Lake Fork - Labor Day Weekend
Went to Lake Fork two weekends ago. Fished from about 4:45 PM to Dark. Spent the morning in Canton buying ducks and geese, or else I would have gone in the morning. I launched at Chaney Point RV park and it was a really nice launch. I would reccomend launching here to any kayaker. You pay $5 and put it in an envelope at the front, there is plenty of parking and a lot of timber to fish. The only downside to the area is that there were a lot of boats creating a lot of fishing pressure, but I would imagine the pressure is bad anywhere near a boat ramp on the lake - especially on Labor Day weekend. I paddled out close to the mouth of the cove and threw soft plastic crawdads and frogs at the trees. Tried wacky worms too but had no luck. I talked to another kayaker and he said the fishing had been really slow, and that August is the worst time to fish the lake.
I also want to say that I stopped at Lake Fork Tackle in Emory and the guys there were a huge help. They even gave me a few swim baits to try out for free. I would recommend stopping and talking to them.
Here is a picture of the launch. It was really easy to put in just to the right of the concrete.
Here is the classic Lake Fork view once you get in the water and head left
Private Lake - East Texas - Labor Day
After getting skunked at Lake Fork, I spent the rest of the Holiday Weekend fishing at my parents property. Normally I would not post private lake pics/report, but thought I would throw some in since I did not provide any fishing pics with the above post! I used a wacky work in pumpkinseed/watermelon using an o-ring, a booyah buzzbait in chartreuse, and a Berkley crawdad in red color.
I bought a new ultra light Castaway pro sport and really like it for light tackle freshwater fishing.
West Bay - South Deer Island - September 7th
I had checked the weather on Saturday and it showed 50% chance of rain, but no lightning. Well I guess that changed overnight, because the whole way there I saw lightning in every direction. I wanted to check out Louis Bait Camp for future reference and stopped and got shrimp there, then headed on to 8 Mile Road where I parked at the end and launched to the right when you are facing the water on a beach.
The storms were headed in other directions. I decided to skip lures and just fish live shrimp. LIke I have said in past reports, I fished nothing but lures in the bay my whole life and am finding bait fishing really relaxing. I first went to the SE side of the island. I threw out a popping cork and another rig with a carolina keeper keeping the weight a foot from the hook. Caught a black drum in the first minute that went just over 14 inches. After that I poled myself through the marsh lake in the middle of the island ( I did pull out my buggs for this occasion). Has anyone ever caught any reds in the small lake in the middle of the island? I pushed myself through about half of it but did not see anything. Ended up moving to the SW side of the island and used shrimp again. Caught several ladyfish and a small blacktip shark. The tide was pretty high, but I assume at low tide there are a lot of oysters visible?
At this point the wind seemed to suddenly switch directions and was coming from the east, and there was heavy rain over the island in front of me. With the wind suddenly coming from shore I decided to play it safe and try fishing along the piers on the shoreline. Of course after I paddled all the way back the sky suddenly started clearing up a bit! I guess I just got the wind from a small storm that passed over the 8 mile road area briefly. Caught one more ladyfish near the piers and called it a day after about 3 hours of total fishing time.
I have never caught a shark in the bay though and was excited about that.
First Bay Shark
14 1/2 inch Black Drum
Lots of Ladyfish that day
Not the nicest day
