First time Lake Bradford.

A wild cold front came through on Friday and decided to flip everything upside down. Temperatures went from 70 to 40 in less than 12 hours with steady cold rain. Winds were 10-15 with gusts up to 20 but I had nothing better to do so I headed over to Lake Bradford on the Little Creek naval base. Never fished the lake before and with as windy as it was I didnt want to head out on any salt water solo.

Lake Bradford is a small lake, and has no topical features what so ever. Its shallow, deepest part I could find was 6 feet deep. The entire lake is like a dinner plate with gradual slopping sides and shallow center. I spent the first 2 hours paddling around trying to find structure or change in bottom to no avail. There is a large amount of lilly pads, and a few fallen trees on the shore line.

Not knowing the status of the bass, if they were spawn or post spawn I started out fishing the lilly pads. Just looking at those things screamed bass. Its hard to look at lilly pads and not think about a 10 pound lunker sitting there just waitin for you to plop a lure down infront of him. I started out with a frog lure. No bites in about 100 casts. Either its still to early in the season, or the cold front shut down the action. I switched over to a creature bait and started punching in the center. Not even a nibble. Then I got desperate, and tried everything I could think of. I threw every lure in my tackle box. I tried scatter raps, xraps, count downs, bombers, jigs, square bill crankbaits, lipliss crankbaits, worms in every color you can imagine, and umbrella rigs.

I finally got my first bite around 6 pm on a 4 inch Slider worm in purple/chartreuse . It was a very light hit, I was fishing it rigged on a worm hook weedless with a bb split shot 12 inches up the line I had just casted it out near the bank and let it sit and when I pulled the slack the bait stopped moving. No hard hit, no nibble, no bump, just a steady weight. Once I set the hook the fish knew I was there and took off. I thought I had found a monster but it was just a little largemouth who thought he was bigger.

Once I got him landed and measured I let him go to get a little bigger and fished the spot for a few more casts hoping there were some friends with him, but no such luck.

I heard there was catfish in this lake, so I decided to switch gears since the bass bite didnt seem to be producing and tied on a bait hook and nightcrawler. I started fishing the mouth of a cove/creek I found with houses, past experience from fishing the TN river if houses near the water have docks then alot of times fish will gather. Home owners sometimes throw dog food or cat food in order to attract fish to their shore line, and I hoped I would find some catfish. Unfortunately either VA is so much different from TN that people dont know that trick, or the catfish were all just hiding but I never managed a single bite. Infact I was almost ready to give up on the idea that the lake had any fish in it at all, even mud puddles will have bluegill in them! And thats when the lake decided to mock me with a joke.

Caught this little guy, but again no friends with him when I casted back into the same spot.

Even though it wasnt a slam, it wasnt a skunk either. Once it warmed up in the afternoon and the wind died down it turned out to be a nice day out on the lake. I got to try out the new anchor trolley on the kayak in the wind, and I used my improvised stake out pole (broom handle) as a shallow water anchor.