3/20-3/23: 4 Days on the Water

I had the opportunity to fish Thursday through Sunday last week. Each day I tried to target a new body of water or a new species of fish. Here's how my weekend unfolded.



Thursday 3/20: Stream Smallmouth

Thursday Amanda and I decided to take the kayaks out to a local creek in search of smallmouth, crappie, saugeye, and rock bass. We targeted a section of creek that lies between two low head dams. These kind of creek sections typically don't see much fluctuation in water levels or water clarity after rain events, however the flow can get very swift at times. We decided to hit the lower section of the creek to see if we could find the fish moving out of the deeper holes into the shallow flats as the sun warmed the shallow waters. We got the kayaks in the water around 11am and started paddling upstream.

Water temperatures were much lower than I had expected, at 39 degrees. Water clarity was close to 3 feet if not slightly more. We decided to paddle upstream a little over a mile and paddle through the first two sets of riffles. I did notice that the water in the lower section was 2 degrees warmer than the northern sections. Now my initial thoughts were that the warmer surface water would run over the dam upstream, thus making the northern section below the dam warmer than the deeper sections. This wasn't the case, at least from 11pm to 3pm it wasn't the case. As we paddled above the second riffle I noticed the water temperature dropped to 38 degrees I told Amanda that we were just wasting our time going any further upstream, the water was only getting colder. I felt that the fish were going to be in the deeper section where the water is a little warmer and where they could easily travel back into deeper water as the sun sets. We decided to start fishing our way down stream at this point. We fished for about two hours without a bite. On one rod I had a float set at 3 feet deep with a live minnow on it and on my other rod I had a bobby garland baby shad on a 1/16oz jig. I let the float drift along side of the kayak while I casted the other rod with the soft plastic along the banks. I only stopped and anchored when I thought fish were present....ie the head of deep holes, large boulders, log jams, etc. Under the second riffle I dropped anchor on a rock shelf and started drifting my float through the deep swift water. I set my float to 4 feet and let it drift through the hole. On my second drift I noticed my float lay flat.....3 seconds later it started moving sideways. I dropped my rod reeled up the slack and set the hook. My drag instantly responded. With my rod held high and drag screaming I looked over to Amanda and told her I had a good one. For the first 10 seconds of the fight the thought of a 20" smallie came to mind, however after the drag stopped and the fish began to work the current I began to question whether or not it was a smallie. This fish had not surfaced, or even gotten near the surface during the 45 second battle. None the less it was a strong fish. I soon got the fish pulled close enough to my kayak to see my float start to emerge. I watched intently as the shadow of the fish came into sight. It was long, very long at somewhere in the mid 20" range..... The fish then began to rise toward the surface as the greyish blue shadow turned to dark brown and black............it was a giant saugeye. I played the fish in the current for another 20 seconds and then began lifting my rod with my left hand in order to bring the fish withing grasping distance of my right hand. It was just out of grasps reach so I reeled in a little more slack and began to lift the rod again when then the hook came flying by my head. I watched as the fish sat on the surface for a few seconds before he realized he had threw my hook and dove back down to the bottom.

I was pretty upset. I thought for sure I had lost the only fish I would get the chance of hooking all day. Less than thirty minutes later Amanda and I drifted down to one of my favorite spots in the creek, a huge bolder and log jam, which had created a deep scour hole. I dropped anchor in 2 feet of water 40 yards upstream of the log jam and began drifting my float and minnow along the run before the head of the hole. Each drift took about 6 minutes to complete. I started with the bank on the first drift, 10 feet off of the bank on my second, the middle of the creek on the third drift, etc. Each time I made a drift closer to the hole I set my float a foot deeper. On my third drift my float began to move sideways halfway through my drift (still on the flat before the hole) and then slowly sank. I reeled up the slack and set the hook. This time I had no doubts about the specie of fish on the end of my line, as the smallmouth made a remarkable leap within seconds of the hook set. I sat up a little bit and began working the fish closer to my kayak. This time around luck was on my side, I had landed my first smallmouth of the year.

Unfortunately this was the last fish we would see on this trip. We worked our way downstream focusing on the head of deeper holes, but failed to fool any other fish into eating.




