Hi all. Heading to southern BC for a couple of weeks and bringing the sit on top 2 person kayak to do some fishing. My son and I are looking to fish for largemouth and smallmouth bass in some of the lakes around there. Neither of us have fished for them before as they aren't around our area.

I have a lot of tackle geared towards pike and walleye, as well as perch and some trout. Mostly spoons, cranks (rapala and storm primarily), jigs, and a couple surface poppers. Swim baits as well but they are likely too big (4-6"). I bought some KVD Okeechobee soft baits to do some Texas rigging also. Space will be limited on the trip and in the kayak, so what should I pack?

SS

these

https://www.gitzitinc.com/main/en/joomshopping/product/view/8/44.html

green, crawdad color 3/8 oz

some senkos rigged carolina and whacky style or drop shot. sm's are not picky
some rapalas. floating, sinking in perch, gold. try twitching floating for top water along shorelines, structure

crankbaits - fire tiger, crawdad colors


fish submerged structure later in summer, look for submerged rocks, points etc. hot this summer look to 15 to 30 ft deep

pulling a 3/4 oz bottom walker behind kayak with a nightcrawler works good mid day

Can't go wrong with crawdad colored crankbaits. I would also take some type of spinner baits. Good luck!

6" purple and black rubber worms. Rig Texas style and throw up around brushpiles and weed beds. Fish it with a slow lift of the rod tip, lower crank up the slack and repeat. Bass will pick it up and slowly take off, give them a little bit to get it into their mouth and lay the steel to them.

Never fished there but I'd think what you've got and everything mentioned will work for bass at one time or another.

If I had to catch a bass I'd use a Senko but make sure to give the surface plugs a try. IMO seeing a bass bust a surface plug is the best part of bass fishing.

With the weather we have been having the water will be warm I would not spend too much time on surface lures (especially for smallmouths) and would focus on early/late in the day. There are some good fish in that lake, good luck. Any chance you have a portable fishfinder? I would use one to find structure/channels and work them pretty thoroughly.

Hi Pat. I won't have a fishfinder with me, unfortunately. All of mine are permanent in my boat. Is there a depth or structure I should be targeting?

SS

All those baits mentioned would probably serve you well. I have no idea what the bass might be doing in the waters you will be fishing but would mention a bait that nobody has yet... chatterbait. I've been fishing the Z-Man chatterbait a bunch this year and have been tearing them up. Might be worth taking a look at.

My experience (not on that lake) has been with smallmouths and I suspect that they will be in deeper water than largemouths. I like to find sunken islands, sunken ridges or shelves with deeper water close by. A local lake has some shelves adjacent to some pretty deep holes where the shelves are 14-16 feet, I like to anchor and work the edges in the evening during the summer heat. IIRC, you are headed towards Vaseux lake. On that lake I would probably start on the west side(shadows in the evening) where there are some rock bluffs/ridges above the water and start exploring from there.

frogs work quite well.Toss them on the lillys or on shore by weed bets and bang away.

4-6" swimbaits are NOT to big.

Snap swivel or tie directly?

SS

nice things about smallies is that the techniques and baits crossover nicely for walleyes also, fish for one and you seem to catch both

If I had to narrow it down, based on my experience up north fishing the churchill river.

I would have some crank baits, rapala, original floating in perch and brook trout colors. Berkley Flicker shad in crawdad colors and perch colors.

Mepps spinners in #5 and #4 sizes, rainbow, red/white and black/yellow.

Senko's or Yum dingers in watermelon or green pumpkin, texas rigged weightless and with bullet weights, 1/16, 1/8 oz

Never go fishing for smallies with out Tubes, green pumpkin, watermelon and blue/black.

And last but nost least kalins grubs 4" in Smoke/pepper, Chartreuse pepper, yellow and black. And lots of 1/8 and 1/4 oz plain round jig heads.

be sure to pack some 20 lb flourocarbon leader to tie on if you start having issues with pike bite offs, last time I was up north and didn't have any and resorted to tying on leaders of 40 lb mono, didn't seem to slow the bite any but helped to keep the pike from constantly biting me off.

Pack a couple surface lures in case the smallies are coming up top side. Talk about a fish with an attitude. If they're busting top water poppers or maybe a Devil's Horse (by Smithwick) you're in for some very fun sight fishing.

For largemouth and smallmouth bass, anywhere,the first thing I pack are jigs.Usually it's all I need.

If you're throwing them in the right place, and the bass happen to want to be there, yes. Only problem with jigs and plastics is they are poor search tools to establish a pattern, because they fish so slowly.

Hank Parker once said, "Bass will always be deep, or shallow, or somewhere in between". Sound obvious but some folks will fish seven different lures in the same strata and wonder why they don't get bit.

Anyone remember Slug-Gos?

Yes. Dad and me landed some hogs on the rootbeer colored ones fished Texas rigged.

We ended up catching 5. None of them were very big, but we had fun none the less. I tried using senkos, surface lures, tube jigs, and had nothing happing. My son put on a bass coloured Rattlin' Rap and caught one immediately, so we switched to those and the seemed to do the trick. One largemouth as well, but he jumped at the kayak and threw the hook.

Thanks for the advice all.

SS

I still have several packs in my tackle box. Texas rig a 5/0 wide gap hook weightless and twitch through, around and over vegetation. Works well...