Bonus Kayaks at Oconee State Park

Exploring our cabin, which would be home for the next couple of days, my daughters and I roamed onto the screened-in back porch, which overlooked the lake in Oconee State Parks in South Carolina’s Upcountry region. 

Hanging on the porch wall were two kayak paddles and a few life jackets of different sizes. Looking down the hill, we saw two kayaks on the lake’s bank, straight down from the cabin. Were those ours to use, we wondered, or did that just make things handy if we wanted to rent them? I knew the park rented a couple kinds of boats for use on the lake, and the website hadn’t mentioned kayaks coming with cabins when I’d made our reservations.

A bit later one of my daughters found the answer in a note on our cabin’s refrigerator, affirming that the kayaks were complementary with cabin rentals and revealing lock combination. Turns out the kayaks are leashed to a post with a cable and a lock. 

Eventually we noticed that every cabin had a pair of kayaks on the bank. Apparently, it is a program that was instituted fairly recently, so it isn’t even highlighted on the park’s website yet. For us, it was a delightful surprise and I think it’s a really cool thing for the park to offer.

We didn’t spend tons of time in our kayaks simply because of hiking trails we wanted to take on and other places in the area we wanted to explore. However, we did take them out for a while one afternoon, and it turned out the be one of our favorite activities. We also saw other cabin guests enjoying their boats at times.

The kayaks are stable two-person boats that are very user friendly, and the lake is fairly small but highly scenic, is totally within the park and is only open to non-motorized craft. Therefore, the kayaks are well suited for most users to slide them in the water, hop in and go — whether to cruise the lake for an hour in the evening or to fish all day.

The CCC-era cabins are wonderful on their own, and there’s more cool stuff about the park and area I’ll likely share in another post. The kayaks were such a fun bonus, though, that I wanted to brag on Oconee State Park just a bit!

Largemouth Irony Extended

My most recent post noted that I was Arkansas bound to some fishing and photography on Lake Ouachita and nearby. I’ve returned, and the trip indeed provided some good fishing opportunities.

While on that trip I added largemouth bass catches from two more states — Mississippi and Arkansas — for 2026. That’s ironic because while I have caught five different black bass species in Georgia this year, enough to qualify me for the Georgia Bass Slam, the very common largemouth bass is not one of those. However, I have now largemouth bass that would have qualified in five other states in 2026.

What makes that extra odd is that my fishing time in the other states has been quite limited. Only in Alabama did I legitimately spend a day fishing for bass. That was in Lake Guntersville, which is an excellent bass lake.

The Florida fishing came from brackish water on a day when we mostly caught redfish, speckled trout and other saltwater species. The others came from quick efforts during travel.

This trip and the bass I caught continued that pattern. The Mississippi largemouth came on a crappie jig. I broke up my drive with two-hour stop to check out a fishing pier that extends into the Tenn-Tom Waterway, carrying just a light spinning combo and crappie jigs. I caught two fish: a bluegill and a largemouth.

The Arkansas largemouth was out on Lake Ouachita. That’s a legitimate largemouth destination, and I spent a day out in a bass boat. However, I was out with bass pro Stetson Blaylock to get photos and blog content for work and mostly had a camera in my hand. I’d guess that I fished for less than 45 minutes total that day. I cast a Super Spook Boyo among some schoolers at one point and caught a 4-pound largemouth.

I also did a little creek and river fishing on the trip, and something from those days might end up being part of another blog. To check out the creek day, visit “Fishing on Foot” on YouTube and look for “This Little Arkansas Creek was LOADED with Fish.”

 

Arkansas Traveler

Next fishing stops for me will be in Arkansas in the Ouachita Mountains. 

Stop one will be “Fishing on Foot,” wading the upper Ouachita River for smallmouth bass and whatever else chooses to bite.

Stop two, Lake Ouachita, out on boats with pro bass anglers. Photos and blog content for my work are primary objectives. Ouachita is a beautiful lake with mostly undeveloped, mountainous banks, and the fall fishing should be good.

The lake should also be beginning to look like fall, although from what the forecast says, it won’t feel very autumn-like. Highs in the 90s!

I did the same basic trip last year, albeit slightly earlier, and it was very productive. I caught fish from the river and the lake, and the lake portion even included some topwater bass action!

I’ll enjoy all the fishing, and both trip elements lend themselves to productive photo work, but I can’t deny I’m the most excited about the river wading part. That’s simply the fishing that I enjoy the most. and this year’s opportunities for wet wading in mountain rivers won’t last much longer.

Hopefully my next post will include a good fishing report.

Stolen Rod & Reel

Confusion came first. My other rod wasn’t where I thought I’d left it. Had I been settled in a little different spot than I’d remembered? I looked up and down the pier and still didn’t see it and then look back to where I had just been fishing to see if I had toted it with me. Still nothing.

Then I noticed my grungy tackle box, right where I’d left it and right where my rod and reel should have been. Then it started to sink in. My new rod and reel — a nice Penn saltwater spinning outfit that I had saved for and bought only weeks before that night — had been stolen.

It was the first thing of value ever stolen from me, and it hit hard. The pier crowd was my community, so I hadn’t even considered that leaving quality gear unattended while I hopped from spot to spot with my other rod was a bad idea. At 17 or 18, I suppose I just trusted everyone on the pier (and everywhere.)

Of course, I’ll never know if it was a fellow angler who saw me roam out of watching range and decided it was time to go home with an new rod and reel or whether it was a non-fisherman who simply saw something that could be turned into cash at a pawn shop. Either way, I felt betrayed, and I suppose to a degree I still do. 

