Hot dang! Now it feels like fishing!
Wind was awful today so the kayak stayed in the garage. I hopped around to a few places and finally got some action at the spillway at Lake Jacomo. This was my first time fishing with a ned rig so I didn’t have a good feel for how to work it or what a bite feels like on that particular setup.
I sure know now! I caught this one about 4 – 5′ deep after hopping the lure along the bottom. No drama, just a solid hookset and reeled him right in.
Now that I knew what a bite felt like, I was quite a bit more in-tune with what I was doing. I pitched it out a little farther and a bit to the right. After letting it fall, I gave a couple twitches and it got hammered! The drag on my reel was ringing like crazy! I let the fish take some line, reeled in, it took some, I reeled in. About 4′ from the bank I had it at the surface. A guy 20 feet down the bank yelled, “that’s a big one!”
As soon as he finished that sentence, the fish gave a big jump and shook the hook right out. I went for a follow up with a plain old plastic worm hoping it was still in a biting mood, but it didn’t take.
I went back to the ned rig and caught another about the size of the first. Still a good feeling even if it’s a “one that got away” story.
A few more casts in and I got snagged bad. The snag was too deep and too far from shore to reel down and pop it out. I tried snapping the line, but it didn’t release. I resorted to just pulling … and my leader snapped. And it was the leader itself snapping, the knot joining the braid main line to the leader was still there with just a whisker of the leader left.
Of course I didn’t bring any line at all. It was all still in the crate for the kayak.
Lake Jacomo Spillway
- Water Temp: —
- Clarity: Mostly Clear, 2′ – 4′ visibility
- Air Temp: 72 F
- Conditions: Windy 20 – 30 MPH, gusts of 40 MPH
- Lures:
- Z-man Shroomz 1/5 oz. with PB&J Finesse TRD
- Sure Thing Stik-O with 1/2 oz weight Texas Rig
- Chrome and blue Rat-L-Trap
- Strike King Red Eye Spinnerbait, Chartreuse/White
- Black and blue football jig (1/2 oz.), rattle, black glitter craw trailer