal color as I have ever seen. Throw to cover and drag back slowly.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[NorEastern]

If I had to guess I'd say you are fishing too slow and wasting time in unproductive waters. I agree with misterslowride about the moving baits. I know you are range limited in a kayak but concentrate on likely targets. Try to eliminate unlikely areas, for example shallow muddy areas with no visible cover. Prime locations are laydowns, points, rock, brush, grass and channel banks. Once you have selected the areas with the most potential, fish the moving lures in the areas without heavy cover. The goal is to cover lots of water. When you run across a big tree or other heavy cover area, slow down and pick it apart with t-rig, jig, c-rig whatever you are most comfortable with. Finally, keep an eye out for bait. No bait, no fish.

Here are some lures that produce and are pretty easy to fish.
1. Rattle-trap/Redeye shad: Shad or sexy shad color. 1/2 or 1/4 oz. The 1/4 is easier to keep off the bottom. Just chuck and wind. You can cover water faster with this lure than just about any other.
2. Spinnerbait: 3/8 or 1/2 ounce double willow. White or white/chart skirt. I like one silver one gold blade. Great for covering water where there is more weeds/wood. Again, just chuck and wind. Slow steady retrieve. Bumping cover is preferred.
3. T-rig Plastic: Brush Hog, Speed Craw, or Ribbon Tail worm. 3/16 or 1/4 ounce bullet weight. 3/0 EWG hook. Green Pumpkin is as close to a universal color as I have ever seen. Throw to cover and drag back slowly.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Yeah I tend to hit a lot of cove/grass areas and when that doesn't work I start using a deep crank bait in the channels off of a point. I usually anchor down and try to fish an area for a bit as cranks and spinners usually pull the kayak the way I'm cranking and trying to maneuver a kayak and fish gets annoying at times haha.

 

[Crummy]

All good recommendations on lures. Work a section and move on. That method will allow you to figure out patterns that match time of year and the weather.

I also recommend the moving baits. I call them "scouting" lures.

 

[Mechanic Bob]

Shoot, at least you are out fishing and enjoying your surroundings. All I would say is use small worms, 4" Finesse with bright colors on a bright day and dark colors on a dark day. The Linder Boys would say if they had one lure, it would be a jig tipped with a worm or minnow.
2012 was my year of not catching!

 

[jerry condrey]

The speedcraw the boys are talking about is the ultravibe speedcraw, the smaller one. Zoom makes two versions. Green pumpkin is the best color. Texas or Carolina rigged, you throw that, you'll catch bass.

 

[Neilslure]

Based on what I am reading, I am assuming you were bank bound and did alot of fishing on smaller waters like ponds.

A reservoir is a whole different critter than a pond. In a pond, you might only have a few key pieces of cover which is where the fish will probably congregate most of the time, if they are not on that cover, the area is small enough that they cant go far and you can probably stumble back into them in pretty short order. On a reservoir, they may have moved a mile or two away and one part of the lake may be fishing totally different than another.

Jordan and Falls are close to 14000 acres and offer nearly endless opportunities as to where the fish can go with a wide variety of cover and depth ranges and things can change big time with changes in weather and water conditions . Some say 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water, finding that 10% on a big lake means covering alot of ground to figure out a pattern, once you figure out a pattern, you can skip over alot of stuff and just fish the productive areas.

When I go to a new lake or lake I havent been on in a while, I start by considering the seasonal patterns (summer-close to deep water, spring-spawning stage, fall-gorging for winter) or "where they should be". I then choose to start in a diversre area where I can fish different cover and different depths with different techniques in a short amount of time, making note of the details of what works and what doesnt.

Example: Lets say that I start on a 50 yard stretch of bank in the mid section of a creek arm with 6 laydowns and get bit in the only two that extend into 6-8 ft of water another 50 yards down I come to another tree and get bit again, I will look for more laydowns with similar depth of them. I go to the other side of the creek and fish more similar trees and dont get bit. I will think of what the first trees had that these dont, perhaps they had the wind blowing on them. Next I will look for some more trees with wind blowing on them. Find some more trees with wind and catch one or two more. As I get within sight of the back of the creek the water changes color and I stop getting bites. Next thing I might do is go back to about where I started and fish my way back towards the mouth of the creek until I stop getting bit. Now I will go to a different creek and only fish the laydowns in the mid section of the creek. I am now not wasting my time fishing the front 3rd or back 3rd as I know the best bite is in the mid section of the creek arms. Tomorrow the bite may be totally different and you fish the same stuff again without a bite, at that point you start the process over again.

