The Beauty of Fly Fishing from a Kayak

Fishing Panfish & Warm Water
1

One of the benefits of fishing from a kayak is that you can fish just about anywhere you want. All you need is a place to launch.
I discovered a small lake recently that’s inside a local preserve. Looked like it should be full of fish, and I wanted to fish it. I drove down and lifted my Frontier over the fence and carted the kayak about 200 yards down a path to the lake. Caught a bass on the first cast and that was just the beginning. Over two days of fly fishing, I caught plenty of bass to 4 pounds, hand-sized bluegill, shellcracker and a couple of large tilapia. Most of the bass came on poppers. Caught most of the bluegill, shellcracker and tilapia on nymphs.
Never saw another angler on the lake.
I encourage everyone to get off the beaten path and experience lightly fished waters.

2

Wow, that’s awesome Steve! Love that tilapia!

3

I wish more people would love them. They are destroying the quality of our waters here. Once clear tannic freshwaters are silty and look like chocolate milk. Premier bedding grounds are claimed by them preventing bass from reproducing since they bed 5 times a year. Oxygen levels dwindle from the overcrowded ‘herds’ that have no predator control. Worse, the nitrogen from their excrement has put the water out of kilter for what will be decades as they joyously swim through the swill slowly becoming the last man standing in a algae bloom.