I’ve had various other things stolen in my life — even a car when I was in college and a wallet. However, nothing dug as deep as having my new rod and reel stolen from the pier where I so much liked spending time.

I don’t recall whether I fished any more that night, but my guess is that I just picked up my old tackle box and went home. 

I’m glad to say it didn’t ruin pier fishing or even Big Pier 60 for me. And I suppose it did make me a little bit wiser. Not a lot. More than 40 years later, I still sometimes leave stuff laying around where I probably shouldn’t. I’m more aware now, though, and at least I do so knowing it’s a bit of a risk!

First Baitcasting Combo

“The Structure Cafe” Facebook page shared this 1980 fishing magazine ad, and it caught my attention. The reel pictured, a Daiwa Procaster SM2A and matching rod was the first baitcasting combo I ever owned.

And the reason I wanted that specific rod and reel? Well, that shows in the ad as well. That’s what Bill Dance used when I watched him catch so many fish on tv every weekend, so I figured I needed one so I could catch fish like he did. That was 46 years ago, and I still seldom catch as many quality bass as Bill did every weekend, but I’m glad his influence got me to broaden my game and teach myself to use a baitcaster when I was 15 years old.

My first rod and reel was a Zebco 404, and it suited me fine for my earliest learning, but my grandpa, the only other angler in our family, eventually convinced my parents that I needed a spinning rod and reel. I wish I remember what kind it was, because that was all I fished with for a few years. 

When I got my heart set on the Procaster, it was a big enough jump, cost-wise, for fishing gear, that I had to ask for the reel for my and the rod for Christmas, which for me are a couple of months apart.

My grandpa had passed away by that time, so it was just me, my new rod and reel and a rubber casting weight for learning. I stood in the front yard for hours making practice cast after practice cast and picking out backlashes until I finally figured out the timing, the brake settings and the thumb pressure well enough to begin taking my new gear to local ponds and creeks and to the bridges and piers where I would target saltwater fish.

A couple of years later, I also got a Daiwa Magforce reel, which I think was on a Shakespeare Ugly Stik with a pistol grip. I also bought (or got as a gift; I don’t remember.) a Daiwa Minicast system at some point for shiners and bream and other little stuff.

I also saved up for and bought a Penn saltwater spinning outfit. It got stolen from a pier while still pretty new, but that sad story might be best reserved for another blog.

I sure wish I still owned those first rods and reels, but it was sure fun seeing the Procaster ad!

Rebel LIVEflex Lures

Arguably the biggest change in my stream fishing lure arsenal over the past few years has been the incorporation of Rebel LIVEflex series soft plastic baits. Except in special-regs trout water where scented baits aren’t permitted, I virtual always have some LIVEflex baits with me if I’m wading a creek or walking a pond bank, and often one is tied on.

Like many lures, I began fishing LIVEflex baits before they were even released, initially to learn about them and gather photos. My first exposure was in August 2023, nearly a year before then series initially launched, at Crooked Creek in Arkansas. I realized almost immediately that these baits would be valuable for my stream fishing approach and would become a regular part of my game.

The LIVEflex material is one of those ultra-tough, buoyant plastics. The baits stay in place on the hook fish after fish, and buoyancy slows the fall on a jighead and makes them stand up on the bottom, which makes them look far more natural. Unlike other plastics that have similar characteristics, the LIVEflex baits are infused with a strong scent attractant.

As important as the characteristics of the material (at least), the LIVEflex series is sized right for multi-species fishing and comes half a dozen shapes that accurately match critters that creek fish very commonly eat. They also come with two of the baits in each package pre-rigged on jigheads they match up with perfectly and with one extra jighead in the package.

The rigged are a bonus that undeniably affects my lure choices when I’m out. Having soft-plastics rigged and ready to fish that I can simply tie on is very nice, and they are always rigged straight for the best presentations.

I most often fish the LIVEflex baits as they come pre-rigged, dragging or hopping them along the bottom, letting them tumble in current, or swimming them. I especially like to swim the Shore Shiner. I also really like to dropshot LIVEflex baits in order to keep them just off the bottom and soften the action. A light Texas rig or weedless jighead provides a good option for working the bottom in snaggy areas.

LIVEflex Series

• Creek Craw
• Hoper
• Creek Critter
• Cata Crawler
• Tadpole
• Hellgrammite 

Anticipating Autumn Fishing

Joe Pye weed growing from a rocky mid-river area and blooming caught my attention during a recent wade-fishing outing. It always does. I think it’s a beautiful and wild looking flower, I often spot it first in a year while fishing, and it reminds me that summer’s end is drawing near.

I’m not a hater of hot weather. More so than most folks, I think, I value aspects of the every season and have never seen myself as a “cold weather” or “hot weather” person. If forced to pick a favorite season, though, it would be Autumn, so I admittedly get a little ahead of things anticipating the season change.

That’s precisely where we are right now. The 10-day outlook mostly shows highs in the low 90s. Hardly fall weather. But tomorrow we turn the calendar page to September, college football kicks off next weekend, schools are back in season, and pumpkin drinks are on coffee shop menus.

Those things all tell me that cooler mornings, the vibrant colors that define the season, boosted activity levels in many gamefish, and fishing action that can extend throughout the day are not far away.

Arguably my favorite thing about autumn fishing is that I frequently have the waters I fish to myself. Between school’s return bringing most vacations to an end, many sportsmen turning to the woods, and many anglers only associating fishing with spring and summer, even many popular fishing spots are largely uncrowded during fall. 

Delayed-harvest trout streams that open to catch and release fishing in October or November (depending on state) are an extreme exception, but that’s another story for another time.

For now, I’m just enjoying the promise brought by the mid-stream Joe Pye Weed.