2014 Tournaments Gearing Up

As many of you know, February first marks the start of several kayak tournaments. The first of which is Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trails "Yak Ohio's", an online photo submission tournament in which anglers compete to land the largest fish of a variety of species. The tournament runs from February 1, 2014 through October 1, 2014 and all fish caught from a kayak in the state of Ohio are eligible. This year BKFT offers categories in Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Hybrid Striped Bass, Crappie, Musky/Pike/Gar, Catfish, Carp, and Walleye/Saugeye/Sauger. Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail is offering prizes exceeding $150 and trophies for each category of fish. BKFT is also offering a  year long Bass event, in which anglers are allowed to submit their largest five bass throughout the year. The most total inches wins the event, and will receive points toward the final trial standings. This will of course factor into the angler of the year, which receives prizes and products in excess of $300.

The second tournament that starts on the first of February is KayakWars. KayakWars is an international online kayak fishing tournament that is held from the first of February and runs through December 14th. Anglers form groups of 3 to 5 members and compete within their region and water type. For example, I compete in the North East United States region and I am in the freshwater division. Like the BKFT's Yak Ohio's, KayakWars offers anglers a wide variety of species to target for the tournament. Each region has predetermined lengths and points allowed for each species of fish....which can be seen here. One example of a qualifying fish would be a largemouth bass over 16" for 10 points. The more points you accumulate the better your team will do. For most anglers kayakwars is for bragging rights, but for the extremely talented and or lucky there are some really nice prizes to be won. 

Both tournaments follow similar rules and guidelines....here are a few that I wanted to highlight before Saturday.

Online Photo Submission:  BKFT Yak Ohio's are to be emailed to buckeyekayakfishingtrail@gmail.com, KayakWar photos are to be uploaded to kayakwars.com.

Date and Time: These must be accurate on your camera. Make sure that after you change batteries, transfer photos, upload photos, etc. that your date and time are correct. Amanda lost a couple hundred points last year because her Date and Time were wrong.

Clear Measurements: Make sure to have the fish facing left, mouth touching the zero mark, entire fish is in the photo, kayak is in the photo, and water is also visible (no wading or shore fishing). Take several pictures in case  BKFT requires a Hawg Trough, KayakWars is open to all measuring devices. (Acceptable picture seen below)

Clear Pictures: Take extra time to make sure that your camera lens is clear of moisture. I had several pictures that were barely acceptable....in fact if it hadn't been for marking my inch lines on my hawg trough with a black permanent marker they would have been unreadable. Make sure that your camera focuses on your fish and not that bottle of pepsi you have laying in your yak.

Deadlines: Make sure to get your pictures submitted on time....BKFT allows 10 days, and KayakWars allows 14 days from the time of the catch.

Hold On: Believe it or not, fish don't necessarily like being out of water and on our hawg troughs so they do all they can to try and escape.

Luckily he still had my spinnerbait pinned to his mouth when he decided jump ship.

Some people like to use fish grips (seen below), some put their hands on the fishes side, others simply hold the fishes lip.

 One tactic I found to be very successful last year was to leave the fish hooked for the photo, that way if he flopped back into the water I would have another shot at getting a picture. (I wouldn't recommend leaving a fish hooked if your bait has more than one hook or treble hooks....that could get ugly in a hurry. Just because I do it on occasion doesn't make it a good idea.)

Have Fun: The most important thing of all is to remember to have fun. Fishing is our hobby, we do it because we enjoy it. Don't get too worked up about these tournaments. I know I've been guilty more than once of dropping an F-bomb when I lost a good fish, broken a rod, broke my line, lost a personal item overboard, etc.. Remember that someone who's in a bad mood generally makes everyone else unhappy. It took me a while to realize it, but after fishing with Amanda when she was having a bad day I realized that bad moods ruin trips.


Good luck to everyone this weekend, and be safe.

