New to Kayak fishing

[Steamer]

Good Afternoon, I recently purchased a kayak with the plans to fish with it, I only know salt water fishing and nothing about fresh water. I plan on going to all the major ponds in De, I live in Laurel and I'm in need of some help. First off I don't know what kind of bait or lures to use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mark]

Steamer,

You couldn't live in a better area than Laurel, DE to fish freshwater ponds. You have Trap and Trussum at your backdoor. Ingrams, Concord and Records are nearby. There are many more.

Most folks use typical bass lures on the ponds -- spinner baits, chatter baits, shallow diving crankbaits and topwater. Nothing heavy or deep diving because the ponds are very shallow. You'll often be fishing in only a few feet of water.

The ponds fill with surface vegetation from spring through summer. Subsurface vegetation and slime can foul your hooks, especially during warm weather.

You can fish the edges of the pads and spatterdock with the lures I mentioned above or use soft plastics hooked weedless and cast into the vegetation. The cypress trees at Trap are also good targets for your lures, as are downed trees.

I fish DE ponds in the spring but not so much at this time of year as the vegetation thickens.

My preferred pond fishing method is topwater with a fly rod. Foam poppers will catch bass, pickerel, crappie and bluegills. If I want to target bluegills I'll downsize the poppers to size 6 or even use foam spiders in size 8. Sometimes bass and picks strike the smaller flies. But generally I use size 2 and 4 poppers to attract larger fish. Ambitious bluegills will find their way onto those hooks too.

I return to the ponds in the fall when the water clears and there are less plant obstructions. I fish subsurface lures and flies then -- small spinners or a simple jig and curly tail grub on light spinning tackle. Weedless baits will work too. I'll use Clousers and wooly buggers for flies at that time of year.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

[Steamer]

Thanks Mark, that info is a huge help