Diascund Reservoir
For my weekly yak outting, I decided to drive out to Diascund Reservoir and give it a try. I launched around 5:45am and fished until about noon. From the launch site, I fished NE, all the way to where I64 crosses over (I did a crapton of paddling today). For the most part it was REALLY slow. I caught 6 or 7 small white perch. These guys weren't too much bigger than the 1/2 oz White Bleeding Shad Rat-L-Trap I caught them on. There were tons of these fish in the reservoir tho and they hit that Trap like it was nobody's business. At first I thought they were gizzard shad but looked em up on DGIF and they were definitely white perch. I also caught a small bluegill and had a nice sized yellow perch follow my Rat-L-Trap up to the yak, but he didn't bite. I had to stop and do some repairs to my anchor trolley and as I was getting back in the yak, noticed something that looked like a pike (pickerel?) hovering about 7 or 8 feet from where I was! Also saw 2 large cats (not sure what kind) in a small cove. By the time I saw them, they had already seen me and they darted off. I also managed to get my anchor stuck under a log and spent about 15 mins trying to get it out (10 feet of water). I thought I was gonna have to cut 'er loose for a while...
Like I said, pretty slow day except for when I started to head back in. I saw a few gars hitting small bait fish at the surface so I decided to throw the Trap a few times in the vicinity. I hooked up on a few more white perches (starting to hate them now) but on my "last cast before I move", something substantial hit. He made a small run but didn't put up much of a fight. In about 30 secs, I had a 3 foot long nose gar up to the yak. I had no idea how to get my hooks out of this thing...I didn't have any fish lippers or anything. Took out my long nose pliers and basically destroyed the treble hooks on the Trap, trying to release it. I wish I would have had a camera, those things sure are funny looking!
I had a good time fishing but wish I could have been on the bass. I'll certainly head back out as it seems like a good place to fish. There is tons of water here and is impossible to cover in a day (might need a week!).