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:









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.



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.





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.