September 12 & 13 Susquehanna River Kayak Fishing Class Report

If you want to learn more about my Kayak Fishing Classes check out Kayak Fish PA, LLC

We had two great days of kayak fishing classes and catching this past weekend. The fish are moving into their fall feeding mode as they prepare for the upcomming winter. Both days we focused on typicall fall fishing tacktics by fishing faster and high in the water column.

The cold front slowed the bite down a bit on Sunday but we were able to pick up mulitiple fish for each angler alternating between River Darters soft jerkbaits and River Darter Swimbaits. We did hit some on top water baits in the morning but that bite was not as strong. River Darter soft jerkbaits produced the biggest fish both days and the best numbers.

The best presenation for swimbaits was a slow steady retrieve bumping off rock and other bottom structure. We worked swimbaits in faster flows between ledge rock and around rock gardens. Those “chutes” of water where the absolute best location.

The River Darter soft jerkbaits worked best by using a very aggressive series of rod snaps followed by a very breef pause then another series of jerks. Keeping he bait in the first foot or so of the water column was critical to getting bit. The two biggest smallmouth comming in at 20″ and 19.5″ came on this bait presentation.

The ledge systems were definitely the most active locations on the river as apposed to the slower moving pools. The front of ledge rock produced the the most and best river smallmouth bass.

Here are just a few of the excellent smallmouth bass my kayak fishing students where able to catch each day.

If your curious about the baits that I mentioned in the report check out Winco’s Custom Lures.

This is one of the handfull of smallmouth bass we were able to catch on spinnerbaits. This one was caught on a 1/4 oz. Winco’s Smallmouth Special Spinnerbait.

 

This bruiser of a smallmouth coming in at 19.5″ was caught on a small River Rascal Spinnerbait tipped with a swimbait. It was a personal best for this kayak angler.

 

This kayak angler also got his personal best during the class. He hooked up with this 20″ beast of a smallmouth bass using a 4.75″ soft jerkbait.