By Brian Boog
elcome back to a new Small Waters. It’s a new month, the water is in the mid to upper 60’s and things are getting good! It’s getting warmer, and the fish are on beds. I hope everybody’s out there catching them bass!
This month, I fished and am going to write about Lake Cohoon in Suffolk. Lake Cohoon is one of four water supply reservoirs owned by the city of Portsmouth but located in Suffolk. Lake Meade, Lake Kilby and Speights Run are the other three.
Lake Cohoon is 510 acres. It’s a fun size lake. Not too small, not too big and situated right next to Lake Meade. A dam splits the two. The boat ramp is located at 1805 Pitchkettle Rd. In Suffolk. You have a choice of which lake to fish from one spot. (Meade or Cohoon).
The Lake Cohoon fishing station is right there when you pull in the gate. You need an annual City of Portsmouth sticker, available at the fishing station for $40 for non-residents and $20 for residents and seniors. You can also rent jon boats, trolling motors and batteries for $35 a day. Both lakes have a 10 hp motor limit. The gate opens at 7 am and closes at 5 pm
The fishing station has some tackle, bait, snacks and drinks. There’s also plenty of parking for a ton of trucks and trailers. They also have a separate kayak launch area. Each lake has a single wide boat ramp.
Over the month, I got to fish at Lake Cohoon a bunch. It’s a beautiful lake with lots of turns and bends. I like it because it’s narrow, which is nice for a small boat or kayak to be able to cross sides quickly. It also has a ton of coves and creek arms that you can go in and try to figure out where the fish are.
Lake Cohoon is loaded, and I mean loaded, with wood. Fallen trees, laydowns, brush piles, stumps all over the place and trees in one and 30 feet of water. Wood is everywhere. Every configuration of wood you can think of; Cohoon has got it.
The lake also has steep drop offs all over from one foot into 20 plus feet of water. There’s also a bunch of main lake points that come up into a few feet of water and drop right back into 20 plus feet with wood all over them. At the opposite end of the lake from the boat ramp in two different creek arms, they’re two bridges you can go under if you have low clearance and it opens into another world back there. The dam is directly next to the boat ramp and offers yet another place to fish. The dam wall sits in about twenty feet of water.
Onto the fishing at Cohoon. The first day I launched the Crawdad, I was confused about how trees could be above the water in the middle of the lake in 25 feet of water. It was strange to me -still is if I think about it. So, I turned on my Lowrances and started looking around to see what was going on.
I started alternating between a Deps Slide Swimmer 175 in Black Crappie and flipping a Big Bite Baits Fighting Frog in Tilapia Magic into the closest set of laydowns to the dam. About five casts later, I felt that magical tic on the Fighting Frog and set the hook into a two-and-a-half pounder. I was off to a good start. For a minute. Then the pickerel came out to play.
For the remainder of that day, I couldn’t get to another bass because the pickerel got there first. That two-and-a-half pounder was the only bass I caught that day.
The next couple of trips, the ratio of bass to pickerel swung more into the bass’ favor. I had great luck on a Rapala OG Rocco squarebill in Chartreuse Black. I found an active main lake point area on the far side of the main lake where the two docks are. It seemed to be holding fish. I was trying to bump into every piece of wood that I could, hoping to get a reaction strike. It seemed to work. In the two days, I caught about ten bass up to three pounds. Nothing huge, but it sure beats catching 10 pickerel.
The next couple of times I fished Cohoon, I was being stubborn and tried to force a Senko and flipping bite. I also started throwing the occasional Jackhammer and Rapala DT10. I flipped for three to four hours with only a bunch of pickerel and two bass in the two-ish pound class to show for it.
The last day I went out, I left the big swimbaits at home and brought it back to the basics.
I brought a Nichols 1/2oz spinnerbait with a 4.8 Keitech, 1/2oz Jackhammer in Brett’s Bluegill w/ a Crush City Freeloader in sungill, 3/8oz Bizz Baits skip n/ flip jig and a Texas rigged, Zoom Brush Hog and a Senko. With the water clarity so dark, I turned the trolling motor on and just started casting, looking for active fish. Oh, I found the active fish alright. The pickerel were back, crashing the party. One after another, everywhere I went.
After releasing another slime dart on the last point on the right before you turn to get to the main lake, I picked up the spinnerbait and I wasn’t going to put it down until I caught a bass. Luckily, on my fourth or fifth cast on this point with the spinnerbait, I hooked into a fat 5-8. She freight-trained it. That made the day!
Finally, something worth writing and writing home about! The fish was sitting in three feet of water. At least she gave me a clue. I made 20 to 30 more casts on and around this point to no avail.
For the rest of the day, I hit every point on the lake throwing the Jackhammer/spinnerbait combo and skipping a Senko to visible targets. I also threw a Rapala DT20 in Parrot for good measure.
It was such a weird day that as I was on my way back to the ramp, I made a terrible cast with the spinnerbait. The fluorocarbon was over and wrapped around a branch. As I was fighting to untangle my mess, I realized my spinnerbait that had been sitting on the bottom was now swimming away. In a shambled mess, I somehow got my line free and reeled in a three-pound bass! At the end of the day, I ended up with one more small bass on the DT20. I just couldn’t get any sort of pattern going. It certainly was a weird month of fishing.
Lake Cohoon is an interesting lake. It’s a jig fisherman’s paradise. There’s bass in there, but the pickerel are front and center. With the choice of Lake Meade or Lake Cohoon, I liked Meade a lot better. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure to the locals that have cracked the code, but with the bonus of stripers at Meade, I’ll take Meade.
Next month, I’ll be writing about fishing the canals of south Florida. My father and I are going to fish a bunch to see what’s biting and you never know what you’ll catch down there!
