Tridelphia Report

[UnkleRob2020]

Saturday morning, I arrived at Green Bridge and met Cliff, Mark and at least 3 other kayakers at the launch. It was a beautiful morning and there were fish jumping all around us. The water level was significantly higher (about 3 feet higher) than it was two weeks ago.

Very quickly, I caught one medium sized largemouth on topwater which was a a lot of fun. After that, I did not get a single bite.

I fished many of the same areas that were productive two weeks ago. It is a beautiful reservoir and I kept thinking that the bite would turn on any minute. Any time I changed lures or fished a new area, I was full of hope. The reservoir is very deep....much deeper than the tidal areas that I have been fishing lately. There was one spot about two feet from the shoreline that looked it dropped straight down to 24 feet based on a fellow yakfisher's fish finder. I would never in a million years thought that area would be that deep.

I cannot help but wonder if most of the time the fish were significantly deeper in the water column than my lures and was I just "fishing over them?"

Tridelphia is beautiful and close to home. I know that the fish are there. I intend to keep trying and also to try to meet up with anglers who know the reservoir...that is the best way that I know of to learn about new waters.

[Red_Beard]

Rob isn't kidding when he says the fishing was tough this Saturday. The first real cold front of the season had the fish shut down most of the morning. I wound up staying out there all day given the nice weather though, and managed to get into a few nice ones in the afternoon once the sun had a chance to warm things up. I caught around 10 bass altogether, and the best ones all came around 1 pm in a cut up lake with a patch of submerged brush in the middle of the cove. The biggest ranged from 12-15 inches, and all came on a Zoom trick worm rigged on a shaky head which you can see in the attached pic of the 15 incher. I was basically fishing them vertically in the brush, and to be honest, I probably wouldn't have been able to pull them out of the brush if I wasn't fishing vertically.

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[dsaavedra]

Thanks for the report. Sorry to have missed this trip, though it sounds like I didn't miss a whole lot! I guess the increased water level came from all those crazy storms we had last week. Was the water clarity affected?

[Mark]

I enjoyed meeting Cliff, Rob and his friend Aaron. But I did not do well fishing.

I had three bites in roughly 4 hours on the water and I boated only a small sunfish on a cicada fly. I guess that little sunny had a long memory.

It was stunningly beautiful on the water at daybreak. A mist hung over the reservoir as the sun rose and for the first time in many months I launched into water warmer than the air.

Here's a worthy early fall scene:

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That's Rob and Aaron in the mist not far from where Rob caught his bass.

Kudos to Rob and Cliff for for their catches.

I saw plenty of small bass and tiny sunfish in the shallows. So Dave, the water clarity was good. However, I think larger fish were simply not in the shallow water I prefer to fish. They will be in time. Also, you may have indeed avoided a day of difficult catching. But I never view a day like Saturday at Triadelphia as "missing" anything. I learned a new launch area. I found flats that should hold fish as the water cools. I explored new coves. And I met three new anglers. I'll do better next visit which I hope is soon.

Again, thanks to Cliff, Rob and Aaron for the meet up.

[UnkleRob2020]

That is a great picture Mark...thank you.

Mark makes a great point. Meeting up with other anglers from the forum is a real treat for me. I have learned a lot from everyone that I have fished with this year. Those memories and the education that I have received from fishing with you last longer than the enjoyment of catching fish on any single day. I have learned to troll from a paddle kayak, learned to rig my kayak with sturdy rod holders and a better way to secure my seat in the high position, learned how to outfit a tricked out milk crate to make carrying extra rods more managable, learned that fishing a 1/2 oz beetlespin is not "light tackle" just because it is a beetlespin, this one is embarrasing, but Dave pointed out that I sometimes hold my paddle upside down, (not to be confused with backwards) and last but not least...I was gifted a fish finder as well as detailed instructions on how to mount the transducer and head unit specifically for my kayak make and model.

Having met Mark this weekend and watching him fly-fish was really cool. I have always been intrigued by fly fishing but have been scared away by the learning curve. Mark makes it look easy and enticing.

I am getting more enjoyment out of fishing now than I ever have in my life and I am grateful to all of you. Thank you.

[Red_Beard]

Thanks for the report. Sorry to have missed this trip, though it sounds like I didn't miss a whole lot! I guess the increased water level came from all those crazy storms we had last week. Was the water clarity affected?

Dave, the water clarity in the reservoir has definitely been affected by the rains of the last couple of months, and arguably for the better. Mark reported the clarity as being good, and I would agree as 1-2 feet of clarity is about what I think is best for bass fishing. That said, up through July the water clarity in the lower reservoir was more like 5+ feet deep, and at times I could swear you could see 10 feet down when the sun was over head. That kind of clarity can make for extremely tough fishing, but such a big change as we've seen in the last couple months requires you to rethink what techniques you use to fish the lake.