Bass Fishing Wilson Lake, Kansas in July
Wilson lake in Kansas is a very beautiful lake. It is surrounded by sandstone cliffs on a few sides and has sloping banks with easy shore access at other points, making it a popular recreation destination for many people in the region.
WIth ultra clear water, someone could switch this out with the pool water at your house and you’d never know, except having smallmouth in your pool. Lol. Now this lake has all kinds of fish in it. It’s loaded with striped bass, hybrid bass, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, and walleye too. I have spent hours catching striped bass and hybrids on virtually every cast in the summer months when they are feeding heavily on shad and creating topwater boils. There is a cliff for hang gliding, and mountain bike trails all around the lake which sponsor races year round.
Side note: This lake gets rough at times with the standard Kansas winds. Some very nasty waves can come up quickly with a south wind and can make boating potentially hazardous especially if you have a smaller craft.
Make sure you have your life jacket handy if you are going out in an aluminum or plastic boat.
You’ve been warned!
@ksbigbass
The Bass Fishing
The bass fishing at this lake is different than a lot of lakes I have fished. The clear water can make for some spooky fish. Long casts are essential to success, as with most clear water lakes. I prefer to use a 6lb fluorocarbon line on a G. Loomis NRX spinning rod and reel setup. Seaguar brand of fluorocarbon, I feel has a great value to performance ratio and I use it exclusively now.
Bass Fishing Wilson Lake, Kansas in July Smallmouth. I use this spinning rig to throw the Zoom super fluke in the isolated pockets of grass and weed beds that are common to the pockets and coves. Another great bait for this lake is the frog. A weedless topwater frog thrown over this same cover may bring you enough weight to be at the top of the leaderboard.
Smallmouth used to dominate the bass population at this clear water impoundment, but things are changing. When I fished the B.A.S.S. weekend series a few years back, the weigh in was dominated with big, fat smallmouth. This past weekend at our last tournament only 1 good smallmouth was brought to the scales, everything else was largemouth bass.
The largemouth that were weighed in, appeared to be suffering from the large striped bass population, with large heads and small skinny bodies. Over the past few years, harsh winters have been extremely rough on the shad population, with a large winter kill. I only wish I had the pull to get a shad delivery made, the stripers can eat a lake out of fish in a hurry and need to have a solid forage base for the entire lake to survive.
Conclusion
- Take a good hat to protect from that unrelenting prairie sun
- A life vest for those unpredictable waves and wind
- Rod and reel setup able to make long casts.
- Keep in mind standard clear water tactics like keeping your shadow off the areas your fishing
Now get out there and have fun catching and not just fishing!
@ksbigbass