Friday 3/21: Ohio River 

Russ and I hit the Ohio River Friday in search of catfish and hybrid striped bass. Our kayakwars team was short 6 channel cats from its monthly cap so we decided to finish those off so we could focus on other fish the rest of the month. Since we knew that we would easily catch 6 cats over 18" we decided to make a competition out of the remaining spots. The largest 6 channel cats of the day would get submitted for points, the other fish would be worth nothing. The day started out well for me, Russ on the other hand fell into a slump. I pulled in a few cats in the 19-22" by drifting chicken liver under a float set 1 foot off of the bottom. Russ was using the same technique on his side of the creek, but failed to catch anything over 18". Along the way I picked up a couple blue cats in the 22-25" range, which were all worth points since the blue cats monthly cap was nearly 30 fish short. These were a good bonus on top of the channel cats points I could possibly submit. I'm pretty sure at one point I had the top 5 out of 6 channel cats. Russ soon got into his grove and started making up for lost time, quickly boating (or yaking)  two 22" channels and a 24" channel cat, which evened the score 3 to 3. (I had three cats in the top six and he had three in the top 6)

At this point I had drifted down to the mouth of the Ohio River. I faced the difficult decision of hitting the river for hybrid striped bass or paddling back upstream and making the float/drift back down while fishing for catfish. After a brief debate with myself I tied on a grey flitterbait and anchored up in the Ohio River. I began working flitterbait near the bottom of a steep ledge, and I had immediate success.

Now it wasn't a giant, but I was darn glad to have it. This would give me another 15 points on the day for our kayakwar team. I went back to work with the flitterbait. I threw the bait out 30 yards and let it hit bottom. I reeled up the slack in my line and lifted the bait with a quick snap of my rod. I then kept tension on the bait as it fell back to the bottom, I let it sit for a second and then snapped the bait back off of bottom, and then all of a sudden I felt the "Tick". I swung for the fences and felt very little pressure. My line began to move rapidly downstream and my rod began to bend with the weight of the fish. I kept steady pressure the whole time and let the fish do what it wanted. I had a very weak hookset so I feared the worst. As the fish neared the surface it made a few good runs, ripping drag for 3 -5 seconds each time. Amazing the hook stayed in place long enough for me to get the net under the fish.

At this point Russ was still up the creek so I decided to try to snap a picture of myself holding the fish using the timer on my camera. I tilted my fish finder down to where it was completely flat, hit the button on my camera, and sat it on my fish finder screen. Ten seconds later the camera went off, I placed the fish back in the water with one hand and checked the photo with my other hand........nope no good, I didn't get my head in the photo. Three attempts later I got this picture.

Russ had now made his way down to the mouth and I told him that I had caught a couple good hybrids already. He anchored just upstream of me and we both began working our flitterbaits. Thirty mintues later I picked up yet another fish, this time around it wasn't a hybrid striper.

Surprisingly, the buffalo was hooked in the bottom of its mouth. I took a quick picture and then went back to work. Another half an hour passed without a fish and I began to wonder if the fish had moved down river. I tied on a white flitterbait to see if maybe I could fool a fish that's seen the grey one go by a few times already. A few casts later I feel the "tick" halfway through the lift of my rod, I then set the hook into a freight train. This fish had a bad temper, ripping drag one moment, cutting in and out of the current the next. I finally got the fish to start working his way toward the yak when I saw it surface. It was a stout fish...... I knew it would compete with my personal best of 5lbs 13oz.

It went 6lbs 6oz, a new personal best. Since Russ was nearby he snapped a picture for me, which turned out a lot nicer than my solo attempt earlier. Another thirty minutes passed, Russ and I just started to feel it in our arms. Lifting and dropping blade baits for 2 hours was pretty hard on the shoulders and forearms, throw in a few drag ripping hybrid stripers and your really in for a rough evening. I took a break and watched for signs of activity near the surface, hoping to find a hint that the fish are moving off of bottom to chase shad higher in the water column. As I'm scanning for signs of shad I hear Russ mumble something to the effect of, "ohp." I then turn around to see his rod doubled over and a smile on his face. After a few quick bursts Russ brings the fish to the surface for its photo shoot.

It went 20.5". (This would be Russ' last picture with his beloved sun glasses, they are now at the bottom of Rocky Fork Lake.....more about that below.) We worked the blade baits for a little while longer but failed to find another fish on them. An hour later fish had started busting the surface here and there but they were really spread out. One would bust at my 12 o cock 20 yards away and 20 minutes later one would bust at my 6 o clock 150 yards away. I then made the switch to Smack Tackles Gizz 3 crankbait. It was a long shot but I figured I'd see if I could get lucky enough to swim my gizz3 by one of them. I tried for the next hour and a half with no luck. Russ eventually went up the creek and tried for catfish again. We fished until 30 minutes past dark and then decided to call it quits for the day. I ended up with 12 channel catfish over 18" only 3 of which counted for kayakwars, 3 blue cats over 20" for kayakwars, and 3 hybrids over 18" for kayakwars for a grand total of 105 points.






