With the end of the softwater season creeping up on us up here in eastern Ontario, my friend and fellow kayak fisherman Marco “Joco” Potvin and I got out for some cold water crappie fishing. Spending two afternoons on the water, we caught numerous crappies up to 12” in length coupled with some fun fighting bluegill. Water temps were hovering around 40f with an air temperature to match. I even decided to wear my floatation suit the second day.
To make things challenging (read: more fun for us), we decided to use our ice fishing gear off the kayaks to help capture our prey. Whippy, graphite ice rods measuring 24” in length and tiny baits like the 1/16th oz. Buckshot Rattle spoon and microjigs tipped with plastics fit the bill for us. We also incorporated the same ice sonar technology we use here during our iced-over winter months. The flashers offer a realtime view of the water column beneath the kayak and allowed us to not only locate these schooling fish but lower our baits directly to their suspended location.
While other shore fisherman were in the area, none were sharing the same success we were experiencing. In fact, while most of them had all kinds of questions about fishing from kayaks, I think we may have converted a few and convinced them to get into the kayak fishing game. Being outfished 10 to 1 will do that to a guy I guess!
I encourage all northern kayak fisherman to hold off on winterizing their kayaks and get out there and take advantage of the mild autumn weather. Last year we were icefishing on 3” of the hard stuff by November 25th, so this weather has been a great blessing.
Tight lines,
Don
photo credit: Don Theoret/Joco Potvin