Buck Lake Kayak Fishing

I hope everyone is doing well, and has managed to stay dry this past week. Today I am going to talk about a new spot I went and fished, Buck Lake in Harmony. This year I have made it a goal to get out and fish as many places as I can within driving distance of my home that are NOT world famous Bass fisheries that have been covered to death. I was doing some research on the Alligator chain of lakes in the St. Cloud area and stumbled across another lake, called Buck Lake. Three things jumped out at me to go give it a shot:

• 1
  I couldn’t find any easily available information online.
• 2
  There is no public boat ramp and virtually no accessible shoreline – it is only accessible via hand launched craft or via the fleet of pontoons for the 55+ community in Harmony.
• 3
  It is less than 30 miles from my house, and without making any stops it’s a roughly 35 minute drive up 192.

I planned on going Saturday, but balked at the last minute due to what I was seeing on the forecast. I was looking at weather radars and forecasts until midnight on Friday, and made a last minute change of plans to go up to Fox Lake which had a longer block of clear skies and just fish for fun. I had a decent day there, nothing of great quality, but as all my prior experiences at Fox Lake, I caught a decent number of Bass (one day I will catch a big one there).

After not getting bit on my frogs or Super Spook Jr. that has been hot for me lately, I started throwing around a Heddon Tiny Torpedo, and this was my hot bait of the day, it was deadly around the lily pads. I threw this bait on a 7 foot Ugly Stik Elite Spinning Rod with a Penn Pursuit 3000 Reel, 10 pound braid, and 15 pound Mono leader, tied on with an FG knot. I also caught another 7 on a Zoom Ultra Vibe in Junebug Red, and Candybug on a 5/0 Gamakatsu G-Lock Worm Hook, Texas rigged with a 3/16 oz tungsten, pegged.

I caught most around the lake’s abundant lily pads, but also found some fish in the shallows around emergent vegetation. I threw the speed worm around on my Berkley Lightning Rod, 7 Ft Casting Rod with an Abu Garcia Black Max Reel, with 30 pound braid, and 15 pound Fluoro leader, tied on with an FG knot.

Sunday I followed through on my original plans to do a spot report at Buck Lake. I got up before 6 and was there by 6:45, but was eyeing the radar, and ended up killing time once I got there. I went over to the 7/11 in Harmony and drank coffee in my truck waiting for the nasty stuff to blow through. I finally was on the water at 9.

I launched out of Lakeshore Park in Harmony, I launched the kayak right on the shoreline close to the iron fence keeping the riff-raff off of the retirement community’s private dock. Riding into the area, I wondered if it was actually permissible to launch a kayak there, but I never saw any signs prohibiting kayakers, just as long as you stay off their dock, I guess. There is a bit of a walk from the parking area to the actual lake, so if you don’t have one of those carts to pull your rigged kayak I highly suggest bringing a cart or something to carry your stuff down.

Wind, wind, windy, wind gust, wind, more wind, an even stronger gust, man my arms hurt, wind, wind, and more wind. That’s how I would describe the day. To be fair, I knew it was going to happen like that, and I chose to go anywhere. We always say, a day fishing is better than a day at (reader’s discretion – insert any mundane task or life thing here), but there were times Sunday where that motif was put to the test. I ended up confined to a small area of the lake, where I got behind the grass and worked opposite of how I planned to work, but sometimes life throws you a turd sandwich, and you just have to put some mustard on it, and pretend it’s an Italian sandwich from Beachside Bagel World.

It’s hard to really diagnose Buck Lake after the limited coverage I was able to do, and the apocalyptic winds, but despite not being able to fish where I wanted, and really, how I wanted, I was able to catch some fish. Buck Lake is a natural lake, and like many lakes in Central Florida, it is a “dishpan”. Typically I would target the outside edges of the grasses and reeds, but any attempt to get out into the open areas and cast into this cover left me getting blown around like a Dodge city tumbleweed in a spaghetti western. I was limited to working the backsides of the grasses and was confined to the area between the offshore vegetation, and the shallow shoreline, where it would have been nice if the fish would have decided to congregate there for me, but alas, they did not. Fishing would be a lot easier if the fish just went where you wanted them to.

When the winds were calm (low to mid 20’s) I was able to nose into the shallow side of the grasses and hunker down. The only downside of this method of “natural anchoring” was my kayak became the assembly hall for every spider that calls Buck Lake home. I have a healthy fear of spiders, I don’t mind flicking a small one away, but one time I went to reach back and grab a bottle of water from my cooler and saw a Wolf spider that was about the size of my son’s hand sitting next to the cooler I briefly considered retiring from the sport of kayak angling, jumping out, and swimming to shore.

Arachnophobia aside, hunkering down amongst the vegetation proved to be a smart play, and I was able to catch the most fish amongst the scattered grasses 30-40 yards offshore. I did work some of the lily pads in the back areas, and was able to catch a few smaller Bass this way. I stuck to two baits and set ups throughout the day. Due to the turbid waters I didn’t fish the speed worm very much, I stayed away from top water, and I went with a Gambler EZ Swimmer in Forty-Niner (Gold) and a Gambler Slim EZ in Copperfield. I fished the EZ Swimmer on an Ugly Stik Elite Casting Rod (7 Ft) with a Bass Pro Shops bait caster (the cheapest one they sell for under $50) on a Gamakatsu 5/0 Screw Lock Swimbait Hook, no leader 50 pound Power Pro braid straight to the hook. This is what I was fishing through the thickest cover and wanted to be able to pull the fish out. For the Slim EZ I used my new combo, and 7 Ft Bass Pro Shops Fish Eagle Rod (great piece of equipment for under 100 bucks!), on a BPS brand bait casting reel (their second cheapest for under $60).

If you are new to fishing, or like me, and are balling on a budget, and are looking to get into the bait caster game, check out the Bass Pro Shops lineup, they sell quality stuff through their in-house brand that is more affordable than a lot of the brand name stuff. I plan on writing more about this in the coming weeks, but don’t be fooled by the tackle industrial complex, you don’t need to drop loads of cash to make fishing a meaningful part of your life.

I really do want to go back to Buck Lake, I feel like I did not get my money’s worth, but I plan on continuing to explore other local, unsung Bass fisheries, as well as get back to doing some inshore fishing, so it may be a while. But anytime as a kayak angler, when you have a chance to fish a lake that is off limits to boats, it is never a bad idea! I hope everyone has a chance to get out and wet a line this week.

Until next time!