Pictures

Every year I end up with a folder on my computer with literally a few thousand pictures that I have taken for the blog. Typically I start each trip with a picture or two from our launch, maybe I'll take a picture of some scenery, I'll take 3 to 4 pictures of a decent fish (6 or 7 if its really nice), and I may even take a few pictures of the bottom of my kayak as I fumble my camera around. On a given trip I may take 20 pictures, and I take over 150 trips a year. Throw in the fact that I participated in Kayak Wars last year, a photo submission kayak tournament, and you can see how quickly things get out of hand. (I typically took at minimum 2 pictures of a fish on a measuring board, maybe 4 or 5 if it had a bad temper) Of the thousands of pictures I take each year well over seventy percent end up making their way to my computers recycling bin. Usually on one abnormally cold evening in the middle of winter I will go through the pictures and delete all but the very best pictures. Along the way I stumble upon pictures that I had forgotten about. Here's a few of the pictures that re-discovered from my 2013 season.

Here's one of my absolute favorites, a picture of a sunset while drifting for catfish on Rocky Fork Lake in Highland County Ohio. Maybe I like it so much because its 10 degrees out and I wish it was as warm now as it was when I took the picture.

Yet another one of my favorite pictures of 2013, a mayfly hatch on Ohio Brush Creek south of West Union, Ohio. At first I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that it was dark, we were a mile from the take out, and the water was littered with white floating material. After a few flashes from the camera I discovered that not only were they in the water, but they were flying too. We had floated through a epic mayfly hatch.

Here's a picture I took just as the sun was coming up on Turkey Creek Lake located in the Shawnee State Forest. (Portsmouth, Ohio) The lake is extremely clear, visibility sometimes exceeds 8 feet, and its very deep for its size. Rumor has it that a near state record size largemouth was caught on a buzzbait during the middle of the summer at around midnight. Personally I think its just a story.....but you never know. My biggest bass out of this lake is just at 2 pounds.

Here is just one of several small dams on Rocky Fork Creek.

I thought this one was pretty neat too. Everyone knows I'm a sucker for lily pads and hollow body frogs. There is just something about working a frog through a bed of pads when all of a sudden the water explodes as a bass finds your frog. I took this picture last year as I was fishing Adams Lake near West Union, Ohio. Here I stumbled upon some of the largest lily pads I have ever seen in my life.....easily 36" in diameter if not bigger. 

Here's another one from Adams Lake. Here Jake and Amanda launch before I can get in the water. Its hard to beat a summer sunrise from the kayak. Jake had a heck of a day that trip, he ended up catching something along the lines of 50 small bass in 6 hours. (All were less than 14")

"I'm in heaven.....where's my frog." Just kidding, but yet again another cool picture of some pads in a small arm of the lake. Man, I miss summer.

This picture means a whole lot more that just whats shown above. This picture was taken during a float on lower Rocky Fork Creek in Rainsboro, Ohio. The entire float was as amazing as this one picture. At times we were surrounded by 80 foot tall limestone cliffs, we even floated through a limestone arch at one point. If you haven't floated this section I highly recommend it.

 Here's one for you guys who like to catfish. Sunset on the Scioto River......here kittty, kitty, kitty.





One last picture to end on.....well actually a series of pictures. Rain, Rain, Rain. We were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time on the water this year which meant we got the good and the bad weather. When it rained, we stuck it out....and most of the time it payed off. Here's a couple pictures of rain. The first one Amanda and I sat through some seriously large rain drops. The second picture Neil and I made our way back to the boat ramp to get out of the down pour. The last picture Amanda, Russ, and I wait out a storm and hit the water after it passes by......30 minutes later with the sun still shining we got drenched. I don't know who Amanda was talking to, but I don't think she was very happy about the situation.

1/18, Ohio River "DinkFest"

The last two weeks of weather here in Ohio has been pretty unstable to say the least. The week before last we had a cold front blow in sub zero temperatures and a little snow. This was southern Ohio's first real deep freeze, afterwards most of the lakes created enough ice for "safe" ice fishing conditions. I believe they had a window of two days (Thursday January 9th, and Friday January 10th) to fish before the weather turned and melted away the ice. Saturday the 11th was a huge disappointment for me, air temperatures reached the mid 50's but there was still enough ice on the water to make it impossible to break through with a kayak. Since the weather was so nice and most everything was froze up, I assumed that the warm water discharge would be loaded with those anglers trying to fight off cabin fever. I didn't want to have to dodge sinkers and baits in a kayak so I decided to stay home last weekend.

