October 27th, "Distraction"

A couple times a year I get tired of bass fishing and look for other species to target.
I had fished every Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail event except one and in the process fished more flat water than I normally would.  I was ready for a distraction.  Usually that distraction is crappie, bluegill, or saugeye, but this time it would be a different species....brown trout!  In the past, I always fished for trout when all the other fish shut down and that usually meant temperatures in the 30's.  Another words I was always looking to get my kayak fishing fix until other fish heated back up.  This year was a little different as we had a cold spell hit a bit earlier in the year than normal and I needed a break from flat water.

Fishing for trout in Ohio is something that is a bit off the beaten path for most anglers. Trout streams in Ohio are pretty rare compared to other neighboring states and most anglers probably identify trout fishing as hitting the local pond that the ODNR stocks.  I am lucky enough to have a prime trout river within 30 minutes away.  

Travis Belcher and Jeff Bennett met up with me and we coordinated the shuttle and hit the river.
I had trout fished on this particular river about 10 or so times in the past and one of the things I looked
forward to most is the moving water.  There were no flat sections on this stretch and paddling was only required to avoid wood piles and rocks. After a lot of trips this summer that were 8+ hours on flat water I was ready for a nice fall trip on fast moving water with no portages.

At the put-in the first thing everyone noticed was the crystal clear water and the abundance of leaves floating. I had success in the past landing large numbers of smaller trout with small inline spinners on this particular flow, but I wanted to try something else in the hopes of catching a larger brown.  I tied on a decent sized swimbait and began casting.  On my first cast I noticed that the leaves in the water were going to be an issue all day with them catching on the line and hook.  About the first quarter of the trip I had

no fish and no bites.  I wasn't ready to change lures quite yet because only one small 6" brown was caught by Jeff. A bit further into the trip Jeff had caught two more small trout on inline spinners and I had yet to get a bite on my swimbait so I decided to switch to my own inline spinner.  I started with a yellow rooster tail with a silver blade but quite a bit larger than the one Jeff was using...I still wanted to find the bigger trout.  I immediately started to get hits, but nothing that would take the treble hook all the way in.  I could see the smaller trout hitting the lure as I was reeling it in, but they were too small and in the 6" range.  Finally, I got a hook up with a brown trout in the 8" range.  Every brown trout I catch I am amazed at the color and patterns on the fish.  In my opinion, it is the coolest looking fish in Ohio waters and often pictures don't do it justice.
As the trip progressed we all ended up catching about 4 or 5 brown trout with Travis landing the largest one measuring about 12.5".  During the trip we ran into a fly fishing guide from Mad River Outfitters in Columbus.  In the past we had caught what we thought to be small rainbow trout, but he informed us that they were just really awkward looking brown trout.  Some of the brown trout from a hatchery no longer used would have a real silvery sheen to them and were mistaken as rainbows by most anglers.  I guess it had something to do with the trout being raised on a white concrete floor as opposed to the dark colored floor now.

All in all a great distraction from bass fishing!

-Neil

10/20, Fall Creek Fishing

Sunday I decided to fish a local creek by myself while Amanda studied for her midterms. My intentions were to fish a new section of creek in hopes of finding a crappie hot spot. Russ and I have plans to fish together on Tuesday after work, and our last few trips have been pretty rough to say the least. I figured that I'd do some scouting and see if I could find us some new water to fish and give us the best shot of finding fish Tuesday. Instead of experimenting with Russ I decided to do the scouting myself.

Before I got on the water I was organizing a few of my tackle boxes and found a few crankbaits that I no longer used. I took the split rings and treble hooks off of them and decided to put them on Smack Tackles flitterbait. The flitterbait comes with two treble hooks that attach without split rings, which is a pretty neat design but they weren't quite what I was looking for . The hooks were designed to bend under pressure, I believe that with 10lb test you can bend a hook out if you get snagged. That is really not a deal breaker for me because at some points its downright convenient. However, the fact that the hooks are silver means that when fishing in clear shallow water they are more visible than I prefer. So I swapped the silver hooks out for the split rings and treble hooks off of the old crankbait. 

