I got invited to do some bass fishing with some cool dudes on Pelican Lake. We all took a day off work in the middle of the week to go “Kraken” Bass! It turned out to be an awesome trip. Here are the conditions we faced, what we used, where we fished, and how we did while bass fishing Pelican Lake.

 
 
 
 

Bass Fishing Pelican Lake – Stellar Time!

Conditions:

We fished from 7:00 am – 2:30 pm on Tuesday, June 17, 2014. Here were the conditions:

Water Temprature:        70 degrees

Water Clarity:       Heavily Stained. Visibility was only about 1 – 2 feet in the water,

Weather:        Partly Cloudy. Air temperature around 65 – 75 degrees.

Wind:      0 – 25mph. It started off dead calm, but by the afternoon it was howling!

Where we fished:

Pelican Lake is always changing with the vegetation constantly growing throughout the year. The spots we found to be the best were  the small channels in between the vegetation. The best channels where those that were moving out into the deeper water on the main lake. We would look for holes in the tall reeds along the channels and throw to them. We had to muscle every fish out of the cover. Here is a photo of what some of the areas we fished looked like.

What we used:

Here are the main techniques and baits that caught the most fish.

1. Swimbait: I used a soft plastic swimbait Texas rigged on a 1/8 oz weighted 5/0 gamakatsu hook. This bait worked best when reeling it slowly along the edge of the cover. It was great for going through cover, but it couldn’t get into the real thick cover, which was referred to on this trip as the “Nasty.”  The bass hanging on the edges seemed to dig this bait.

2. Texas Rigged Craw: It didn’t seem to matter what type of craw imitation you used. The best colors were green pumpkin, summer craw, and bama bug. I primarily used a havoc pit boss Texas rigged with a 3/8 oz tungsten bullet weight, and 4/0 hook. The key was to pitch it back into the “Nasty” vegetation and let the bait sit for a minute. Then, give the bait an occasional twitch.

3. Top Water Frog: We had some solid hits on the frog first thing in the morning. It was fun to throw. The further back in the cover you could get it, the better it seemed to work. Throw it in the cover, and slowly twitch it back to the boat. Nothing really to it.

How we did:

We didn’t keep a good count of how many bass we caught, but I would estimate we wrestled with at least 30 bass between all three of us. It was a lot of fun. We didn’t really catch anything with size, but we had a good time with what we caught.  Here are the logistics of how our day shook out for us on the water.

The first 30 minutes we used topwater frogs. We caught one almost immediately, and also had a couple blow ups we missed. A lot of the bites on the frog were in the thick “Nasty,” as our Captain Paul liked to call it, so we quickly decided to start pitching plastics. Pitching plastic just felt like the best option for getting our baits back to where the bass were holding.

When we switched to pitching & flipping it was lights out. Captain Paul was shot calling bass before they were caught. He did it at least a half dozen times. The fish were sitting pretty shallow. I launched them out of the water and over the boat a couple times on my hook sets. The morning bite was hot until about 11:30 ish, and then the windy cold front moved in and things got pretty tough. Here are some of the bass we caught in the “Nasty.”

I pulled out the swimbait and caught a few along the outside edges of the vegetation  before things got slow. We still caught fish, but after 12:30pm they were few and far between. We called it a day at about 2:30pm. We laughed a lot and had a great time. We never really connected on anything very big, but we caught a “stoking” pile of bass.

Special thanks to our Captain Paul Morley, and my friend Nylin Johnson for letting me tag along with them. I learned a lot from them out on the water. These two dudes are genuine “Krakens” of Bass.  Paul got us dialed on the fish, and out fished all of us hands down. How grateful I am to have spent time on the water with these guys.

Please feel free to leave your comments about your experience with bass fishing Pelican Lake. Hope when you come here you have as much of a stellar time as we did!

As Always,

Stay Stoked!

Gear Used:

Baitcasting Set-up:
Spiderwire Stealth Braid 300-Yard Spool Moss Gree 30lbs.
Shimano Sellus Medium Heavy Worm and Jig Cast Rod 7’2″
Quantum Fishing Smoke 9 Bearing Baitcast Reel 7:3:1 ratio

Terminal Tackle:
Eco Pro Tungsten 3/8 -Ounce Flipping Weight (June Bug)
Gamakatsu Weighted Superline Extra Wide Gap Hook-5 Per Pack (Black, 4/0-1/8)
Gamakatsu Weighted Superline Extra Wide Gap Hook-5 Per Pack (Black, 4/0-1/8)

Baits:
Jackall Iobee Frog
Keitech 4.8 AYU Swimbait
Berkley Havoc Pit Boss Bait (Bama Bug, 4-Inch)
Reaction KBV-063 Kinky Beaver, Dirty Sanchez
Yamamoto Hula Grub