Coffey’s always on, and it’s warm (+video)

There are few certainties in fishing, but Brian Ondrejka and D. J. Fritzel found a few at Coffey County Lake last weekend.

“This place always has a lot of boats,” Ondrejka said as he slowed his boat’s motor and looked at a line of floating anglers working a long rip-rap jetty. “We’ll join the merry-go-round, work one way then start over. We’ll catch fish, there’s always plenty.”

On the third cast from the boat, a 16-inch smallmouth bass struck, the fish the color of polished brass easily seen in the clear waters. A few minutes later, Ondrejka lifted a nice largemouth aboard. Several more fish of both species were caught before Ondrejka left the floating line.

Ondrejka, owner of Kansas Angling Experience, a Lawrence-based guide service, said Coffey County Lake, which furnishes the water for the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant, has become one of his most consistent fisheries.

“I was out here when the temperature was 19 degrees and my equipment was freezing up, but I caught fish,” he said, thanks to the warm water discharged from the nuclear plant.“Last summer, when all of my lakes up north were really high, we came down here and did well. The water level here never changes much.”

While Ondrejka and Fritzel were targeting largemouth and smallmouth last weekend, Ondrejka talked of great action on white bass and wipers on past trips to the lake, and spoke of nice populations of walleye and crappie.

As well as multi-species, Ondrejka stressed that Coffey County is a lake with multiple good fishing areas.

“You can always catch fish here,” he said, referring to the rip-rap pier near the inlet, “but I’ve gone over on the other side and fished, or gone to another place and fished (standing timber) and caught more than they were catching here. There are usually fish all over this lake.”

One reason is the lake’s ultra-conservative length and creel limits, as lake managers try to keep the predator base high to keep small fish, like gizzard shad, from clogging the power plant’s intake area.

After the productive pass along the rip-rap, Ondrejka put his casting where his mouth was and headed to other places on the lake.

The first stop was a point that jutted into a flat of shallow water. Ondrejka said it was a place better known for quality of the fish. After about 20 minutes of casting, he brought a three-pound largemouth aboard the boat. That 20 minutes may have been the longest lull in the action of the day.

“This just doesn’t happen down here,” Ondrejka said of the water so calm the splash of a small lure left wide ripples. “It seems most days I want to come down I can’t, or about every trip ends early when we get called off the water.”

He was referring to the lake’s rule that no boats be on the water when winds get near 20 mph. Boats are given a pager so anglers know when they must exit the water.

But the winds stayed calm that Saturday, and by late-morning the anglers were casting in shirt sleeves.

They hit the rip-rap again after the one bass on the point. Ondrejka and Fritzel changed lures, to give the bass something different to look at than what other anglers had been fishing. Five or six more bass were caught and quickly released near the rocks. At Fritzel’s urging, the next stop was a broad, shallow flat where he though bass might be feeding.

“It’s primarily a largemouth spot,” Fritzel said as he whipped a long rod to send out a plastic bait on a lengthy, arching cast. It wasn’t long before he swept the rod back, setting the hook on a 3 1/2-pound largemouth. No more than a cast or two later, he repeated the cast and the hook set, but this time in was a chunky smallmouth that was netted. Like all of the day’s fish, it was released.

For about the next four hours, Ondrejka moved the boat from spot to spot, fishing rip-rap or mud flats. Everything held fish, and several big drum and white bass were also caught.

The mudflat of Fritzel’s liking was as good on a second pass as the first, with a nice largemouth hitting a Ned Rig on the first cast. A little later, Ondrejka and Fritzel fought fish simultaneously, one being a smallmouth and the other a largemouth.

The last stop was the same rip-rap jetty where the day had begun. Ondrejka said they’d try fishing deeper water for 15 minutes, and then head to the ramp. But it’s never easy to leave good fishing. It was 45 minutes and several more bass, including the day’s best smallmouth, before lines were lifted and the boat headed towards the ramp. A conservative estimate put the days catch at 40 fish.

“You know, you just don’t get many days this special,” the guide said as his boat split the lake’s mirror-like surface. “You sometimes get days when it’s nice, and sometimes days when you catch a lot of fish. But this, what we did today, that just doesn’t happen very often. It really makes you appreciate it.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2016 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Coffey’s always on, and it’s warm (+video)."