3/6: Building Confidence with Todd

Thursday Russ and I hit the Ohio River with our hopes set high. My last trip to the Ohio River yielded nearly two dozen channel cats with two over 25". Given my previous success Russ and I set out to strictly target channel cats. We had our slip rigs, medium heavy bass gear, and our grocery store bait.  We unloaded the kayaks, loaded our gear up, and drug the kayaks down to the waters edge. We got on the water around 9:30am and paddled over to check out the "hybrid striper spot" nearby.  After 30 minutes without a bite we decided to pull anchor and begin our channel cat adventure. Russ anchored on the east side of the creek just upstream of a log jam, and I anchored on the west side of the creek 20 yards above a small fallen tree. His side of the creek was significantly slower moving than mine, but I had the deeper side.....it was a fair trade. I threaded on a piece of shrimp and tossed a rod out on bottom. I then sat that rod in my rod holder. With the other rod I drifted chunks of chicken liver under a small float. Five minutes later the rod in my rod holder began to bend. I picked the rod up and out of the rod holder and drove the hook deeper into the fishes mouth. After a little burst of drag I managed to pull in the small channel cat. I knew it was close to the magic 18" mark, the length needed to qualify for points on Kayakwars. I turned around and reached for my hawg trough measuring board.....however it wasn't in its usual place. I looked the kayak over and discovered that I had lost my hawg trough. I decided to release the small channel and head back to the car to see if I could find my board somewhere. I made the 150 yard paddle upstream and beched my kayak onto the sandy beach. I then walked the trail back up to the car, where I found my hawg trough laying halfway between the car and the river.

I jumped back into the kayak and headed back down stream. I found the spot on the bank where I had dug my anchor into before and I buried my anchor once again. I tossed my rods back out and awaited another bite....which didn't take long. After a short battle I landed another catfish, this one was slightly larger than my first. I grabbed my measuring board and camera and prepared to take a picture to submit for points. Once I placed the channel cat onto the board it went nuts.......and back to the depths she went. Now here I sat nearly 2 hours into the trip, I've spent nearly 40 minutes searching for my board, lost 20 points for our kayakwars team, and now I'm burning up because I over dressed (and because the paddle upstream was horrible.) . Out of pure frustration I threw my head back and shouted a few profanities. This trip was not starting well.

Russ on the other hand was having a much better beginning to his trip. He had not dropped his board on the trail to the water, he had not lost a fish (yet), and he seemed to be enjoying my shouting and carrying on like a 3 year old. A few minutes later he caught his first fish of the trip, a nice 19.5" hybrid striped bass.

This was big enough to knock Jeff's hybrid striped bass out of the 1rst place Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trails Yak Ohio spot. Russ' trip went south after this point. He missed fish after fish, and not on the hookset either. He would hook up, but he would lose them halfway back to his kayak. I'm pretty sure at one point I heard him scream some not so nice words.......in my head I told myself, "Yep, been there before."

We continued to fish, Russ missing fish after fish, and I landed a small 20" channel here and there. What was weird, was that I started picking up hybrids both on the float and on my bottom rod. They weren't near as large as Russ' hybrid but they weren't small either. This was odd, because the last 2 weeks have produced only a handful of hybrid stripers on liver and shrimp. Just something to think about in the future I guess. Anyway I proceeded to try and fool a few fish into biting. I set up on one spot and tossed my bottom rod out, and then started working a jig with shrimp on the other rod. I quickly got a bite on the rod I was jigging and I set the hook, five seconds later the rod in the rod holder starts to bounce. After a little bit of maneuvering, reeling in this rod and then a little bit on that rod, I pulled two cats into the yak. My first double in the yak, too bad one was a baby.

After I caught these cats the spot seemed to die. I pulled my anchor and then tied off to a limb in the middle of the creek only 10 yards downstream. I tossed a rod out on bottom and set it in the rod holder, I then grabbed my float and started working the current along the banks. On my first drift through I managed to catch a 22" blue cat. Which at the time wasn't significant, but it was worth 10 points for our kayakwars team so I was happy to have it.

Three hours passed before I caught the next significant fish, a 27" blue cat on that bit a chunk of liver on the back side of a fallen tree. It was good enough to snub out my 1rst place Yak Ohio catfish which was currently at 26".

My trip was really starting to shape up, Russ on the other hand was still struggling. He was still missing fish left and right and nothing he tried seemed to help his cause. We continued to work our way downstream, hitting every current obstruction we could find along the way. We got within 20 yards of the mouth of the creek when my phone started to ring. It was Todd one of the founders of Smack Tackle. He had seen a few kayaks up the creek and wanted to know if I was fishing, We spoke for a few minutes and then I told him I'd paddle down and see how he was doing in a little while. Five minutes later I get a picture text message from Todd, it was a hybrid striper in the 20" range. My response was, "One more of those and I'm going to tie off to your boat." As I was putting my phone away I accidentally hit the call button, I immediately hung. A few seconds later he called me back. He made the offer again to come down and fish with him, he also wanted to show me a new prototype he had been using. That was all I needed to hear. I looked over to Russ and said that I was going to head downstream and meet up with Todd to do some hybrid striper fishing. We both tied on a flitterbait and paddled down stream.