Little did I know that the visibility would be an issue when I got on the water. As I arrived to my destination I realized that the water was crystal clear, how clear was the question. That question would have to wait to be answered, because before I got more than a few feet from the bank I had my first fish. Now as I had mentioned before this trip was to be a crappie scouting trip. I had brought two rods along, one of which was a small ultra light combo spooled with 8lb test with a 1/32 oz jig tied on. The other was a low profile baitcaster on a medium heavy 7' rod spooled with 12lb monofilament. I had the flitterbait that I had modified tied onto it just to test the action of the lure. I had assumed that by adding a split ring onto the eye that you tie your line to, that the bait would be free to vibrate more freely on the split ring. Since the visability was so good I decided to cast it a few times just to see what it looked like. It definitely seemed to allow the bait to vibrate a little more, and let it ride upright. I had noticed that sometimes my knot would slide to one side, thus making the bait ride tilted in the water. The split ring eliminated this. I took another cast this time out in the middle more. I was mesmerized with how clear the water was. I decided to take one last cast down the bank. The lure hit the water and I watched it flash all the way along the bank, and then it disappeared. I set the hook and to my amazement I had hooked a solid smallmouth bass. It leaped once, and then twice, and after a few short burst toward the bottom I soon landed the fish. 

Its important at this point to mention that this trip was supposed to be a scouting adventure for crappie. Three casts into the trip and I land a chunky 15" smallie, so I did what everyone else would do......I abandoned the crappie and focused on smallmouth. I did notice that when I went to land the fish, that the water seemed unseasonably cold. It felt like the water was in the 40's....I looked to the fish finder to find that it was in fact 54.5 degrees. Just last week Russ and I had fished the Ohio River and recorded water temperatures in the high 60's/ low 70's.  I paddled around and tossed the flitterbait toward this bank, and then toward that bank but it seemed that maybe I had just gotten lucky. I was still in pretty deep water with steep banks so at this point in time I still had no idea of exactly how clear the water was. Since I was by myself I had to paddle upstream and then float back down to my car.

As I was paddling upstream the water started to get shallow as I approached my first riffle. My fish finder read 3.5" (my transducer sits 6" in the water so in reality it was probably 4 feet deep) but the bottom looked a heck of a lot closer than that. Once I reached the 3 foot mark I dropped a quarter to the bottom of the creek just to see if I could read the writting on it, and sure enough I could. I nearly fell out of my kayak looking at it, but I could see every detail. Now I understand that many of you have probably experienced visability like this before, but I'm not used to it. To me 3 foot of visibility is pretty darn clear, the visibility here was 5' or better. I probably sat in one spot and watched fish swim around for 20 minutes, it was like I was at bass pros aquarium. At one point I had 3 suckers swimming under my kayak, I kept waiting for a monster smallmouth to appear out of a log jam and chase them around but he never did. 


 
 I finally started casting again, and it didn't take long to get a bite. This one was no where near the size of the first smallie but he sure thought he was. He went airborne once and was done. I got it in the kayak and laughed, the bait was nearly half its size. His eyes were definitely bigger than his belly.  I thought to myself that maybe the fish had started feeding heavy for fall. About 15 minutes later I hooked into another smallmouth. It appeared that they had put on the feed bag. This one fell into the 12-13" range. 

From that point I landed fish after fish, I literally caught a fish every 15 minutes. I quit taking pictures of every fish I caught at this point, I figured I had enough material to write a blog on so I just focused on fishing. I caught a variety of fish over the next couple of hours... rockbass, bluegill, largemouth, and even a crappie. Since I had brought a cooler along for crappie I had decided to keep the crappie and see if I could get a few more for dinner. At about 3:30pm I got to a fallen tree near a boulder which created a deep hole. It was probably the best looking spot for crappie in the whole section of creek I had seen.  I dropped an anchor and started casting my flitterbait around the fallen tree. 

I quickly picked up two smallmouth and a bluegill. I knew that the crappie had to be somewhere around, so I switched over to the 1/32 oz jig and tube bait. I spent probably an hour probing the depths of the fallen tree, only to produce 3 more crappie. This section of creek was definitely not what I would call a crappie hot spot.  All of the crappie ranged from 10" to 11.75", which was about average. 

