Thread: Having a hard time...

First of all welcome.

Not being familiar with fishing from a kayak I would guess you are generally casting using a horizontal presentation casting your baits. I am usually using a vertical presentation by tight lining or dipping around standing timber or brushpiles.

I would be starting off say early in the day working around the bridge pillars on the Little Bull and the four corners on the riprap around the bridge. On the corners I would be bouncing the jigs on the bottom in the rocks at various depths. On the pillars I would be flipping jigs out to slowly pendulum down next to the concrete pillars. Trying differing jig weights to vary the fall rate. For me Hillsdale has always been notorious for the bite to shut down later in the mornings.

If the bridge area doesn't work out I would be out over the channel edges working the standing timber. If that didn't work I would try and tight line on the flats off of the channels trying to find a depth they are in and biting.

I'm using electronics to locate the fish and channel breaks or edges looking for marks to give me confidence to work areas.

Hillsdale is my home lake but all I can say is I am struggling a lot of the times I'm out there.

Anyhow good luck out there.

Thanks for the welcome.

I can get vertical from the kayak, but not as easily as you fellas from an "actual" boat. I like to take a 14' cane pole out with me when I go so that I can poke around docks and such.

The electronics thing is something I need to start using. I've got a Marcum ice fishing flasher that I've been thinking about rigging up on the yak. I'm sure I'd get some strange looks from passers by though. :-)

I think I'm going to "gift" myself some welding rod from work and put some spiderwire on one of my old bass rods and see how that works out for me. I'll probably give the Wakarusa another shot next week.

Welcome Slim Pickens!
You might look at a humminbird easy cast unit to rig for your fish finder as you are mainly concerned about the water depth. You have picked a pretty tough lake to catch large numbers of big crappie. I have been fishing there quite a bit this year with my best success on keepers from 6-10' fow close to the bottom. Fish tight to the hedge trees mid-way up any arm or branch of the lake, my best results have been with a minnow or jig tipped with a minnow.
Good luck!

Welcome Slim Pickens....You should run up Rock Creek at Clinton too....plenty of protection from the big boats and I saw 5 or 7 kayakers up there yesterday. All ladies that made my day a little better

Anyway you could also take a look at the smaller lakes. Lakes like Louisburg Middle Creek, Lake Olathe and Lonestar which is just south of Clinton lake. Middle Creek has standing timeber and Olathe and Lonestar are brush pile lakes. While I have not fished Olathe I have heard good things about it. At lonestar all you have to do is move around in open water and for the brush piles just go out from the picnic tables on the rip rap bank. MOst are 10-15' of water. No big fish in here, but plenty of 9-11" fish. There is a nice bass population in there too if you struggle with the crappie.

Good Luck!