Reservation Number : 28096
Property Name : Boatwright Lake
Reservation Date : 04/19/2021 PM -
Total Fish/Sizes : 15 small bass
Lures Used : Epic Baits Plastic Worm - Watermelon/Junebug

This was my first trip using Private Water Fishing and my first lake to try. Since this was a 2.5 hour drive from my home, I did an afternoon only trip to this beautiful lake. I am using a Hobie PA14 360 Kayak with a Motorguide Xi3 trolling motor for spotlock ability. After I launched, I made a cast in a brush against the bank right near the ramp and hung one on my first cast but lost it. I thought, this is gonna be a fantastic day. Well, I fished for a good while and got lots of hits, but could never land any. This went on for a while as they just were not taking the worm to where the hook would be set. After looking at my worms, I noticed they were biting the back end of the worm and never took it deep enough to set the hook as the hook was still in the top of the worm.

Finally after losing a whole bunch of bass, I let them have the worm upon bit for some extra time even though I always wait for a bit anyway. I waited for a long time or waited for them to take off with it before setting the hook. I lost a few that gave up and left but started catching them. Most were not in the shallowest of water but on the outside of the grass line but a few were inside in the grass. 

The lake water is nice looking and quite clear water. It was too cloudy to use my polarized glasses to help see in the water better but could see pretty good without the polarization in the water. 

I never caught any of any size nor what whould be consider keeper sized of over 14 inches. Most were in the 10-12 inch size but hey, they are fun to catch and plentiful. I ended up with 15 culled and if I had caught on to let the worm soak with the bass for much longer than normal, I could have easily doubled the number. I threw a hollow plastic frog for a bit and got tons of strikes on that in the grasses, but they were not big enough to catch with a frog hook. If the bass had any size to them, the frog would have been killer also.

I will say that this lake can be fun and has a lot of fish in it, but needs some work to improve. I use a Garmin sounder and have LiveScope so I could see bass moving around, but noticed I never found any congregations of bait such as shad. Not sure what they actually have to feed on but without seeing any shad bait, I must wonder if the fish just cannot grow and not enough bait to help them grow. I know this is one reason to mandate culling fish, but they need more culling and more bait to allow bass to grow to be much bigger. This like has potential if maintained well, but no matter, it was fun catching them and most fish I cleaned, had eggs in them and this is mid April. 

I will likely come back but will be trying other lakes also as this was my first. I enjoyed my time on the water and it was so very quite here and could not hear anything other than nature. Thanks for a great time fishing.

My equipment is as follows: Hobie PA14 360 kayak, Pride Rods Heavy action Extreme rod. Epic Baits Watermelon/Junebug worm, www.epic-bait.com . I use a Shimano Metanium DC Reel.