Alligator Lake 7/7/12

We've been taking major advantage of all the water that tropical storm Debby dropped on the area a couple of weeks ago by hitting up Alligator Lake as often as possible. Unfortunately, the fishing hasn't been super great. Since there is so much water, the fish can go and hide in all kinds of places where they couldn't before so it makes it harder to find them. The day in question it was me and my son on the water. It was hot outside (in the 90's) and the water was really warm as well.

 

Here is what it loos like from the boat ramp. Notice the dock right on top of the water? Before it was several feet up.

This is a back area where we have never been able to get to before.

Another part of Alligator Lake we've never been to before.

 

 

 

Here is what the average fish we have been catching looks like. 

 The times we have gone since the storm, we only caught maybe 2 fish total between all the trips. I think both of them were caught this day. They were small, nothing "keeper" size. But a cool thing about all the water is we can get to places in Alligator Lake where we have never been able to get to before. You can actually go from one boat ramp to the other, where as before, the other boat ramp and area was completely dried up. There is a lot more to this lake than we've ever seen! All the water also makes it good for any regular boats with motors to be able to get in there in fish. It does make it more crowded than we are used to, but its so big that generally us kayakers aren't bothered by the bigger boats. We will hopefully be able to hit it up again soon!

Guess where....Alligator Lake!

Thanks to a tropical storm that came through the area early last week, we got a pretty good amount of rain. Because of that, we decided to hit Alligator Lake again this past Saturday because it had been a while since we've fished there. Apparently we weren't alone in the idea, as there were several boats out there with us.

The lake itself got about 7 inches of rain, so the water was up above the weeds, making it much easier to fish. We went in the late afternoon, (about 5 o'clock) and stayed til dark (around 9 or so). The outside temp was in the upper 80's, with clear and sunny conditions. The water temp was in the lower to mid 80's.

Here was the first catch of the day.

This is one of the wife's catches...it looks like something (maybe a small gator)
 got a hold of this one before she got to it!

I even managed to catch a gar fish this day. Not a big one, but they're still fun to catch!

Over all, we only caught about 8 fish. The biggest was 14 inches, and it was the only "keeper" one we caught. All the others were around 12 to 13 inches. And we did miss several fish through out the evening. But it was still fun...it was nice to get back in to a familiar place and just relax and fish. Hopefully we can get in one more trip there before the water falls out again.

Possibly the last Alligator Lake til Winter!

My son and I went to Alligator Lake again yesterday (4/2/2012). It will probably be my last trip there until the winter strikes again. Unless I decide to try my hand at carp fishing here, because Ive seen some massive carp in this lake. They make waves like ocean waves. Its insane!

The weeds and moss and vegetation have grown up so much since the weather started staying warm that it makes it hard to fish. Even in a kayak. Mostly moss (duckweed on top and coontail underneath the water) is the issue. No matter what kind of bait you use, its impossible with the moss. You can only really use plastic worms now (and even then, they end up covered after one retrieve)...definitely no way to use spinner or buzz baits. The water is mostly clear, so a lot of light gets to the bottom of the lake to make the vegetation grow quicker there too.

But, as far as yesterday went, it was a beautiful day. Bright and sunny and around 90 degrees. The water was 74 degrees. There was a light wind, but nothing too crazy. We only caught about 6 this day, but we were only there for about 3 hours.



This is what we are working with here.

One of the fish.

Looks like there are wide open spaces of water...but about 1 inch below the surface is moss that goes down for a couple of feet, at least. The majority of the lake is only 2 to 3 feet deep.

Only 3 of the total fish were actual keeper size. The rest were on the small size.

Ive been reading a lot about dough balls for catching carp. My wife and I made some the other day, but when we tried to use them, they wouldnt stay on the hook at all. Any one have a tried and true carp catching recipe they would like to share? 

Alligator Lake again

Today we went to Alligator Lake again. We only had a couple of hours to fish today, so we went where was closest. We got there about 2 and left around 430. It was sunny most of the time we were out there, and about mid 80s. There were a couple of small rain showers, but nothing bad. I dont know the water temp for today because the battery for my depth finder died. We caught 13 total, but most of them were small. Only 2 were 15 inches.

First fish of the day

Todays baby fish

Wife caught this one

2 were caught that were this size (15 inches)

More Alligator Lake

Today we took another trip to Alligator Lake. Todays water temp started off about 69 degrees when we got there this morning and gradually increased to around 74. The outside temp was around the mid 80s. Like usual, we caught some fish (and some sunburn). Very rarely do we go and not catch anything. The biggest we caught today were 15 inches long and around 2 pounds...we caught 2 like that. The rest were in the 12 to 14 inch range. We caught about 15 total.  You can see from the pictures that we used a variety of worms today. Some days they all want the same thing, other days (like today) they all want something different.



This is one of the bigger 2 caught today.

Some of the lake residents that were out and about today.