Ultimate Kayak Fishing: Fall Largemouth Fishing In New England - Ultimate Kayak Fishing

Fall is definitely my favorite time of year, despite the alergies I have to the mold on the falling leaves. I spent some time on my local fishing hole, North Farms Resevoir in Wallingford. It has been heavily covered in weeds and lily pads most of the summer, but is clearing up a bit now. I caught several small and medium sized fish, but the view was spectacular. Here are a couple of pictures, of the view - you've all seen 13" fish before.

I just started fishing last summer, and am still learning the techniques that lead to consistent catches. For now I am enjoying the fishing while learning to do more of the catching. There are some very large fish lurking in the lily pads, but so far I have only hooked one on a 3/4 oz Carolina rigged watermelon Senko, but lost her in the weeds. If anyone has any tips, they would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Sam

I actually know quite a bit about this sort of thing....
If you want to fish the lily pads in that place successfully,...you need to "gear up"! That means using a stout rod (7-8ft Heavy action...) along with at least 20# line,....personally I like 20# fluorocarbon for this,..however a lot of others go with 50-65# braid. For a bait, use a heavily weighted (1 ounce minimum..) soft plastic such as a large tube or straight (senko-style) worm,...something that has a thin profile without a lot of arms or things sticking out,.. so it will go through the lily pads easily in both directions without hanging up!
Just make the color green-pumpkin,...it will be all you need about 95% of the time!

This type of fishing is mainly vertical,...you drop the bait down through the pads,..twitch it once or twice and if you don't get bit quickly,..you pull it up and out and then just drop it in the next spot. The whole trick is to drop it into as many spots as possible, so just make short/comfortable tosses. If you are quiet, all you really have to do is let the bait swing out like a pendulum from the rod-tip,...that'll be as far as it needs to go! If you make a couple of hundred drops in this fashion,..you will generally hit enough bass on the head to make it a successful day! I haven't fished that place in a couple of years,..however I'm certain that there are still a ton of 3lb-plus fish in there and all of them hide under those pads!!

Now when you do get bit, do not fool around,...set the hook HARD, with a big upward sweep of the rod! What you are trying to do is set the hook and drag the fish up to the surface all in one motion,..before it realizes what has happened!! This is really why you absolutely need the beefy rod & line! Once it is on the surface you can easily drag it over the top of the pads,...but if you fool around and let a 4-6 lb bass wind you around a few of those lily pads,..you will lose the fish just about every time!

Good luck,..I'm looking forward to hearing about the bigguns that you'll catch!!

Hey Just for Fun, thanks for the tips! I went out this morning to try them out. It was a combination of testing your suggestions, and a new outrigger that I made so that I could stand up while casting. Unfortunately I only had an hour, so I didn't catch any fish, but will practice more soon. I had one, very large fish on for about 4 seconds, but didn't get the hook set well enough, or yank it out of the lily pads like you said. I saw a large tail, heard a splash, and then my rod stayed bent, but no fish action, just lily pad.

I did catch this picture of a this heron. He caught a 15 inch bass last week, but I didn't have my camera with me. So today I spent about 15 minutes creeping up on him to get the picture. I am not sure what type of heron it is, Great Blue, or other, but it sure is a beautiful thing to see. He stands dead stone still for 5, 10 minutes, and then in less then the blink of an eye that long neck darts out into the water and he comes up with a thrashing largemouth.

More testing to come next Saturday.

50-65# braid for freshwater. wow. I believe you. It just sounds so "heavy".

Hi Fish360, I agree it sounds heavy. I base my braid size for freshwater on what the reel is rated for with mono. the diameter on the braid is so thin that a 15lb braid has the thickness of 4lb mono. Most conventional reels perform best when line of the recommended thickness is used so with a reel rated for 12lbs mono you should use 40 r 50 lbs braid. The 40lbs braid will give you more capacity and 50 will be less over run.

Welcome to the site.

BTW, this will be my first summer next to a lake so I will be experimenting with lake setup all spring, summer and fall

Nils

Sorry, I should have explained........
The 50-65# braid,...is more because that diameter of line handles better and is more comfortable to use with a baitcaster, rather than because you actually need that much strength. Although there is really no downside to having the extra strength, you can get by with 40 or even 30#,...however below that you will snap the line on powerful hooksets with a decent size fish! Braid is very strong,..but it doesn't stand up to shock or abrasion very well at all!

ps: Eventually, most bass fishermen will learn to palm their baitcaster while fishing and drape the line over their index finger, which heightens your ability to feel very subtle "ticks" from light bites. The thinner that the braid is,..the more likely it is to cut your fingers when fishing this way!