Once I had 4 crappie I knew that it was more than enough for Amanda and I to have for dinner. At that point it was back to smallmouth fishing. I pulled my anchor up and stared casting downstream again. At first I struggled to find a fish, for this trip that meant that I went a half an hour without a fish. It turns out that I had gotten to a shallow portion of the creek. The fish seemed to be located near deeper water, 3 to 5 feet. Once I got back into deeper water the fishing picked up. I was having a blast. I caught another dozen bass in the 12 to 14" range before I decided to break into the beef jerky. I quitely dropped anchor and started eating jerky. I noticed an agressive boil on the other side of the creek. I figured it must have been a carp so I kept eating. About 3 minutes later I watched a shad skip across the top 3 times before something decided to eat it. That was all I needed to see, lunch time was over. I pulled up anchor and silently paddled within range. I made a long cast, almost too long as it nearly hit a tree branch. I then started slow rolling the bait back to the kayak. I patiently waited for the bait to get where the fish had eaten the shad. The bait soon passed the exact spot where I had seen the fish surface, but nothing happened. I kept reeling, by now my bait had made it to the middle of the creek and I felt a thump. I reeled down and set a hook, the fish immediately came to the surface. It looked to be a bass in the 17" range. He tried everything it could to throw the hooks but failed with every jump. I leaned over the kayak and grabbed the smallie to find that he had all but swallowed my flitterbait. 

At one point he started bleeding which kind of upset me. I don't like killing smallmouth because their growth rates are so slow, a 16" fish may be 8 years or older. I carefully and quickly removed the flitterbait. I took a few pictures and held it in the water for a couple minutes. I was doubtful that it was going to make it because every time its gills would move you could see a few flakes of blood come out. As I was holding it beside my kayak I told myself if it did die I guess I could throw it in the cooler with the crappie. At that point I wasn't even sure I wanted to eat a smallmouth, but I wasn't going to let it go to waste. After a couple minutes it started showing signs of aggression, puling against my thumb and splashing water. At that point I decided to let it go and see if it made it. As soon as my finger slipped out of its mouth it disappeared. Here's a couple more shots of the smallie.

At this point it was getting late and I knew I still had crappie to clean. I took a few more casts and decided to call it a trip. I ended up catching 22 smallmouth which is the most I have ever caught in one day. I also landed 4 crappie, 1 rockbass, 1 largemouth, and 3 bluegill. 

On the downside, I did manage to break my flitterbait. I'm not quite sure how it happened but after 31 fish Sunday, 4 fish last Friday, 3 saugeye last Sunday evening, and 12 largemouth last Sunday morning I'd say it has served its purpose. I got home about a half an hour before dark and cleaned the four crappie. For dinner I had crappie and curly fries. Not too bad for a day on the water.  Now I just need to make up my mind for our trip Tuesday, Smallmouth or Crappie?

10/14, Columbus Day River Fishing

Russ and I had the day off so we decided to hit the Ohio River Saturday. We loaded up the kayaks and set off for the river around 11am. Once we got on the water quickly noticed how calm the big river was. The wind was forecasted to be 5 to 10mph all day long, but I guess it decided to take the day off too. Water temperature ranged from 68.5 to 70 degrees pretty much all day long, which is fairly average given the time of the year. Russ and I started hitting the spots we thought would hold fish, creek mouths, rip rap shorelines, fallen trees, etc. However, the fish just weren’t chasing schooling baitfish. We went to great lengths to find fish, even cutting in behind tied off barges to see if we could find fish hanging in the shade below. 

Halfway through the trip Russ and I pretty much decided that we weren’t going to catch fish on the side of the river we were on. It was the shallow side, which meant it had significantly less current than the other side. I knew what the other side of the river looked like from previous trips in the jon boat in 2012, so I knew it was worth the long paddle across. It took us about 10 minutes but we eventually made it to the other side. My plan was to hit the tail end of a deep hole on an outside bend in the river. The particular spot I wanted to target was where the current had exposed and deposited large rocks. Since it was the tail end of the hole, it was still fairly deep and very swift. We paddled up river until we could see the transition where the bank turned from sand to rock. We started casting blade baits (Flitterbaits) toward the bank and started jigging them through the rocks. Here’s what one section looked like, you can see that its still 20 feet deep only 10-15 yards off of the bank. 

