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Jill's Pond 14 -- 04/06/2020

john — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 13:04:33 +0000

Caught 14 of all sizes. Must have been some late spawning action.

Holy Spirit Pin - 25 Years

imported_john — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 02:34:20 +0000

Vince's hat went bad and he stuck his Holy Spirit pin in a cypress tree 25 years ago and it's still there. It's on Lacassine Bayou. Luke pointed to it in 2007 and his dad and I saw it in 2012. It's still there today like it might last another 1/4 century.

4/7/2015: Was back to the tree this Spring and the pin is still there.

07/17/2017: It's still there.

Kyle's First Trip

imported_john — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 20:33:38 +0000

Kyle made his first trip in the Kayak today, and we went to Mermentau. We were headed for Jennings, but when we got to Mermentau for a look he wanted to launch then and there. It was a joy to see him experience his long awaited first yak adventure. His excitement was contagious.

We tried a little to catch a fish, but the main focus was to introduce him to paddling. He really got focused when a barge made itself seen coming around a bend toward us.

Kayak Gets A Fishfinder

imported_john — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 22:16:26 +0000

I took a leap and invested in a Humminbird 346c DI fishfinder/sonar, and installed it this week during the flood rains. I also added an anchor trolly to my Jackson Cuda. I brought my yak inside and worked in my home office where it was nice and cozy. Here is a closeup of the install. It's mounted on the hatch cover for the center storage area. I ran the wires over the top and into the side of the storage area with a lot of Duct Seal plugging the hole. I'm not to sure how that will work. The transducer was mounted inside the bottom of the hull in a pond made from Duct Seal. A nice play dough like putty that never gets dry. The battery is a Hobbico Torqmaster Mini 12v - 4,5Ah and I mounted it in a cheap little dry box bought from Walmart. Got my fittings from O'Riley Auto parts and added a 3 amp inline fuse.

Slider Weedless Effort

imported_john — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:51:47 +0000

In mid August I bought some weedless hooks and 1.5" grubs from Charlie Brewer's Slider Company and have been giving them a good work out. It really is nice to be able to fish the really rough cover without getting hung so much. You still get hung when the line and jig get in the right cracks, but it's often you can wiggle it out. Another way I get it loose is using my anchor pole with a carabineer tied on the end. I'll put up more about that later on. The weedless rig makes tight line fishing a whole lot easier. Dragging it through the water Tennessee style or vertical both have less hangs. It does seem that it requires more of a hook set though and will take some getting used to. Using the weedless hooks has exposed to me what I would call the "puppy pull" behavior in crappie. I'm seeing fish pull and travel pretty far like they were well hooked only to get off. When I check the bait sometimes the barb hasn't been even exposed leading me to conclude that they can hang on for a good while without barb penetration. Some of the fish that I used to think were not hooked well probably had just been hanging on with their bite and had not been set properly. Here is Charlie Jr. showing how to rig the bait.

Kayak Truck Rack and Rigging

imported_john — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 19:24:23 +0000

It took a while to feel comfortable on the highway with 2 kayaks on top and going 70 mph down the interstate. The truck rack we have holds both yaks overhead, and we strap down with more straps than we probably need. We are using a pickup truck rack from U. S. Rack. One side has a set of Yakima HullyRollers to slide up with, and it has Yakima Mako Saddles on the other end. The other kayak is racked with a pair of Malone Sea Wings. If everything goes right there will be a video below showing how they ride, and a look at the gear stowed all over the truck.

Homemade Anchor Pole

imported_john — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 23:02:33 +0000

Well I got tired of drifting around when I was on a good fishing spot, and the anchor is hard to place yourself exactly. So I decided to try an anchor pole and see if that would work. Pricing around it looked like I would have to pay at least $40 for a 5 foot pole. This is my first attempt to build one, and inspired by a few YouTube videos this is what I have. I bought an 8' length of 3/4 PVC pipe schedule 40, a tee, and 2 48" popular dowels. Altogether I spent just under $10. The dowels almost fit tight, but slide a little. My solution was to dab some pipe cement on the bottom dowel and slide it in. This seems pretty tight, but I soaked the end in water for about 3 days to swell the wood and hopefully have it jammed tight. So far so good. I tested it out on my last trip running it through one of the scuppers. It fits the Jackson Cuda fine, but won't go into the Native Manta Ray. The pole does have some flex even with the dowels inside, but seems to work fine. Of course it won't work in rock hard bottom, and in over 6' of water it gets iffy. A lot of the places I fish crappie holding in 6-7' of water will be fine, and it was nice to be stationary. The pole slides up and I can hold it with my leg while I paddle forward. Some of the time I just trailed it behind while tied off at my side. For the long paddle home it stayed where the paddle is stored. The hold idea reminds me of spud barge which is a work barge with poles that are dropped in the mud to hold it's position.

Our First Portage

imported_john — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:59:11 +0000

We headed out to do an 8 mile paddle down a drainage canal into Bayou Lacassine, and found the water so high that we couldn't get under a bridge about half way to our destination. That's when we did our first ever portage. It wasn't too bad with two people, but not so great if I was alone.

We didn't catch any fish but had a great day paddling through some nice cypress swamps. The water was a little muddy with the stinky marsh water bleeding in by spots.

I'm happy to report that the Holy Spirit pin is still stuck in the big cypress down on the Bayou Lacassine bank. That's 23 years now that it's been there. The last check we did on it was back in 2007.

Holy Spirit Pin 18 Years Later

imported_john — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:49:34 +0000

My friend Vince fished with me for a year ending in the Spring of 1989. In April of that year we were in Bayou Lacassine and pulled up under a Cypress tree to eat our lunch. Vince had this nice little Holy Spirit pin on his hat and the back band broke. Well those cheap caps are throwaways but the pin was to nice. He spontaneously stuck it in a big cypress like you would a tack on a bulletin board. We have been checking over the years to see if the Holy Spirit is still in Lacassine. As of June 02, 2007 I am happy to report it’s still there after 18 years and apparently no worse the ware. That’s my grandson pointing to it.