Posted By: Yakety_Yak
4-26-20 Lake Somerville (white bass and crappie) - 04/29/20 03:00 AM
The weather predictions for this past Sunday at Lake Somerville were sunny, high of 82 degrees, winds averaging at 2 mph, and the fish have been reported to be biting. The only thing that concerned me was the early morning front that came in. The cold left fairly quick leaving nothing but great weather for the duration of the day! I will say, however, that this trip is not a kayak trip. Why am I posting this when it's not kayak related you might ask? I will explain. The area we were at I have fished since I was a little boy and I can tell you it is an easy paddle to catch LMB, hybrids, crappie, and white bass. I'm posting this report so that any kayaker that likes to fish freshwater and are wanting to fish Lake Somerville, now is the time to do it.
Before I get into the story, let me say that there was not much social distancing at this lake on Sunday.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/sRHyC4s.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/beXhrNL.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/dQhKg1Y.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/sWNjNsi.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/gdc26ij.jpg)
We woke up Sunday morning in time to arrive at the lake around 8:30 am. This gave the air enough time to warm up and to wake up the fish. We launched in JC's new boat. He wanted to try out his new Garmin Live Scope w/ Panoptix. The cool thing about this fish finder is that he has made it to where it can be taken off of his boat and transferred to his kayak if he wants. If you have never heard of this fish finding unit, check it out on YouTube. It is state of the art in fish finding units and is a game changer. Lowrance has something similar but it's a Gen 1 while Garmin's is a Gen 3.
Once we hit the water, we trolled for a time. While trolling, I was looking on the depth finder to see where there could be some structure or brush piles. As I was seeing such things, I would mark it. While we trolled, we managed a few fish. My son caught the first fish with a Alabama rig. It was a LMB.
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/9tqAUMp.png)
I was driving the boat so it was difficult to navigate and get pics at the same time. After we caught some fish trolling and marking spots on the finder, we made our way on over to some structure I knew about. By the time we got there and started to fish for crappie, the bite was on. The only problem was that we arrived at a point that the bite was soon to shut down and we didn't know it until it happened. If we would have started off fishing for crappie, we could have caught a near limit each. Next time we will hit crappie fishing up first then troll afterwards.
All in all, it was a great day on the water with some fish to show for it. For you freshwater fishermen, get on your kayaks and hit this lake up. Welch Park is open 24 hours on the weekends right now. It's $3.00 a person to enter the park for the day. There is only one boat lanuch. Launch at the boat launch or near it. Start trolling deep crank baits. The fish were anywhere between 10 - 20 ft down. Umbrella rigs works good as well. Any crank bait that resembles a shad will work awesome! The next time I hit Somerville up, it will be in my kayak. If you want to fish with me out there, call or PM me on here with your number. I'm always happy to have company with me while fishing. Until then, tight lines!!
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/esarWta.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/gBKkSfB.jpg)
Before I get into the story, let me say that there was not much social distancing at this lake on Sunday.
We woke up Sunday morning in time to arrive at the lake around 8:30 am. This gave the air enough time to warm up and to wake up the fish. We launched in JC's new boat. He wanted to try out his new Garmin Live Scope w/ Panoptix. The cool thing about this fish finder is that he has made it to where it can be taken off of his boat and transferred to his kayak if he wants. If you have never heard of this fish finding unit, check it out on YouTube. It is state of the art in fish finding units and is a game changer. Lowrance has something similar but it's a Gen 1 while Garmin's is a Gen 3.
Once we hit the water, we trolled for a time. While trolling, I was looking on the depth finder to see where there could be some structure or brush piles. As I was seeing such things, I would mark it. While we trolled, we managed a few fish. My son caught the first fish with a Alabama rig. It was a LMB.
I was driving the boat so it was difficult to navigate and get pics at the same time. After we caught some fish trolling and marking spots on the finder, we made our way on over to some structure I knew about. By the time we got there and started to fish for crappie, the bite was on. The only problem was that we arrived at a point that the bite was soon to shut down and we didn't know it until it happened. If we would have started off fishing for crappie, we could have caught a near limit each. Next time we will hit crappie fishing up first then troll afterwards.
All in all, it was a great day on the water with some fish to show for it. For you freshwater fishermen, get on your kayaks and hit this lake up. Welch Park is open 24 hours on the weekends right now. It's $3.00 a person to enter the park for the day. There is only one boat lanuch. Launch at the boat launch or near it. Start trolling deep crank baits. The fish were anywhere between 10 - 20 ft down. Umbrella rigs works good as well. Any crank bait that resembles a shad will work awesome! The next time I hit Somerville up, it will be in my kayak. If you want to fish with me out there, call or PM me on here with your number. I'm always happy to have company with me while fishing. Until then, tight lines!!
