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I have several local spots that I fish often throughout the year. I have a general idea of what I can expect when I visit those spots. Occasionally, I get the urge to look a bit more widely and visit some other nearby, but less familiar spots. That is what I did this morning. I launched shortly after 7:00 to high water and paddled to one tidal creek to check the perch bite. I have several specific stretches of shorelines that I target in that creek. Today I had no bites at all in those areas, suggesting that many/most of the perch have left the shoreline shallows in tidal creeks.
I moved on to another less familiar tidal creek and trolled three paddletails with medium and med-light rods. In several other recent years, I have experienced that early in the fall bait can congregate in the back sections of tidal creeks and may attract stripers. My goal was to check this particular creek to see what I found in the rear section. As I paddled through the creek, I had no bites until I was nearly at the back. Then the fun began. For the next 45-60 mins, I had nonstop hard bites from fat and energetic stripers that pulled by rods down hard. I stayed within a small area (estimated at 1-2 acres of water surface) and caught one fish after another. At one point I had a 20” fish on one rod and a 17” fish on a second rod. I had a challenge keeping the pulsing rods from going overboard and in keeping the kayak from drifting into a dock as the fish pulled me around.
The first hour was red hot, then began slowing down in the next 30 mins until it finally petered out. I tried several other spots after that but found nothing. Sometimes you luck out and happen to be at the right place at the right time.
Here are several other notes:
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I moved on to another less familiar tidal creek and trolled three paddletails with medium and med-light rods. In several other recent years, I have experienced that early in the fall bait can congregate in the back sections of tidal creeks and may attract stripers. My goal was to check this particular creek to see what I found in the rear section. As I paddled through the creek, I had no bites until I was nearly at the back. Then the fun began. For the next 45-60 mins, I had nonstop hard bites from fat and energetic stripers that pulled by rods down hard. I stayed within a small area (estimated at 1-2 acres of water surface) and caught one fish after another. At one point I had a 20” fish on one rod and a 17” fish on a second rod. I had a challenge keeping the pulsing rods from going overboard and in keeping the kayak from drifting into a dock as the fish pulled me around.
The first hour was red hot, then began slowing down in the next 30 mins until it finally petered out. I tried several other spots after that but found nothing. Sometimes you luck out and happen to be at the right place at the right time.
Here are several other notes:
- I do not have a fishfinder on my paddle kayak. I estimate that the depth ranged from 2' to 6' where I was catching the fish.
- The tidal creek was narrow and shaded where I was. That kept the sunlight levels relatively low. The good bite slowed down as the sun climbed higher (that may or may not have been a factor). Also the water level was dropping gradually throughout the morning.
- During the hottest portion of the bite, I could not keep up with three rods at once, and took the one with the heaviest lure (3/4-oz bucktail and 4.5" Buzztail plastic) out of service. The other rods were rigged with 1/2-oz jigheads with different types of paddletails.
- I saw a few schools of 4” menhaden in the area where I was fishing. My 4” white Shadzilla plastic tail matched their appearance well and was clearly the preferred plastic today. It is made by 12 Fathom, has a deep belly that simulated the menhaden profile, and is very floppy (sends out more vibrations).
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