New Beggs City Lake, 6/27/2013

Headed out to New Beggs City Lake this morning. Was about an hour behind schedule. I had planned on arriving about the time the sun popped over the horizon, but slept in a bit.

Once I got there, it was a fairly quick setup and launch for my kayak. I was going light, only my 8wt, all three fly boxes, and one spinning rod with a new lure I wanted to try for trolling. Once I launched, I trolled the lure over to where I planned on doing some fly fishing. Didn?t catch anything trolling.

As I tried to quietly paddle into this small arm of the cove, I saw a lot of surface disturbances. Most were turtles spooking as I neared them, but a few were fish hitting insects/minnows on top. I saw a couple large swirls near a weedline, with large wakes heading for deeper water; one of those also left a trail of bubbles as it burrowed through the grass on bottom. I?m pretty sure those were Carp. I would spook another one about an hour later, just feet from my kayak.

I paddled all the way back. I realized the water was pretty darn clear; I was seeing grass on bottom in 3 FOW (pretty good for Oklahoma). I had a Deer-Hair Diver pattern I had tied up a couple weeks ago tied on. I started tossing that around. Didn?t get any strikes, until??I had decided to pull it in, cut it off, and tie on a smaller popper. THEN some fish decides to try and eat it. I didn?t connect.

I tied on a store-bought, Betts popper. I have a few left over from last year. I immediately started getting some hits. Then, I started connecting with some various sunfish:

http://imageshack.us/a/img38/1135/dxv.JPG

http://imageshack.us/a/img689/1861/eou4.jpg

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I even caught a first for me. I?ve caught them in a cast net before, but never on rod-and-reel, nor a fly rod. Got a Golden Shiner. I?m not surprised, as I had seen some ?medium? sized Shiners swimming around. Heck, when the popper landed, one jumped to the left, and my popper immediately started moving to the right. I must have thrown the popper on top of at least two different fish, one ate it, the other spooked.

http://imageshack.us/a/img837/1750/742a.jpg

I also managed to catch two of what I wanted to catch, some Largemouth Bass. First LMBs on my 8wt, and first LMBs on-the-fly from my kayak.

http://imageshack.us/a/img560/8649/6joa.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img51/1761/anpp.jpg

I must say, that I think my 8wt is going to become my go-to rod for my kayak. I was getting some nice casting in. I will say that I have not used my 5wt on my kayak yet this year, and last year, I had the rod spooled with line that was a little to light for the rod.

Congrats on your firsts!

Enjoyed reading your report and looking at the pics. Congrats on the catch with your fly rod.
I use a 5wt while fishing from my yak, love the action that even a small fish gives on the fly rod.

I pulled my 5wt out today while I had my kayak at a different lake. It's a faster graphite rod,probably more of a 6wt or 7wt. I have it overlined with a WF6F Bass taper. It works good on calmer days, but here in the wind-driven blast-furnace that is Oklahoma in the Summer, my 8wt handles the wind a little better.

I just had a friend contact me on another board. He used to fish that lake a lot, 15 years ago. He told me there's a lot of big Carp in there. I'm thinking I need to try and start stalking them from my kayak.