On the first pass I hooked up with a solid fish. I actually watched it as he ate my bait on the fish finder. I pulled him up to the surface fairly easy with 20lb braid and a medium heavy rod. It was a drum, which looked to be in the 5 to 6 pound range, 24-26” approximately. I had forgot about having fish grips and I went down to grab the drum and lift it into the kayak.  I wasn’t putting my hand anywhere near its mouth because it had a face full of treble hooks. As I got 90 percent of the fish out of the water it began to slip, not in the mood to catch a treble hook to the hand I decided to let the fish fall back in the water and then try again. Well the fish had other plans, as soon as it hit the water it went right back to the bottom leaving my bait behind. I wasn’t too upset at this point, and not because it was a just a drum, but because I had caught a few drum in the 8 to 10 pound range out of this very spot the previous year. I was optimistic that we would find one bigger. 

We quickly finished our first pass through the tail end of the hole, a half mile section, and we decided to make another pass. We paddled back upstream and started fishing again. At this point I had tied another blade bait on my second bass rod and had set it in a rod holder with my bait a couple feet off of bottom. The motion of my rocking kayak was enough to give the bait action, at least that’s what I told myself. About 30 yards into our drift I feel my kayak swinging in the current, I look over to my rod and the drag is slipping. I thought I was snagged at first, but the rate at which drag was slipping didn’t seem to fit with the rate at which my boat was moving. I pried the rod out of the rod holder and started to pull tight when the fish came off of bottom and went nuts. I got to fight it for about 15 seconds before my line went slack. I’m not real sure what I had, it could have been anything from a gar to a paddlefish. I put the rod back in the rod holder and continued fishing. A few minutes later I captured Russ getting up close and personal with a couple passing barges. I like to think to myself that he was saying, “This river aint big enough for the three of us”, with his fist shaking in the air.

In reality he had just lost a fish on a rod that he was drifting nightcrawlers on, and had drifted out a little further than he had expected. We finished our second pass and decided to head up river and fish an island that is known to give up a few hybrid striped bass. We fished up one side of the island and finally made our way to the upstream point when I caught the first hybrid. It was a small guy, probably in the 12-14” range. It was the first fish I actually landed on the day so I was happy with anything at this point. Russ on the other hand was struggling to find fish, stating that I gave him a defective bait. We fished until about an hour before dark and noticed that a barge had just made it around the bend upstream and was heading our way. We had two options at this point, try to beat him across the river and make our way back to the boat ramp or fish until it passes and then make our way across the river in the dark. We opted to beat the barge across. We made it with 20 minutes to spare, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when your playing chicken with a barge and you’re in a kayak….you really don’t want it to be much closer than that. 

We made our way back into a small tributary and fished our way back to the take out. At one point I saw 3 fish on my fish finder in 19’ feet of water. I told Russ that we finally found some fish. I dropped my blade bait to the bottom and made one vertical jig before getting slammed. The fish came to the surface with relative ease. I had landed my first drum of the evening, a little guy around 14”. Russ just shook his head and mumbled something about sniping fish with my fish finder.  Soon the sun set and we called it a day.

Now I typically don’t write blogs unless I have something to show for it, a decent fish, a scenic stretch of water, or something to explain (reel teardown, reviews, etc.). However this was one of those trips that I felt could have gone much better on any other given day. I would go back to the rock bank and fish again in a heartbeat because I know the fish are there. Getting Russ to go to that spot again, well that might be a different story. 

