Fishing Report: Canoe Creek Lake

My son and I decided to do some early “morning maneuvers” at Canoe Creek Lake in search of some largemouth bass. Well, we had a couple of setbacks so we didn’t arrive at the lake till about 9:30 a.m., which was just in time to catch the tail end of the morning bite. Even with a late start we weren’t disappointed. We fished for about three hours and managed to boat five largemouth. My son landed two nice largemouth and lost one at the boat. I managed to boat three also loosing one at the boat. The fish ranged in size from 12” to 15”.

It was a great day on the water with my son. The highlight of the trip turned out to be a HUGE snapping turtle that we spotted while fishing a submerged weed bed. I commented to my son that I was going to pitch to a big stump. I was thinking to myself, “I didn’t see that a couple of minutes ago”. Just as I was ready to give the bait a pitch I notice that the stump had legs and a head! We tried to get to the camera but unfortunately our boat had gotten to close and the turtle quickly submerged…note to self…do not swim at Canoe Creek Lake.

Bait
This is beginning to sound like a broken record but all our fish were caught on 7” or 5” Yum Dingers. Two colors worked well pumpkin/chartreuse and green/chartreuse. We rigged the Yum Dingers tex-posed style with no weight most of the time. When fishing deeper weed beds we added a split shot to help get the bait down faster. I also tossed a crankbait over some weed beds with no success.

Pattern
We started by fishing a stump field and landed two largemouth off the wood. The other three fish were caught from submerged weed beds. The lake is laterally one big weed bed so it is tough to know where to start. We focused our efforts on what I call weed bed islands. These are weed beds that top out about two feet from the surface then drop off into about five or six feet of water on all sides.

Water Conditions
Due to recent rains visibility varied. Some areas had about a foot of visibility. Other areas had five feet of visibility or more. We caught fish in both clear and muddy conditions. The structure we fished seemed to be the important element. Water temps are unknown.

Weather Conditions
Sunny, virtually no clouds. Air temps in the 70’s.