Smallmouth on!!
It was a fishing double header to remember! My son and I hit the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River and Raystown lake on the same day for some serious kayak bass fishing fun! It was a successful day on the river and lake! We landed 30 smallmouth bass in the morning on the river and by noon we where hooking up with some Raystown Lake largemouth bass. The largemouth bass on Raystown turned out to be a little more illusive. We hooked up with 6 largemouth bass and only managed to lip three of them. The other three are what I like to refer to as “quick releases”! I’m going to keep this report a little more brief than usual but I will hit the highlights and strategies that worked.
Morning on the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River
It was raining cats and dogs when we launched our kayaks near Saxton, PA but that didn’t seem to bother the smallmouth. Water levels were slightly below normal for this time of year so we had to drag our kayaks at times up shallow riffles. The rain did eventually stop but the cloud cover stayed which definitely helped keep a good bite going. We landed just over 30 smallmouth bass on a variety of baits. The largest fish however was only about 13 inches.
In sunny weather smallmouth on the river tend to seek refuge from the sun in deeper pools or by lurking in the shade of boulders or weed beds. The cloud cover today meant that the bass would be up shallow, roaming freely, and feeding. The fish could be about anywhere…and they were. We caught fish in deep current breaks, shallow current breaks, shallow feeding flats, riffles, and push water at the end of long pools…basically, the fish were everywhere. I will say though that the size of the fish was a little disappointing. We caught a lot of fish around 10 inches.
Most of the fish were caught on spinnerbaits and stickworms. Typically, I’d expect to catch bigger fish on the spinnerbait but it just wasn’t in the cards today. I will say though, that I knew before hand that in this section of the river a 15 inch fish is a nice fish. My son and I were definitely looking for the big bite but knew that it may not happened in that section of the river. Numbers obviously are excellent.
Raystown Lake at noon
About noon time we loaded up the kayaks and headed for Raystown Lake to chase some largemouth bass. We hit one of the no wake zones and had a great time exploring the area and even paddled up some of the small tributaries of the lake. We didn’t catch any trophies today but we had enough action to keep us interested. We hooked up with six largemouth and landed 3 of them. Two spinnerbait fish and one crankbait fish came unbuttoned at the kayak. Quick release! .
I’ve never fished Raystown Lake before so I was excited to give it a go. I had heard it can be a tough lake to fish. I have a portable “fish finder” but I left it at home today. I really feel like many people get to Raystown and get overwhelmed with the sheer size of the lake. This is were mental discipline and focus come into play in the fishing world.
No depth finder meant that I’d pretty much have to focus on visible structure or cover. I took a quick survey of the area and hatched a game plan. We focused on two types of water; stained water at the back of large coves and water with about 3 feet of visibility along steep bluffs. These are common locations to find bass during this time of year. I would have preferred to fish deep cranks or even drop shot some fish but without a depth finder it would be difficult and time consuming to pin point deep structure to do this type of fishing.
We were fishing a lot of sparse weeds, stumps, and rock bluff so we tried to pick the right tools for the job. I’m a huge crankbait guy so that was definitely on the menu. Spinnerbaits and a Slamm’n Shad soft jerkbait rounded out the arsenal. We used the wind to push our kayaks parallel to shoreline stumps, blow downs, and across sparse weed flats and deep water bluffs. Wind can be your best friend when fishing from a kayak!
The coves and the bluff areas both produced bites. It was a pretty good first outing at Raystown. We hooked up with fish on all three baits we tossed. We used the spinnerbaits in the cove areas that had more vegetation and the crankbaits on the bluffs were vegetation was very sparse or non existent. The Slamm’n Shad is at home in both types of cover/structure so we tossed it everywhere. We landed 3 largemouth bass and lost another three at the kayaks. I caught one little guy around 10 inches but the rest of the fish were between 12 and 14 inches. No lunkers today but we will definitely be making at least one more trip to this lake before the winter hits. I guarantee it!
P.S. Sorry no fish pics today. I usually don’t take pictures of fish under 15 inches to conserve on hard drive space on my computer.