10/12 Kiser and Indian Lake

I fished Kiser Lake Saturday morning with Neil, Jeff, and Brian. I quickly unloaded the kayak and got on the water. I put one foot in the water and darn near lost my breath, I was pretty sure my body was telling me that it was still too early in the morning for that kind of shock. We decided to start on the shallow end of the lake and target schooling baitfish. It didn’t take very long to find them either. The water looked like glass since the wind was pretty much nonexistent at this point. Any commotion near the surface was fairly easy to see from a hundred yards away. Neil was the first to land a fish off of a bait ball, a small 14” largemouth on a spinnerbait. The action seemed to die off after that. We kept paddling around the shoreline looking for any signs of baitfish near the surface. Eventually I tied on a hollow body frog and worked the remaining lily pads. About an hour passed and we decided to head up toward the deeper end of the lake to see if the fish were schooling bait up there too. After 2 hours of searching we were fairly confident the answer to our question was NO, the fish weren’t schooling fish near the deeper water. Neil did lose a good one right at the kayak throwing a 10" worm. It looked like the bass was acting out of reaction and didn't really have time to eat the worm. At this point we met up with Jeff and Brian and started talking about what we had caught and where we had caught them. They had done significantly better than us, landing almost a dozen fish to our 1. Even while we were talking Jeff landed a small bass. I shook my head and asked him what he had caught that on and he replied, “That blade bait you gave me this morning.” He was referring to Smack Tackle’s Flitterbait. I already had one tied on at this point and I was alternating in between it and the hollow body frog. I was tossing the flitterbait into schools of baitfish and then working the frog when the baitfish weren't present. I must have been doing something wrong, or maybe I was just in the wrong spots. After a little discussion we figured out that almost all of our fish had come from the shallow portion of the lake, so we set off back toward the area we had come from. I paddled up to a group of isolated lily pads and threw the flitterbait along the edge. On the first cast I snagged a lily pad stalk. On my second cast I retrieved the bait a little faster as to keep the bait a little higher in the water column. I started reeling just fast enough to feel the flitterbait vibrating through my rod blank, and then at about the same spot I snagged in before, the vibration stopped. Fearing that I had another lily pad, I tried to rip the bait free by jerking the rod violently. This time around I hadn’t found a lily pad stem, instead a small 13” bass rocketed out of the water. I kind of felt bad for the poor fish, I rarely set hooks that hard even on jig and pigs. At least I was on the board now.
  

A few minutes later, I landed another bass from the lily pad edge. For the next couple hours I landed fish after fish, all coming from lily pad edges. That was the key to finding fish, find bait and cover and you found bass. At one point I even started pitching the flitterbait into pockets inside of the pads, hopping it a couple times and then moving on. At about noon I made a long cast along a pad line and started burning the bait back to the kayak. I hit a pocket of weeds and ripped the bait free, and then started reeling again. I then felt a thump and watched as my line started heading away from the pads. I set a hook and saw the fish turn near the surface. He then swam toward my kayak and dropped my flitterbait off for me. I don’t know exactly how big it was or even what species it was, but I was pretty upset. We fished for another hour before decided to pack up and grab some lunch. 
  

From there Neil and I decided to head up to Indian Lake and try to catch a few saugeye near the dam. We got on the water a little after 4pm and fished until dark. We put our kayaks in near a group of islands and quickly discovered that we had to go under a very low bridge, or paddle a half mile around the islands. Well the pictures should tell the rest of that story.

I went first in the Native Watercraft Slayer from Whitewater Warehouse. The seat was in the low position, because I felt too unstable in the high seating position. The bridge was so low that I actually had to get out of the seat and sit in the floor of the kayak. That's when I kicked a scupper plug out and let a bunch of water in, which made its way back to where I was sitting. Wet butt and all, we paddled up to a good looking bank and started casting toward rip rap. About 20 casts into the trip and I land my first saugeye, a 16.5”er that took a chartreuse flitterbait.

We then paddled around a little, but we didn’t pick up another fish for an hour. I was starting to think that the hot bite was color related, because I had lost my chartreuse flitterbait to a snag after my first fish. At that point I made the switch to the black back shad color. Previously I had favored the black back shad color, it was probably the most realistic looking bait that I had ever seen. I had used it in the early spring to catch hybrid striped bass, so my confidence was still pretty high. After an hour of unsuccessful fishing we tucked back into a cove where I found some lily pads. My initial thought was….well I guess I could always bass fish again. I started throwing the flitterbait along the pad edges and quickly hooked up with another fish. It was no bass this time around either, I quickly landed another saugeye at 17.5”. 

