After my last trip to Braunig with fishing buddy Bob Bickett, I had an idea of using a new inshore saltwater tactic to try to see if it would work for these lake redfish.
I've had such great success at Braunig Lake since starting fishing there earlier this year all while only using artificial lures. I think continuing to learn these redfish habits and having a couple different lure options will prove to keep my success streak on a roll. However, when fishing from a kayak it is advantageous to keep it simple. I don’t want to mess with live or dead baits, which work great in this lake, or have a tackle box with every shape, size and color of lures. So keep it simple it is.
When I first started looking into fishing this lake, I came across a fisherman that told me to troll chrome/blue Rat-L-Traps in 17’ of water. I thought, this is pretty specific, but I’ll give it a go. So I researched some lake contour maps and bought some Rat-L-Traps, then headed out to do my best to implement these tactics. Low and behold, I caught fish. Then I added electronics to my kayak to allow me to map those contours myself and ensure I was maintaining the proper depths. And then catching fish became more consistent and usually more of them. Well, you can’t catch fish every time you go to the lake, right? Believe it or not, I can only remember one time that I didn’t catch at least one fish at this lake so far. Talking to others I found out that spoons are also a great lure in this lake. So I added them to my arsenal and quickly learned that on any given day, the fish may prefer one over the other. Wow, I just increased my odds of keeping this streak going. Then one day, my fishing buddy decides to fish for some bass along the shoreline first while I head to the 17’ deep areas to look for fish. When we meet up I found out he actually caught two reds on soft plastic worms while fishing for bass.
I realized I’ve invested a fair amount of money on soft plastic lures for fishing inshore, but now I find myself more often fishing at this lake. So will some of those soft plastics work here on these lake redfish? While trolling I started alternating in a swimbait and sure enough, another item for the arsenal. Now, although I’ve learned soft plastics work and these fish can be found in the shallows; at this point, I never implemented any new tactics, just trolling deeper areas until we found them.
It wasn’t until a couple of trips ago that the most useful revelations came about and some pattern seems to emerge, at least for hot summer days. These fish move into the shallows early in the morning, probably at night too, and then migrate back to the depths as the days heat up. In the past I was finding them schooling up in the depths later in the day, now I have more productive early morning tactics to implement. So on this trip I wanted to try this new tactic, but with a twist. I wanted to try jigging a new soft plastic, a Power Prawn which is an imitation shrimp, along the bottom to see if I could entice these lake redfish to strike.
I hit the water at sunrise and headed across the lake to a known area for fish activity. It is a nice cove with a deep trough that tapers right up into the center before leveling out at about 6’ deep. Then this this plateau gradually slopes up from there to the surround reed covered shoreline. Instead of trolling this morning, I would be casting up towards the shoreline as I would if I was inshore fishing. I also chose to add scent to my soft plastic, the same scent I use in saltwater. It wasn't long before I got my first hit on the Power Prawn; it does indeed works in the lake. Within just a couple of hours I landed 5 redfish, with the largest being 25 inches. I now have one more lure and new tactic to add to the arsenal when hitting the lake. I think I now have a right size tackle box to keep it simple and keep my success streak on a roll.
