Neil Farley

Author: Neil Farley
Location: Southwest Ohio

Growing up in Southwest Ohio I learned how to fish for smallmouth bass in local rivers from a very early age.  Most days in the summer were spent wading or canoeing the Great Miami, Little Miami, Stillwater, and Mad Rivers for smallmouth and the occasional saugeye or walleye.


Living in the Dayton, OH area you fish for smallmouth because there are very few flat water spots that are under a 30 minute drive. Occasionally trips to local ponds would produce a nice largemouth here and there, but why waste time catching largemouth when you could catch smallmouth the same size or bigger!


Once in college at the Ohio State University I began to fish and learn new river systems that included the Olentangy, Scioto, Alum Creek, and the Big & Little Darby.  While in Columbus I started to also fish flat water a bit more and species more accustomed to flat water including crappie and largemouth bass, but was still sold on moving water.

While growing up my father was addicted to whitewater kayaking as much as I was to fishing.  Often times I was traveling during my grade school and high school years to West Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Canada, or other whitewater kayaking destinations.  Admittedly, most of the travels during these years were made under protest. As any young kid I wanted to hang out with friends and not a bunch of "old" people at a campground.  As the years moved on I began to appreciate the fact that I visited places like the New River, Gauley River, and Meadow Creek, or places with strange names like the Youghiogheny, Obed-Emory,  Chatooga, Nantahala, Ocoee, and Pukaskwa.

By the early 90's my father followed his passion and opened what was at the time a small whitewater kayak shop in Dayton, OH,  Whitewater Warehouse.  At the time I had no idea how this event would affect the rest of my future fishing adventures.  With a ton of hours fishing from canoe or wading I found a new tool to help catch fish...the kayak.  I bought one of the first ever sit on top kayaks on the market, a Dagger Pegasus. When I was ready to buy the kayak the only one available was purple or I could wait a month or two and hope another color was available.  This sit on top kayak was designed for whitewater and was outfitted with things like thigh straps. (The pegasus was since re-released as a different kayak entirely that was geared for the recreational kayaker).  I was now a proud owner of a purple whitewater kayak and soon to be fishing kayak! It was about 5 years later the kayak manufacturers started to see a market they needed to design kayaks for: the kayak angler.  Since that first kayak I can't remember all of the kayaks I have used to stalk fish not to mention keep up with all the kayaks now on the market.

In 2011 I found out about an online kayak tournament called Kayak Wars.  This website first introduced me to the idea of competitive, but fun kayak fishing.  Previously, it was always just a goal to catch more fish than the person I was fishing with that particular day.  After participating in Kayak Wars in 2012 I began to pay closer attention to species of fish that I would normally not be interested in targeting.  I mean who gets in a kayak and says, "Let's go catch an 11" perch" in February?  I always envisioned perch fisherman sitting up on shore on a 5 gallon bucket with a coffee can full of worms in one hand and rod in the other (sorry grandpa!).  What I didn't realize is how hard it is to land certain species of fish that had a minimum size limit.  Kayak Wars opened up a whole new element of kayak fishing.

While participating in Kayak Wars I met a group of anglers I began to fish with more often. After a year of kayak fishing together we decided to organize our own tournament.  The more I got into the planning stages of a tournament the more I was leaning towards a full blown tournament schedule.  Within days we went from organizing a single tournament to the birth of the Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail.   The trail gathered a lot of interest and became a tool for many anglers to meet others (in Ohio and surrounding states) with the same passion.  It also helped anglers learn new fishing techniques, different ways to outfit fishing kayaks, and for some anglers the opportunity to become a pro-staff member with a company.  The greatest part of the Trail for me was to see anglers have a very difficult time catching fish in their first few events, but then competing for top places in later events just by learning new fishing techniques from other anglers.

While I have yet to slime a kayak in saltwater I have also had the opportunity to fish in the Carolina's and the Gulf of Mexico for saltwater species. Some of those catches include yellow-fin tuna, dolphin fish, gag grouper, speckled trout, redfish, snapper, flounder, sea bass, black tip shark, spanish mackerel, king mackerel, pompano, flounder, and triggerfish.  If I started to make a bucket list one of the top items on the list would be to catch all those species in a yak.

I hope my kayak fishing experiences contained within this blog help promote kayak fishing and provide a spark for other kayak anglers to get out on the water!

Be sure to check back often as you never know what kind of blog posts will be showing up...

-Neil