2014: Year in Review

As each year passes I find myself wondering how I will top the previous year. In 2013 I set a handful of new personal bests, but for the most part it will be remembered as one of the first years I consistently caught quality largemouth bass. Twenty inch bass became common, where as in the previous years I may have been lucky to land one or two twenty plus inch bass all year long. I surpassed my 2012 personal best bass of 4lbs 0oz. a minimum of 12 times and tied my 2013 personal best bass of 5lbs 1oz twice.  Throw in a bonus 31 pound flathead catfish and you'd have the makings of a pretty darn good year. 2014 on the other hand was in a league of its own. Here's a few of the highlights with links back to the original posting.



March 2014: Hybrid Striped Bass

23.75" 6lb 6oz Hybrid Striped Bass

In March I was fortunate enough to run into Todd of Smack Tackle one evening on the river. To make a long story short he pretty much schooled me on how to use a blade bait for hybrid striped bass. At the time I wrote a blog called Building Confidence with Todd, check it out if you haven't yet. (I share what I learned and was able to snap a few pictures of Todd's giant hybrid striper.) A few weeks later I took what Todd had taught me and I put it to good use, which happened to be good enough for a new personal best 6lb 6oz hybrid striped bass. Check out that blog post here: 4 Days on the Water


May 2014: Lake Erie Walleye

6.25lb. 27.5" Walleye

In May I had the privilege of fishing Lake Erie with Jim Martin and Aaron Stiger. Jim had arranged the trip a couple of weeks in advance and we patiently waited to see if the wind and waves were going to let us out on the water. Needless to say the weather and fishing was absolutely phenomenal. We trolled up a half dozen giant walleye including this 27.5" 6.25lb walleye, my new personal best.  I wasn't the only one to set a personal best though, check out what everyone else caught here: Lake Erie Kayak Trip




August 2014: Flathead Catfish

44" 46lb flathead catfish

August was a hot month for flathead catfish. Russ and I spent many nights out on the water and were graciously rewarded for our efforts. We kicked the month off with a bunch of little guys that had just finished up spawning, blog here. We didn't get much size that night but in the back of our heads we thought that maybe some of the bigger fish were still spawning. With that in mind we hit the water a few more times and found exactly what we were looking for. On the 20th of August I shattered my personal best of 33lbs with this incredible 46lb 44" flathead. I titled the blog, "The One That Didn't Get Away" . Russ had his shot at a giant too, less than a week later he landed a giant as well. Check it out here: Flathead Red Hot



September 2014: Largemouth

22" 6lb 3oz Largemouth

As mentioned before, 2013 was really my first year of consistently catching 20" bass. That trend continued well into 2014 as I racked up well over a dozen 20" bass, including 3 over 22". Although my personal best bass was broken during daylight on this particular trip: Two Trophy Largemouth in under Two Hours , I'd have to say that 90 percent of my quality fish came well after dark. Night fishing for bass was new to me, and as you can tell from this blog post I'm willing to learn just about anything if someone is willing to teach me. In early Summer I met Shawn Skidmore a night fishing guru, and he began teaching me how he went about night fishing. We hit the water and immediately had success....Night Bassin' In this blog we try to hide our fishing waters, particularly because we were the only ones on the water fishing after dark....and we liked it that way! I can say that the lake that put up the largest fish on average was one of Southern Ohio's largest lakes.....exceeding 2000 acres. The night bite was red hot nearly all year for us, in fact we had a success rate of over 80% when it came to landing a 20+" bass each trip. I cant remember the exact numbers but I do know we had 7 or 8 trips in a row before we broke our 20" streak....Night Bass Fishing SMOKIN' HOT



Conclusion

At first it may seem that I'm pretty arrogant, posting and re-posting quality fish....your may even be thinking, "I've seen it once already. Quit bragging!" Or at least that's what I think could be going through your mind. However, in writing I get a unique chance to look back and reflect on the past,  which I think is something everyone needs to do from time to time. So often things happen and we only get to experience that event once, in writing about it we get to relive the experience again and again. In reflecting on the past year I began to realize that many of my quality fish came from the help or indirect help of others. The hybrid striped bass in March wouldn't have been possible without the proper direction from Todd; in May I surely wouldn't have caught a personal best walleye on Lake Erie without the invite and guidance from Jim; the flathead both in 2013 and 2014 came from one of Russ' rivers and if I hadn't met in through kayaking in 2013 I would have probably given up on flathead fishing; and finally the 6lb 3oz bass came from a lake that I had only discovered while waiting for Shawn to get off work before one of our night fishing adventures.

Good luck to everyone in 2015!