Saturday 3/22: Crappie on Rocky Fork

Saturday I met up with Mike Murphy, Brad Beals, and Russ on Rocky Fork Lake to do some crappie fishing. We grabbed a few dozen minnows and hit the water. There was a local catfish tournament being held at the boat ramp where I wanted to fish, so we opted to hit the deep end of the lake to avoid heavy boat traffic. We hit a few spots that I typically catch fish on and came up empty handed. We tried floats and minnows, moon jigs tipped with crappie nibbles, 1/32oz jigs and bobby garland baby shad, 1/32oz jig and minnows, etc. but nothing was working. I told everyone that we were going to have to swallow our pride and head over to the maria and fish the metal structures that secure the docks to the ground. We fished just about every single support structure but failed to catch a fish. At the last series of docks we all gathered together and discussed our game plan, I had a plan B if everyone was willing to pack up and drive to another spot down the road. We discussed our options a little and eventually decided to leave the lake in search of better fishing.

We unloaded the kayaks at the launch location and Mike and Brad were introduced to the hill of death......OK so that's probably taking it too far but its pretty bad. They were willing to give it a shot if it meant getting on some fish. I assured them that its the best option I knew of. We hit the water and paddled up to the best spot on the creek. Brad had set up very close to my favorite spot and I took Amanda's typical spot. Russ worked a tree adjacent to Brad and I, and Mike worked a few spots here and there. I didn't anchor at first, instead I casted my float into wood and drifted around while I watched my float. I did manage to get a bite within the first 5 minutes but it ended up making off with my minnow. Brad soon found a productive pattern, a float set at 3.5 feet with a minnow on the upstream side of the fallen trees. He caught a crappie every 10 to 15 minutes while everyone else watched in amazement. We all eventually set our floats to 3.5 feet and even started casting near the fallen tree.

I eventually managed two crappie underneath the tree that Brad was fishing, he on the other hand pulled close to a dozen out of it in less than 2 hours. Russ tried to fish the area to the right of Brad but failed to find a fish. Mike eventually ditched crappie fishing and went to throwing a deep diving jointed Rapala husky jerk bait.....which paid off for him. He managed two small bass, the largest of which was 14". Mike then proceeded to rub it in our faces with stuff like, "Look at these crappie fisherman.......hows the crappie?.....etc." The last 3 hours of the day really salvaged the trip for us. Brad ended up keeping 11 crappie, the largest of which were in the 11" range.

About a half an hour before dark we decided to call it quits so we could get all of our gear loaded up before it was to dark to see.



Sunday 3/23: Ohio River Round 2

Sunday I hit the river with Brian AKA. Bigfoot, a fellow kayaker and OGF member. Brian wanted to get as much time in on the water as he could so we decided to meet at 7am. I gave him the run down on what the river had to offer, what rigs we use, what bait we find productive, etc. I told him that we could try to fish for hybrids, but its hit or miss. We could fish all day long and not catch a single fish, or we could fish and catch one every 20 minutes. Catfish on the other hand are consistent, we catch them every time we fish.  We eventually decided to try drifting floats with chicken liver down to the mouth of the river for cats and hybrids. We floated for close to an hour before we caught our first fish, which just happened to be one of the smallest channel cats I've seen caught out of the creek. For some reason or another we kept losing our bait to little fish, this hadn't been a problem in the past so I really didn't know how to avoid it. Eventually we drifted out of the "little fish zone", and the nibbles seemed to stop. We did start finding a few better fish here and there, but nothing worth bragging about. (lots of 15-20" channels and a few 14-16" hybrids) We eventually made it down to the mouth of the Ohio River and decided to head out and see if we could find the big hybrid stripers. After two hours of bouncing blade baits I was certain they weren't going to bite for us. We took a break, got out and stretched our legs, ate lunch, and then went back to fishing. We decided to head back upstream and float the section where we had started to get out of the small fish nibbles.

An hour later I hooked up with a decent channel, upon bringing it into the kayak I discovered something very interesting. I had landed the 24" channel cat without ever hooking it, although it pulled my float under I had actually missed the hookset. Instead of hooking the fish in the mouth, my line had wrapped around a swivel that was attached to a leader hanging out of the channels mouth.

Now here is where the story gets even worse for the channel cat....I decided to put fish grips on its mouth so I could begin to work on untangling my braided line from the swivel. In one hand I held the fish grips and in the other hand I began unraveling the tangled mess. As I was about to finish untangling the line the channel started rolling and I lost my grip on the fish grips. He soon made his way back into the water with the leader still attached and fish grips in his mouth. I grabbed my rod to see if my line was till attached, nope. I thought to myself, "this fish is in for a long rough spring." I'm still holding out hope that he can somehow free himself, but in reality I know its going to be next to impossible.

I finished the day off with another 5 channel cats over 18" before I completely ran out of bait. At that point I began fishing with a gizz3 for hybrids. In the meantime Brian found his best fish of the day, a 24" channel cat. (without fishgrips) 

The sun soon began to set over the tree tops and the temperature plummeted, so we decided to call it quits shortly after this picture.