Good day at Hicks Lake this morning, fished for about three hours. There are lots of fish around and everyone I talked to seemed to be catching - though mainly small ones. I don't see it listed on the stocking reports recently however there seemed to be more fish around on the fish finder than I've seen at Hicks in a long time - perhaps the June stocking wasn't depleted too much over the summer.
After having some success on saltspring this year trolling rapala lures for bigger trout, I decided to give it a go locally. I'm fishing from a kayak and I find that by trolling a small Rapala topwater lure on ultralight gear, I have way more fun and success than with a wedding band and I also avoid the smaller fish. By trolling with the rod behind me I can paddle away and enjoy the scenery. When a fish hits I have the drag set so loose the fish runs and I hear the take. I can then get the rod, strike and tighten the drag. I've found this to be the most effective way of fishing in a kayak, very few misses unlike trolling a fly, or on a wedding band/gang troll.
I caught two pretty decent cutties and one rainbow - each in the fourteen to fifteen inch range (which in my experience is pretty good for Hicks). Each caught in six to ten feet of water along the eastern edges.
By noon ended up pretty busy with about ten or so boats on the water - though it's a pretty big lake and there's lots of room to fish.
The other strange thing was the wind mid morning, it was gusting so hard I used my paddle as a sail, I was ripping through the water with no need to paddle. Made it to the bottom of the lake in record time only to take almost an hour of hard paddling back into the wind to get halfway back. The waves were crashing over the front of the kayak: too choppy to fish however halfway back it diied down again and I could restart fishing.
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Topic: Hicks Lake - October 4th (Read 1686 times)