Need INFO for Colorado Topok-Havasu trip

[Mojave River Angler]

A friend and I are doing a kayak trip to the colorado for October. Our general plan is to put in at Topok and float the canyon down through Lake Havasu. We would need to leave a truck in Havasu of course. Working out the details is a little bit tricky. Questions we have range from parking to bait and good locations on the lake.

Can we park at Site Six and Topok for free? Overnight?
How long will it take to float down the canyon (14 miles)? I'm assuming we will have to paddle the lake to the bridge...another 5 miles. I think the canyon may take 7 or 8 hours of floating. What think ye?

Is there a good place in Topok or Havasu to get bait?

Is there any reason to use different bait in the canyon vs the lake?

Assuming that there are tons of morons with V8s at the lake, should we hug the shore on one side or the other if we want to live to file a fishing report.

Are there good places in the canyon to stop and nap or spend the night?

Fist time NOOB has lots of questions. Sorry.
Yes, I got the enhancement "stamp".
Will be fishing from a 14' tandem kayak.

Any help is appreciated.

MRA

[kingfish2]

thats a hell of a kayak trip from the topock down. wont be bad til the end where you get into the lake area and all your current with the river dissapears and all the giant boats show up. dont know much about camping overnight in the gorge but there are quite a few nice sandy beaches all the way down that stretch. havasu has a nice tackle shop right there on lodon bridge road. there guys should be able to guid you a little better. ive done the trip from topock to havasu in a boat and it took a couple hours. its an awesome trip and doing it in a kayak would be fun. ive seen guys get tipped in kayaks going through there cause of the giant boats giant wakes. october should be good though not to many idiots left that time of year. ill be out there in october as well just staying in the main lake on my tube though. good luck sounds fun.