Pictures

Every year I end up with a folder on my computer with literally a few thousand pictures that I have taken for the blog. Typically I start each trip with a picture or two from our launch, maybe I'll take a picture of some scenery, I'll take 3 to 4 pictures of a decent fish (6 or 7 if its really nice), and I may even take a few pictures of the bottom of my kayak as I fumble my camera around. On a given trip I may take 20 pictures, and I take over 150 trips a year. Throw in the fact that I participated in Kayak Wars last year, a photo submission kayak tournament, and you can see how quickly things get out of hand. (I typically took at minimum 2 pictures of a fish on a measuring board, maybe 4 or 5 if it had a bad temper) Of the thousands of pictures I take each year well over seventy percent end up making their way to my computers recycling bin. Usually on one abnormally cold evening in the middle of winter I will go through the pictures and delete all but the very best pictures. Along the way I stumble upon pictures that I had forgotten about. Here's a few of the pictures that re-discovered from my 2013 season.

Here's one of my absolute favorites, a picture of a sunset while drifting for catfish on Rocky Fork Lake in Highland County Ohio. Maybe I like it so much because its 10 degrees out and I wish it was as warm now as it was when I took the picture.

Yet another one of my favorite pictures of 2013, a mayfly hatch on Ohio Brush Creek south of West Union, Ohio. At first I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that it was dark, we were a mile from the take out, and the water was littered with white floating material. After a few flashes from the camera I discovered that not only were they in the water, but they were flying too. We had floated through a epic mayfly hatch.

Here's a picture I took just as the sun was coming up on Turkey Creek Lake located in the Shawnee State Forest. (Portsmouth, Ohio) The lake is extremely clear, visibility sometimes exceeds 8 feet, and its very deep for its size. Rumor has it that a near state record size largemouth was caught on a buzzbait during the middle of the summer at around midnight. Personally I think its just a story.....but you never know. My biggest bass out of this lake is just at 2 pounds.

Here is just one of several small dams on Rocky Fork Creek.

I thought this one was pretty neat too. Everyone knows I'm a sucker for lily pads and hollow body frogs. There is just something about working a frog through a bed of pads when all of a sudden the water explodes as a bass finds your frog. I took this picture last year as I was fishing Adams Lake near West Union, Ohio. Here I stumbled upon some of the largest lily pads I have ever seen in my life.....easily 36" in diameter if not bigger. 

Here's another one from Adams Lake. Here Jake and Amanda launch before I can get in the water. Its hard to beat a summer sunrise from the kayak. Jake had a heck of a day that trip, he ended up catching something along the lines of 50 small bass in 6 hours. (All were less than 14")

"I'm in heaven.....where's my frog." Just kidding, but yet again another cool picture of some pads in a small arm of the lake. Man, I miss summer.

This picture means a whole lot more that just whats shown above. This picture was taken during a float on lower Rocky Fork Creek in Rainsboro, Ohio. The entire float was as amazing as this one picture. At times we were surrounded by 80 foot tall limestone cliffs, we even floated through a limestone arch at one point. If you haven't floated this section I highly recommend it.

 Here's one for you guys who like to catfish. Sunset on the Scioto River......here kittty, kitty, kitty.





One last picture to end on.....well actually a series of pictures. Rain, Rain, Rain. We were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time on the water this year which meant we got the good and the bad weather. When it rained, we stuck it out....and most of the time it payed off. Here's a couple pictures of rain. The first one Amanda and I sat through some seriously large rain drops. The second picture Neil and I made our way back to the boat ramp to get out of the down pour. The last picture Amanda, Russ, and I wait out a storm and hit the water after it passes by......30 minutes later with the sun still shining we got drenched. I don't know who Amanda was talking to, but I don't think she was very happy about the situation.