 

[OptiMystic]

Based on what I am reading, I am assuming you were bank bound and did a lot of fishing on smaller waters like ponds.

???
In his post, he said he has been kayaking on Jordan, Harris, Falls and some others that are smaller.

 

[peanut]

Sounds like you need to cut your teeth. Think ponds. Start small. Find some nearby small water on local farms and beat the banks and learn your techniques. The fish are there. Start with a light to medium 6.5' with a Rapala 5s floater. Then work your way up to a stiffer rod and weightless Zoom finesse or Ultravibe speedcraw through weeds along the shore. (It's about bedtime, so I'll be short).
On the bigger lakes, go out with a guide 2-3 times and be a student of the game.
I think we'll be seeing good posts from you in the future.

 

[dbeam]

It hasn't been a fish catching season for me either it comes and goes just keep after em eventually you will have one of those days when the big ones are hungry and you can't do anything wrong. Welcome to the site looking forward to some big fish pictures and good reports.

Darrell

 

[NorEastern]

Time for me to take all this information in and pick up a few lures to rig up. Thanks for your time explaining stuff to me fellas!

 

[fishmanj]

When fishing Tull's Millpond, use plastic frogs to the left of the "ramp" in the duckweed and as far back as you can go. If you go to the right towards the road throw topwater (poppers) were the water runs out. So far never failed.

 

[NorEastern]

Alright gents, your advice didn't fall on deaf ears.Hitting the ground running. Premade some rigs, got my shad s 1/2 and 1/4. 4 in worm, rapala, changed one blade to gold on my spinner. only bringing this small box to use today.

 

[NorEastern]

4 hrs at tills mill...nada

 

[peanut]

Who couldn't love that??? I'd prefer that Rapala slashbait in silver/ black (perfect size, by the way) and the Zoom worm in black, but you know what they say about opinions..... Looks good! Look forward to seeing your success!

 

[Bleedingblue]

4 hrs at tills mill...nada

Sorry to hear that. I think your lure selections are fine. I ran a search about Tull's Mill and there are several reports, etc on this site. These might help give you some more specific tactics for that body of water.

Link doesn't work

If you type in "Tull's Mill' with the quotations in the forum search bar you will get the results I was trying to link.

 

[SurfRider]

I tried that link, Andrew... couldn't make it work for some reason.

Your box is really well put together. The speed craw is a great bait, and zoom trick worm is quite versatile as well. I would put one more thing in there, and that's a shakey head.

That watermelon zoom trick worm with the chartreuse tail is a go-to for shakey head jig fishing for at least one person I know and a color I throw often on a shakey head myself if the water is fairly clear (thanks Bronchotwisterjim for opening my eyes by outfishing me with it). If the water is stained or muddy, I go a little darker like green pumpkin or even black. The zoom trick worms are a little tougher to fish on Texas Rig in my opinion, as they have a tendency to spin through the water which (again, in my opinion) you want to avoid - doesn't look natural and it puts twist in your line. For Carolina Rig the zoom tricks are great, and for shakey heads I think they are highly effective. For Texas Rig I would choose a U-tail or auger-tail (ribbon tail some call it) design like a standard culprit or my personal favorite the Berkley 7.5 inch power worm. The idea is to let it swim on a falling tight line till it hits the bottom and then pick it up and let it swim as it falls again... that tail gives a swimming action even when moving slowly, which I think is really a big key for how I fish a T-rig... and although there are few things I would say I'm good at, I'd be willing to say Texas rig fishing is my biggest strength. Green pumpkin power worm on a 3/16 bullet weight is my, as Andrew put it recently, "workhorse" bait for fishing laydowns. If I can't catch them on that they are either not biting or they are not in the branches.

I agree about the silver / black for that rapala type twitch bait overall, but your lure selection looks good... very good, actually. Try some different water with different presentations of those baits. The hard part is that for each lure, there are multiple ways to fish it, and you have a lot of trial and error in the beginning.

Try to go fishing with someone who is experience and watch how they work a given bait. I may not be able to teach anyone how to fish a crankbait for example, but I feel confident coaching the use of a Texas rig. If you are up against a wall and want to fish in the Triad area, I'd be happy to try to arrange an excursion to offer a few hands-on tips.

Keep trying, you are doing several things right. Keep at it, and good luck