At this point I had noticed Neil had abandoned the shallow cove and was 
trolling out in the main lake. I decided to head out and tell him that I had just caught another saugeye in pretty shallow water. He told me that he hadn't had a bite while trolling the deep water so he decided to target shallow water too. At that point we decided to spend the rest of the evening on the shallow flats near the dam. Which turned out to be a pretty good idea, as I landed another 17.5” saugeye a half an hour before sunset. 

 At the end of the day I was pretty happy with the way the trip turned out. Although I lost a good fish at Kiser Lake, the saugeye more than made up for the trip.

Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail Year in Review

Now that the 2013 Trail is in the books it is time for a look back...

When the idea hit to create a kayak fishing tournament I began to research first and foremost if any such thing even existed in Ohio. There was nothing to be found.  I began to research how other states, kayak retailers/manufacturers, etc were running their tournaments and quickly found that most of them ran pretty much by the same rules I followed as a participant in Kayak Wars.  The next step was to form a group to help create the tournament.  I had met Travis Belcher, Larry Haines, and Chase Bateson while participating in Kayak Wars early in 2012 and we had all fished together quite a few times trying to get more points for our team.  I thought they would be logical additions to help create the tournament since they already knew the basic concept and rules.

Soon after a couple conference calls our discussions led to creating a full blown tournament trail and the Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail was created on 12/12/12.
After creating the trail we began adding to the list of things that needed to be completed including....
*create rules
*scout potential tournament locations
*pick tournament locations
*select dates for the events
*obtain permits for some of the event locations
*find water access for every event
*find camping locations for every event
*promote trail with website, facebook, twitter
*layout all the details for every event including check-in and measure-in times and locations
*who is bringing the laptops to measure the fish
*who is registering people
*how much do we charge
*oh yeah, and sell people on sponsoring a bunch of events that didn't even exist a month ago.

I was beginning to think we bit off more than we can chew.  We all had full-time jobs and this was seriously going to eat into either our free time or our fishing time!

Admittedly, we thought we had everything planned perfectly and then we officially launched our first event on May 4th, 2013 on Indian Lake.  We all camped the night before at the state park and then headed over to a local bait shop to setup for registration in the morning.  The weather looked less than ideal and even terrible for Ohio.  The forecast predicted cloudy skies and wind gusts up to 20mph.  We woke up that morning thinking that we were the only 4 anglers that would show up!  As we pulled into the parking lot about 30 minutes ahead of time we were surprised to see vehicles with kayaks loaded up!  All in all we ended up having 18 anglers for a crappie event during weather that was producing constant 10mph wind with gusts of up to 20mph....we were shocked and also realized we were on to something.  After a quick breakdown of the rules everyone launched to wind and whitecaps.  Everyone found their own cove (which are plentiful on Indian Lake) and began stalking crappie.  The rules counted the top 3 crappie in length.  At measure-in the top 5 all hit at least 30" and the top spot was held by Chase Bateson with an impressive 37.5" three crappie total!  While grilling out hot dogs and hamburgers we also raffled off some great prizes from those sponsors who had faith in our Trail back when it was just a thought. I noticed at the measure-in all participants were not only discussing their day on the water but where they were from.  We had people driving more than 2 hours from places I had never even heard of in Ohio.  They were also discussing the next event the Three Lake Throwdown.


I have lived in Ohio my entire life and have gotten used to the crazy weather including 70 degree temperatures departing for snow...all in the same day! At the Three Lake Throwdown on May 25th even mother nature threw us a curveball.  The night before the tournament I had driven up to the event (about a 2.5 hour drive) to camp and setup the tent.  That night the temperatures dropped to 32 degrees and only 3 degrees from an all time low!  No way anyone would show up to this tournament.  Waking up in the morning while seeing my breath in the tent the entire night I was thinking what did I get myself into?! Our expectations were low and expected no one to show then we starting signing people in....16 in all.  We had anglers show up from other states including a group from Pennsylvania and West Virginia....word was getting out.  At the end of the day, the measure-in was pretty tough.  We only had 6 anglers catch fish....I thought for sure our Trail was over.  I was sure I was the only idiot to sit in my kayak for 8+ hours in the freezing cold while not catching a fish and still have a good time.  I was wrong....at measure-in people were again talking about the next event and the word 'redemption' was tossed around more than once.  The top angler and the only angler of 2 who caught 3 bass was Noah Heck with a total of 30".  Anglers had fun and were looking to the next event to prove they could catch fish!