The following week, last week, was pretty stable for 4 or 5 days with air temperatures in the mid 30's during the day and low 20's at night. The ice machine was fired back up and the lakes were beginning to regain the ice they had lost during the warm up the previous weekend. Of course as soon as this weekend rolled around, those highs in the mid 30's had disappeared. Saturday, my day off, was forecasted to have a high of 24 degrees, winds of 15-20 miles per hour, and wind chills that made the air temperature feel like it was in the low teens. Already upset from the previous weekend, I had determined that the cold wasn't going to stop me from fishing. Friday night I told everyone that I was going to take the kayak down to the river, my little brother chimed in and said he'd go if no one else was going with me. Jake, my brother, was a less than average swimmer so I started to rethink my decision of taking the kayaks out. Swimming in 60-70 degree water is a whole different story when its below freezing out. I told him maybe we should just go down and bank fish instead. At that point Amanda jumped in and said she'd go if we bank fished. So it was set, we were going down to the warm water discharge to fish from the bank.

We loaded up the car and hit the river, along the way we stopped at walmart to pick up liver and shrimp in case the bite was slow. (This happened to be both a good and bad idea....both the shrimp and the liver were frozen solid, with air temperatures in the mid teens we struggled to thaw them out enough to use. However, we did need them.) We got to the warm water discharge around 11:30am and began scouting for spots to bank fish. The river was up what looked to be 1-2 feet, which eliminated most accessible spots. We walked around for a few minutes and came upon a good looking point out in front of one of the discharge locations. Jake and Amanda were both happy with the location so we started fishing. As mentioned before, both the liver and shrimp were frozen solid so we dug out a small hole in the mud near the edge of the water and set our bait in it to thaw out. We then proceeded to cast flitterbaits out into the discharge. It didn't take long to run into problems. Of course we had our typical ice build up on our eyes and a little ice on the guide on our reels. However, at one point my braid started to freeze up on my spool. I would cast and my bait would go about 20 feet and then come to a complete stop. Each time this happened I had to blow warm air onto my spool and recast. After 45 minutes of this I was ready to set a rod out with liver or shrimp and warm my hands in my pockets.

Jake and Amanda also had the same idea. We went down to the water and began opening the bait containers......everything was still frozen solid. Jake and I hooked the shrimp one time through and then casted it out. Amanda on the other hand, had grabbed a shrimp and put it in her mouth to thaw it out. After a few seconds she could thread her hook through the shrimp, making it harder for fish to steal off of her hook. We each casted a rod out and put it in a rod holder. We then waited for a bite. Jake was the first one to land a fish, after a half dozen bites and failed hook ups.

He baited back up and casted his rod out. Within seconds of the bait hitting the water his rod began to bounce in his rod holder. He had found where the fish were sitting in the current. His rod bounced for about thirty seconds, nothing major enough for him to set the hook on so he left it alone. He left his rod alone for another five minutes before reeling it in and checking his bait. He had gotten cleaned. By this time, Amanda had casted out into the range of Jakes rod. It didn't take long for her to find the fish either. He rod bounced hard once and then continued to bounce erratically. A small channel cat had managed to get her circle hook into its mouth and had hooked itself. Amanda had finally got on the board with her first fish of the day.

They continued to cast out into the current and get bites. Most of the time they got cleaned and they had to rebait. This went on for the next two hours; rebait, cast, watch the rod tip bounce for 5 minutes, miss a fish, repeat, maybe even catch 1 fish every 20 minutes, etc. In the mean time I was struggling to find the bites that they were. I was down the bank a little fishing where the current from the discharge was slamming into and eroding the bank. I figured that there had to be a deeper hole around here somewhere and maybe the bigger fish were in the deeper hole. Well that was my plan anyway. I sat in my spot while Amanda and Jake went back and forth catching fish.

Eventually I started casting my bait further and further out into the current in hopes that I would find something. After a half dozen casts I had my first bite, I had found a fish.....which happened to steal my bait. I quickly put on another shrimp and casted back into the same spot. After a few minutes the rod began to bounce, the circle hook had found its way into the mouth of a small hybrid striper.

We continued to fish for another 2 hours at this spot before we decided to move and see if we could find a few larger fish. We walked down the bank another 50 yards or so and set up on a small 4x15' beach. After 10 minutes we realized that we were into the dinkers again . We sat around, catching fish on and off,  for another hour and a half before deciding to call it quits. We didn't find any size, but the action was steady and everyone was pretty well entertained.

