Lake Hattie 2011

This year my wife and I went up and spent another week with her family at Tuck-A-Way Resort on Lake Hattie.  This time was very different however, as I had my own kayak.  Last year I tried out one of the free kayaks they had available and loved it.  However I have learned a lot and now see them as small, cheap kayaks.  I spent about two hours a day kayaking on the lake this year.  One of my favorite trips out was to a smaller lake attached by only a stream, called Little Hattie.  The stream is very small, maybe at best one foot deep, and therefore regular motor boats do not go out on it.  I had to go across the entire lake to find the stream, which was hidden in a reed bed.  I was able to find the small channel through the weeds, and went under a bridge and into Little Hattie.  I was pretty cool to get there, the lake was much smaller, but was still of some decent size.  Unlike the regular lake, Little Hattie doesn’t have a lot of underwater architecture, but instead is kind of shaped like a bowl.  I saw some minnows, but no huge fish of notable size.  That doesn’t mean they are not there, just that I did not see them.  I think next year I would like to try and fish Little Hattie and see what it has for fish in it.

As for fishing this year, I did some, but not as much as last year.  The biggest northern I caught was only 24 inches.  My father-in-law, Walt, and I did go out after some sunfish and he found where they were hiding!  In just a couple of hours we had just about filled out on our limit of keeper sunfish.  The final count when we got in was 39.  It was literally a feeding frenzy, as soon as the line went in the water the bobber was going down.

So all in all a great trip.  I really enjoyed the kayaking and the fishing was fun too.  I think later this summer or next year I will get more adventurous and do some fishing out of my kayak as I have gotten a lot more comfortable in it.