The next stop was the Kiser Kayak Classic on Kiser Lake.  This lake is one of my favorites for a few

reasons including tons of cover to cast at, no motors allowed on the lake, and it holds a lot of bass with some that eclipse the 20" mark.  I knew if we had a good turnout we would see some good totals and some would get that redemption after the Three Lake Throwdown.  We ended up with 28 anglers with the group from West Virginia making their 2nd event, and anglers from Kentucky and Indiana.  While on the lake I noticed a lot of fish being caught and knew that the top spots would have a pretty good total.  I also knew that many anglers would walk away with a love/hate relationship with Kiser.  It was real easy to get massive blow ups by big bass on topwater baits fished in the pads, but very hard to actually hook them.   Of course, a BKFT event wouldn't be complete without a major weather event.  A huge storm blew threw causing anglers to find cover and caused about an hour and half delay.  At the measure-in I heard no fewer than 10 stories about massive blowups with no hooksets. At measure-in we totaled the fish up and the winner was Rylan Hayes with a 48" total.  The top 10 all eclipsed the 40" mark and I was lucky enough to land the big bass of the tournament with a 19" largemouth.  After the event a lot of people stuck around talking about the Trail, kayaks, and fishing in general.  With the 3rd event complete everyone was really excited to participate in a different kind of tournament....moving water and the Dayton River Regional.

The Dayton Regional River event featured moving water and a variety of rivers around the Dayton area, but of course mother nature let us know that wouldn't be the case.  The July event was a perfect time of the year to stalk smallmouth bass on moving water, but we were dealt an abnormally large amount of storms leading up to the event.  About 2 days before the event and after numerous trips to check out the area rivers the determination was made to postpone the event due to high water.  With the river event cancelled, a group of us decided to have an "unofficial" event on Kiser again.  The unofficial event announced two days prior saw over 20 anglers show up!  Jeff Bennett ended up winning the event and taking first place.  The next event was something most anglers were unfamiliar with...an online event called Summer Slam.

An online event is essentially a multi-day tournament where anglers email their top 3 bass pictures in. Summer Slam allowed anglers to fish any Ohio waters, so anglers could fish water they were comfortable with and knew well.  We weren't sure if anglers would understand the concept, but were pleasantly surprised when we had 22 anglers sign up.  Not only did anglers understand the concept, but we found out they know their home waters pretty well too. The top spot went to Sean Stone with a 3 bass total of 60.25"!  The top ten all exceeded 50"....a pretty impressive showing.

The next event featured something a lot of anglers had been looking forward to: moving water.

The Columbus Rumble on the River featured 6 different waterways that are all prime smallmouth spots.  This event was our most attended event of the year with 31 anglers participating.  Larry Haines proved he knew his home waters and took the top spot with an impressive 48.25" 3 fish total.  We also had a 4 way tie for Big Bass with Larry, Brian Britton, Russ McDonald, and Amanda Jones all landing a 17.25" smallmouth.

Our next event, another online event, was the Buckeye Open.  After meeting a large group of kayak anglers from the Kayak Angler of Western PA group we decided to open up our online tournament to OH & PA waters.  They were running an online tournament during the same dates and allowed multiple state participation including OH waters.  Before the

tournament began it was kind of playing up as a PA vs. OH kind of deal.  I decided to add a little more fuel to the fire by giving bonus points to anyone in our tournament who places in the top 10 of their tournament.  As the tournaments closed the wait for the final tally was on.  The KAWPA event had 29 anglers and five Ohio anglers were able to crack the top 10: 2nd place: Brian Britton, 3rd place: Sean Stone, 5th place: Jeff Bennett, 6th place: Logan Estep, and 8th place: Neil Farley.  (not trying to rub it in, but as I type this Ohio State just finished beating Penn State U. by 49 points...more fuel officially added!)  The Buckeye Open saw those same 5 anglers take spots between 1-7 with only two KAWPA anglers reaching the top 10: 3rd place: Daniel Thomas and 8th place: Eric Lander.
Brian Britton took 1st place with an impressive 58.75" 3 bass total.

