Reservation Number : 33641
Property Name : Kickapoo Lake
Reservation Date : 08/28/2022 All Day -
Total Fish/Sizes : 6 bass all returned
Lures Used : Shallow Crank Baits and Shad profile swimbaits

Second time at Kickapoo and certainly won’t be my last. I visited earlier in the year and the levels were much lower – the recent rain has definitely helped support a rise in the water level. The shallows were beautifully clear and there was no visible vegetation. There is, however, lots of grass growing from the bottom so unless you were really skilled with weedless presentations or were careful about how deep your trebles got you’d be picking grass out the entire day. Didn’t bother us at all though!

This was the first time to bring my 6 year old son along with me and he had a blast. Bank fishing is very easy and there’s plenty of room to walk around the bank – even with the grass/weeds being a bit taller than they were in early spring. It was fun to have the cows wander about and be interested in what we were up to. The only downside is that we had a small 4.5 hours window of time and patience for a 6 year old but had a blast. We only caught a few but they were all inbetween 15 and 17 inches. These fish were so aggressive. Even after lipping them they’d thrash hard until you got them back in the water.

From the dam you could see tons of small bass that would’ve been great to cull – they kept chasing all our baits but we never threw small enough presentations to catch them to help with cull numbers. I imagine if you threw crappie rigs you could scoop quite a few pretty easily. That said, the bluegill are also very aggressive, quite large and you could see them bullying some of the smaller bass that were lurking in the shallows.

We had most success pitching from the dam and/or over by the old duck blind (that’s now halfway underwater due to recent downpours) – I was heaving a shallow diving gold/silver 6^th Sense crankbait into the middle and slowly winding it back towards us and had most success there. I threw some really large swimbaits and had some good sized bass follow up to the bank and then dart off too so I know there are some beasts lurking deep. It was also nice to fish from the dam since there’s so much shade – you’re able to hide from the sun easily and just enjoy the sights and sounds.

Next time I’ll come back with a bit more time and effort to launch the boat and target more of the deeper pockets off the dam, and middle of the lake where they seemed to be hiding from the elements!

Cheers folks!