18.5 inch largemouth bass Colyer Lake, Pennsylvania
On day four of my fishing vacation, I found myself on the banks of Colyer Lake. The lake is controlled by the Pennsylvania fish commission and designated as a Big Bass Program Lake. It was a nice sunny day and the fishing was great! I landed six largemouth bass in about 5 hours of fishing.
I launched my kayak at about 8 a.m. and paddled for some steep bluffs on the main body of the lake. There was a slight breeze that actually helped me maintain a nice drift across the entire face of the bluffs. The lake is fairly small so you can cover almost all of it in a full day of fishing.
My plan was fairly simple. I had fished the lake many times in my early 20′s but this was my first trip to the lake in about 10 years. My memory of the lake was definitely helpful. One of the best late summer patterns on this lake is fishing deep submerged weed lines. Since I don’t have my electronics hooked up in my kayak yet, I couldn’t fish submerged weed lines very effectively. With this in mind, I focused on three primary areas or types of cover. I fished the steep bluffs, the sparse weed flats at the far end of the lake, and some visible boulder piles.
The great thing about this small lake is that if offers a variety of fishing cover and structure. Submerged weeds, surface weed mats, steep rock bluffs, wood, deep weed lines, and rock piles, just to name a few. Throughout the day, I changed up my baits to more effectively fish each type of cover.
On the steep bluff, I tied on a medium depth diving crankbait and bumped it down the bluff from shallow do deep keeping contact with the bottom structure. I managed one bass from the bluffs. I had a few hits but couldn’t sink the hook into any other fish.
My second spot was the shallow weed flats. I focused on areas where the weeds were still a couple of feet or so below the surface. The kayak definitely gave me a distinct advantage over many other fishing watercraft. Two of the fish I caught were back in the weeds so far that the only way any other type of boat could get in there was by using a push pole. My baits of choice for the weed flat was a small 3 inch stick worm and a 5 inch Houdini Shad rigged texposed to make it weedless. I caught three bass from the weed flats. Two came on the 3 inch stick work and one came on the Shad. Two of the bass were around 13 or 14 inches and the third was a DINK by any measure…pun intended!
My last spot was the rock piles. I had fished them many years ago so I knew they held bass. It was just a matter of getting the right bait for the job. The rocks push toward the surface in some spots creating a bit of a shallow rock shelf. I tossed the Houdini Shad but it just wasn’t producing any hits.
I really needed a bait that I could fish horizontally over the shallow structure. I had been tossing a Sub Wart crankbait in the shallow weed flats. This is a crankbait that only dives to about 1 foot but makes a heck of a rattling sound that you can hear as the bait approaches your boat. I really like this bait in muddy water situations, situations when bass are feeding up, and I also fish it over top of submerged weeds. Its an excellent bait.
I grabbed my crank’n rod and started tossing the Sub Wart over the rock piles. On about the tenth cast ..WHAP! Fish on!! The fish put the breaks on me pretty good so I knew it was a big boy. After a few submarine dives and a couple of gill raking jumps, the fish finally gave up the ghost. I put the measuring tape on it and it was a solid 18 inches. I couple of quick photos on the shore and I was back to my rock piles. I tossed the crankbait and covered the remaining rock. As I often do, once I’ve covered good looking structure with a crankbait. I’ll go back over it again and make a slower presentation. I tossed stick worm at the biggest rock pile and was again, rewarded for my persistence. A nice fat 15 inch largemouth whacked the stick worm and was brought to hand! Day four marks another success! Where will I go next?? check back tomorrow of follow me on twitter to find out!