The next BKFT event hit the waters of Nettle Lake in the far northwest corner of Ohio.  Almost every angler was new to this lake and hit the internet hard looking for any information that could be found.  Most found that it was a popular crappie lake and not much mention of bass.  This prompted anglers to begin giving Travis Belcher grief over his lake choice for this tournament.  The lake would also see mother nature strike once again.  Wind gusts of up to 24mph caused whitecaps and many anglers searching for the few coves they could find.  As soon as the weather moved through the large fish were starting to be caught.  Jeff Bennett won the tournament with a 47.25" 3 bass total and the top 5 all caught 40"+.

After the Fall Finale the next stop was the rescheduled Dayton River Regional now named the Dayton Kayak Fishing Experience (because it took place during the Midwest Outdoor Experience).  This event had a lot of cash and prizes up for grabs, but no fewer than 10 anglers were still in the running for a much larger prize....2013 Angler of the Year.   Jeff Bennett sat in 1st place when the tournament began and a lot of anglers were seeking a top 5 finish to pass him in the standings.  At the end of the tournament Jeff checked in with 41.75" and 6th place points that weren't going to improve his already established score.  That left the door wide open for other anglers to top him and land the coveted AOY.  Rylan Hayes crashed through that door with a
3 bass total of 53.25" to capture 1st place and a TIE for Angler of the Year!


In a forum, about a week before the event Sean Stone asked what would happen if a tie in the standings happened.  I off the cuff replied. "FISH OFF!" not thinking it would ever happen.  After a bit of thought I decided I better lay out the ground rules in the case it did.  A coin flip would determine if the FISH OFF would be held on flat water (Kiser Lake) or moving water (Dayton area rivers).  The flip determined it would be held on Kiser Lake.  Both Jeff and Rylan were happy with the outcome as Rylan won the the Kiser Kayak Classic and Jeff won the "un-official" Kiser tournament that took the place of the 1st postponed Dayton event.

Two weeks later anglers met on Kiser Lake for the FISH OFF which also allowed other anglers to compete.  Whoever between Jeff and Rylan had the most total inches for 3 bass won Angler of the Year.
The temperatures were supposed to hit 50 degrees but I bet with wind chills it was unlikely they even hit 40.
 It was super cold out on the water and by the last two hours the lake had whitecaps (a theme BKFT anglers saw way too often in 2013).  A largemouth bass caught in the last hour that was just shy of 21" propelled one angler to the win.  Jeff Bennett walked away with an entry into the Kayak Bass Fishing Invitational, a Black Pak donated by Yak City, a $75 gift certificate to Hook1, and title of Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail's 2013 Angler of the Year!  Congrats Jeff for a great year on the water.

The other component that drew a lot of interest this year was the YAK Ohio.  To win a YAK Ohio you had to catch a qualifying species on Ohio waters while in a kayak. Many anglers fished their local waterways for

qualifying fish with many of those anglers landing their personal best.  The results were really an accomplishment....
Largemouth Bass = 22" Rylan Hayes
Smallmouth Bass = 19.25" Larry Haines
Crappie = 14.5" tie: Rylan Hayes & Jeff Bennett
Waleye/Saugeye = 19.25" Mike Lyon
Catfish = 42" Russ McDonald
Sunfish/Rockbas s= 10" Neil Farley
Pike/Musky = 35.5" Tim Sylvester

A big thanks goes out to all the yak anglers, sponsors, and supporters of the Trail!
We have already started planning for the 2014 Trail and will be announcing additional sponsors, tournament schedule, etc. in the coming months.  Stay tuned and be prepared for an even bigger and better 2014 trail!

-Neil
Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail

P.S. In case you missed it be sure to ask for a Hawg Trough as a stocking stuffer this Christmas because we will be requiring them for 2014!