Family Fishing Day - Lake Kirkwood

Notice that I have changed the Fishing Fridays into Family Fishing Day to accommodate the older children's work and summer schedules.

I know, you have probably heard it before, but Lake Kirkwood is one of my favorite lakes to fish at!!!  At this lake, you can bring inflatable boats to paddle back and forth, you can jump into the lake from a rope hanging from a tree, you can hike around the lake, and you can even fish :-)

Lake Kirkwood is just close enough for a day-trip from Sac Town, although we have to get up pretty early to make it happen.  Thus, yesterday, Thursday (7/13/2017), we left our home at 6 AM.  An hour later, we stopped by MCD in Placerville for a quick breakfast and met up with our usual reliable fisherman :-)

Some of us can barely keep our eyes open :-)

We arrived at Lake Kirkwood around 9 AM.  There was a sign posted at the entrance that the campground is closed.  We proceeded cautiously to our usual parking spot near the end of the paved road, at the mouth of the dirt road that led to one of several boat accesses to the lake.  No motors are allowed at this lake.  Girl scout troops would launch their canoes at this location and ferry their goods to the far end of the lake where their cabins resided.  Yesterday, we saw one girl swim the entire length of the lake!  I was not certain of the measurement, length wise, but it looked very long and I was very impressive.

We fished from our favorite rock.  See the post from two years ago.  Yes, that was the last time we came to this beautiful lake.  Here's the link: http://jultimatefisherman.blogspot.com/2015/06/fishing-fridays-lake-kirkwood.html.

This time around, however, we did not get a bite for nearly two hours!!!  I went back to the van to get more chairs, but made a stop along the way to cast out a Thomas.  First cast, I felt that familiar tug.  Was it my imagination?  A few casts later, the same thing happened, although I did not see any fish chasing the lure in.  A few more casts... and...  yes!  Fish on, baby!  It was a small planter.

First fish came to hand around 10:45 AM.

But this sign of life indicated that we setup in the wrong location.  So we moved near the entrance of the lake, by the tree with the rope.  We also shorten our leaders (4 feet or longer) to 2-3 feet leaders.  We used power balls of various colors and floated worms.  It appeared that these planters only hit the power balls and ignored the worms!  Crazy!  Usually... no fish can escape a juicy worm.  Then again, usually, we would have limited out in two hours :-)  Once, we found the location, it was game over....  As it turned out, the bottom rigs were great in the shallow.  The lures were just as effective in the cove by the original rock.

We caught some fish...  The children swam...  We had another blessed day!

I think your GoPro is on...

We found where they were hiding.

Now that I am retired...

Got this one on a lure.

Splash - The children had fun jumping into the lake.  Here's the video:

Here's another video showing fish caught using lure:

NOTE: Bring 1/4 oz. lure for the next trip!

Have a blessed day.
-JU