First Red Drum in the kayak

We went out for a family kayak trip in Manteo this morning. We were really there to let a family member try kayaking for the first time, but I snuck a fishing pole with me. It had a cheap freshwater lure on it and I wasn't expecting much but anytime I got enough distance I was casting.  About 2/3's through our Manteo kayak trip I hooked a small red drum. Hopefully I will get more time for fishing soon. I released this little guy after taking his picture. I will post up a map soon.

Shearon Harris Reservior

So it has been a long time since updating this. A buddy and I took out the kayaks this morning. We got a little of a late start. I managed to land one decent (biggest bass so far in the yak), but that was all we caught. It was a great morning to be on the water. Harris lake is full of plant life, so I need to do some research on which lures work best in weedy conditions. I was using a plastic worm that I borrowed from my buddy when I caught this big boy. Sorry about the spread eagle pose. I will talk with my camera man before he is allowed to take any more pictures of me.

Here is a map of the lake. We put in at Harris Lake County Park. Be prepared it is a long carry from the unload site to launch site. It will seam twice as far when you are done for day. The park doesn't open until 8am, so we are going to try launching for a boat ramp next time to get on the water a little sooner.


View Harris Lake in a larger map

R. D. Holt Reservoir (Lake Butner)

A good friend invited me up to Holt Lake (Lake Butner) for a morning of fishing. If you go to the end of this post I have a google map that calls it Lake Butner, but the sign at the entrance calls it R. D. Holt Reservoir. So I am going to call it Holt Lake. My buddy has a john boat that is set up for fishing on small lakes. It seems that when you go to a new place in the kayak, you spend more time paddling around sight seeing than fishing, so it was nice to troll around and see all of the lake while fishing.



Here is a pick from the boat ramp. The fall foilage was in full effect.













My buddy didn't want his picture taken with such a small bass, so I cropped his head out of the picture to protect his fishing reputation.







Here is a bass that I caught. A lot of people on message boards and such say that you can't catch anything on a spinner bait at Holt Lake. I have only been there once, but I caught 5 bass on a mini-spinner bait and my buddy caught 2 of the 4 bass he caught using a spinner bait. So we fished from about 9 amd to 2 pm and caught 9 bass and all of them would have been keepers except for 2 small ones. Next trip I will bring a crank bait and use my normal sized spinner bait and see if I can hook up with anything with some size. The biggest one we caught on this trip to Holt Lake was about 2.5 pounds.

View Larger Map

Forgot to mention that Crabtree Lake is contaminated.

If you go fishing at Crabtree Lake it is strictly a catch and release kind of place. There used to be a transformer factory upstream that polluted the area with PCB's. They are currently cleaning the factory site, but the fish in Crabtree Lake will be unsafe to eat for some obscene number of years unless you like cancer. It's bad, but Crabtree Lake might become home to some decent sized fish and it is kind of nice to go fishing knowing that you won't have to clean any fish when you get home.

While I was fishing at Crabtree Lake I also saw a hawk. I tried to get a better picture, but as is often the case with birds, it flew off.

Crabtree Lake

Headed out to Crabtree Lake this morning. I caught all three of these fish on the same lure, a mini spinner bait. It has been moved up on my favorite lure ladder. So I knocked out my first catfish, crappy, and bluegill on the same day. Now I just need to start catching bigger fish in the kayak.

Robeson Creek Canoe Access

I heard about the Robeson Creek Canoe Access from my barber. Since he is a way better fisherman than I am I took his advice and tried it out.

It is a pretty long carry to the water if you are by yourself. I had no problem getting everything down the hill and ready. It was a little harder to carry everything up hill after three hours of paddling and fishing.

The river was absolutely beautiful with an early morning fog on it when I first started fishing.

The fog burned off after the sun came out and the river looked like this.

In one of the deep pools behind the many rocks I caught this nice bass. He put up a nice fight and is the first bass I have landed in my kayak. I let him go so good fortune will smile upon me in the future.

So if you have a canoe or kayak and live any where near Jordan Lake you owe it to yourself to make the trip to Robeson Creek Canoe Access. Whether you just like to paddle, or you want to fish you will be happy.