This past Friday, a bunch of guys from my work and I held a little tournament on Lake Kickapoo at Shakamak State Park. None of us had ever fished this body of water before, and were nervous about locating the fish. I got on www.inianainfo.net and found a topo map of the lake and was able to get a little edge on the competition. On the map, I located the areas I thought the bass would be staging in during prespawn and we focused our fishing at these areas. A good 3 hours into the fishing, we had not caught anything. The wind was gusting at 25 mph and there was a slight drizzle during the morning. Finally my partner pulled in a crappie,so that got us excited again. At least now we knew there were some fish in the lake. A few minutes later he pulled a 2.5 lb largemouth off of a submerged log with a zoom creature bait. We started then locating that type of structure, and it seemed that there was only one largemouth in the whole lake. Finally after 4 hours my partner and I discussed where the fish shouldn't be in our minds, and we decided that with the water temp at 61F, they should not be on the shallow flats. We decided to hit there since they were not where we thought they should be. We moved into an area at the end of a large cove, that was about 1 acre where two 3ft deep creek channels met and was surrounded by 1ft of grass filled murky water. My partner threw out a black 1/4oz spinner since that was the only size and color we hadn't tried, and BAM!!! Then another and another. I tied mine on and the action was nonstop. The males were on the beds in the shallow flat, one thing we didn't think would be happening already in this lake. We decided to back out of the shallow flat 20 yards at a time and slowly fish the deeper water until we found the larger females. Eventually we had found them, and had our livewell full of keepers. We moved out of that cove, in search of another and only hooked up with one more nice fish which was a nice 4.5lb female. Then time was up and we headed back in. Unfortunately, I forgot I had my camera with me and we didn't get any pics. The only fish caught by the others on the lake was a 15 1/8in bass. We were the only ones that tried fishing where our minds told us they shouldn't be in these conditions, and it payed off big time. To tell a little about the lake for those of you who are interested: Size limit on bass is under 12in over 15in. All fish caught in the slot have to be thrown back. The lake has Largemouth, Crappie, Bluegill, and Catfish. I caught one 1.5lb spot bass which was probably released by some angler from another lake. The Park has three lakes, with Lake Kickapoo being the largest of the three. Electric motors are allowed on the lake only, if you have a gas OB, then it has to be raised out of the water. The conditions we were fishing in, were not the greatest for fishing with a large low pressure system passing through and rain for three days prior. Attached is a map of the lake.