I pulled up beside Todd and began to strike up conversation. I told him that I had pretty bad luck with hybrid stripers and that I my personal best was 4lbs and 15oz. During our conversation Todd had hooked into two fish, one of which appeared to be nice. At this point I went into student mode, I started taking notes and asking questions. I watched how he worked his bait, what angles his rod was at, his retrieve, etc. At one point he lost his prototype bait to a snag on bottom.....a snag that I would soon become very familiar with. He began rummaging through his boxes and said he didn't have any flitterbaits. Luckily for him I did. I threw him my box of smack tackle (his baits) and he grabbed the last chartreuse flitterbait 2 I had. At first he didn't want to take it, but I ensured him that I didn't care. (This is all going to seem relevant in a second. ) He went back to work with the flitterbait bouncing it off of the bottom. Thirty minutes later he lifts his rod and then on the drop he feels a tap.....he then set the hook and the tip of the rod didn't budge an inch. He had found the snag again.........and then the drag began to steadily roll. Nope this was certainly not a snag, this was a huge fish. It didn't ever really burn drag, it casually swam up current and then back down current slipping drag only on occasion. Todd kept the rod high and kept steady pressure on the fish. Judging by the fight I was sure he had either hooked into a giant blue cat, larger carp, or foul hooked a smaller fish. The fight went on for a solid five minutes before the fish vacated the general area that he was hooked in. At that point the fish moved out into swifter current and realized he was hooked. He still didn't pull much drag, but he began making cuts back and forth through the current, trying to throw the hook. At one point Todd had it up beside the boat and it partially surfaced. We didn't see much except the giant wake it was putting off and the swirls it was making. However, Todd caught a glimpse of it and said it was silver....which meant it was either a blue cat, an asian carp, or a giant hybrid. We were both hoping it was a hybrid. The fish made its way back out into the current and made its way downstream. After losing 20 yards of line Todd had to pull anchor and chase the fish down. I grabbed onto his boat and drifted along the side of the boat with him, I wasn't missing this for anything. We floated about 150 yards before we got to see the fish for the second time. All along the way we were talking about how big this fish was, and what this fish could possibly be? On its second appearance on the surface we got a positive identification......it was a MONSTER hybrid. I grabbed my net and waited for Todd to swing it over my way. At this point I had no idea how big it really was, I was on one side of the boat in my kayak and Todd was fighting it on the other. Todd then made the move across the transom of the boat where I was waiting with the net. He maneuvered the fish around the motor, and that's when I saw it for the first time. I didn't have time to think about its size.....I had one mission and that was to get it into the net. I leaned as far as I could and Todd guided it right into the net. I lifted the net out of the water partially to ensure the fish couldn't swim out and then looked up at Todd. This was a giant......neither of us could believe it. A nearly 20 minute fight with what we thought was a giant catfish turned out to be a monster hybrid.....a true fish of a lifetime.

 It went 14.5lbs and 29". I quickly snapped a few pictures and called over Russ to check it out. Todd went to work reviving the hybrid.

I have used the flitterbait for two years now and have caught dozens, if not hundreds, of fish on them including hybrids, largemouth, smallmouth, drum, crappie, saugeye, and even bluegills. However, I wasn't quite using them how Todd was. The biggest issue I found that I had was in feeling the bites. Todd explained that hybrids are very fast at hitting and spitting a bait back out, so if you don't set the hook that moment when you feel the "tick" you will miss the fish 90 percent of the time. With that in mind I went to work. My lesson was now complete. I had observed the proper techniques for landing hybrid stripers on the flitterbait, and now it was my turn to try my hand at it

 I think I did alright.....3 over 22" and all over 5lbs. I even beat my personal best on three separate occasions. The picture above was the heaviest of the bunch at 5lbs 13oz. They weren't the 14 pounder that Todd had caught, but I was just as happy with them. The fish seemed to be in a pretty good mood too, they annihilated my flitterbaits.

I stayed by Todds side for the remainder of the evening, Russ on the other hand had a score to settle with those channel cats back up the creek. Todd had snagged up a gizzard shad earlier, which was more than enough to tempt Russ back into chasing channel cats. He went on to catch three channels over 18" before sunset. I stayed with Todd untill 7:30pm and then decided to call it quits. We had put in nearly 11 hours on the water. The bite had slowed down, it was getting cold, and I was starving.

I wanna thank Mr.Miyagi......uhhh I mean Todd......for the flitterbait 101session and for sharing the good time with me. I probably would have stayed in the creek and chased channel cats all evening long if it weren't for that text. Congratulations again on the giant hybrid.