2013 Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail: Perspective from the Angler of the Year

By: Jeff Bennet

In the early part of 2013 I came upon some talk of a kayak fishing trail on Ohio Game Fishing, an online fishing forum. It intrigued me, though at the time I was fishing from a 14’ canoe.  As Neil Farley, one of the founders of BKFT, continued to push the idea on the forum I realized that I had to get into a kayak. I would need to have one by spring so I could fish the trail. I have fished for a very long time but had never fished a tournament. I liked the idea of a tournament because I am very competitive person. I quickly sold my canoe to a few duck hunters and immediately went to Dunham’s to purchase a kayak. I ended up with a Future Beach Angler 144, a sit on top model that offered great stability. I quickly fell in love with the SOT platform and purchased my second yak less than a month later, an Ascend DS12T from Bass Pro. I was ready to fish the trail!

Indian Lake: Big Slab Crappie Challenge               

Indian Lake is a lake I am very familiar with, in which I spend the early part of each spring crappie fishing. I was thinking I’m good to go and I had begun to get pumped for the event.  I even planed a day to do a little pre fishing before the tournament. At this point I let my wife know that I would be unavailable during the date of the tournament…..she told me that I couldn’t fish the event because I had to be at my daughters dance recital. I was Bummed! After this incident I grabed the BKFT schedule and mad sure she knew that I would not be available on those dates unless it was an absolute must.

Three Lake Throwdown: Berlin Lake, Lake Milton, Deer Creek Reservior

As the event approached the weather turned south as a massive cold front blew in the day before the tournament. I still decide to make the 3 hour drive to the event and make the best of it. As I arrived at the check-in I was greeted by other anglers that had also decided to brave the elements. I didn’t have a game plan at this point so I asked other competitors if they had fished any of the lakes before, hoping to get a little info before the event. Everyone was happy to share any info they had, which has become common place at all BKFT events. I struck up conversation with Dick Nauta, he informed me that he had planned to fish Deer Creek Reservoir. He then told me that I was welcome to join him If I would like. I followed Dick over to the reservoir where we ran into a few other anglers who have all become great friends throughout the trail. Long story short, it was cold and windy all day and I couldn’t get a single bite. I stuck it out and met up with the rest of the anglers at the measure-in. At the measure-in it seemed that very few people had success on the water, which helped to ease my pain. A group of anglers whom had made their way in from Pennsylvania found success on Berlin Lake. Noah Heck had taken 1^st, Logan Estep 2^nd, Donald Corbett 3^rd. I had tied for last with a handful of other anglers.

   

Kiser Kayak Classic: Kiser Lake

The third stop on the trail was Kiser Lake.  Kiser is loaded with beds of lily pads, so I had tied a on a hollow body frog and began working it down the banks looking for some topwater action. The strikes came quick but I failed to hook many of the fish that had tried to eat my frog, and the ones that I did hook were only on for short while. It didn’t take long before I made the switch to a spinnerbait. At that point it was game on, I quickly had my limit of fish in the 12-14” range. I continued to work the spinnerbait along the edge of the lily pads catching many fish,  and losing a few including a nice largemouth that would have went 17” or more. As the day progressed the spinnerbait bite slowly died, so I switched up to a 4” Zoom Baby Brush Hog. On my  irst cast, BAM!, a 16.5” fish followed by another 14” fish. On the following cast I hooked into something with weight to it and before the fish surfaces the line snaps. I reach back to the crate to grab my box of terminal tackle and as I turn back to retie I fumble the box down to a watery grave. Now I was sitting there with a hot bite and not a single worm hook to re-rig. I decided to go in after it. After searching around in the muck for a few minutes I come back up empty handed. Luckily, Dick Nauta saw me climbing back onto the top of my yak and paddled over to save the day.  He gave me a few hooks and sinkers so that I could continue fishing. I continued to fish the brush hog the rest of the day. I only landed  a few more small fish, the monsters had eluded me. I finished the tournament with a 16.5”, 14”, and 14” fish, which was good enough for 5^th place.

          

Unofficial Kiser Lake Rematch:

Next on the schedule was the Dayton river event but due to high waters it was postponed until a later date. After many anglers expressed thier disappointment about not being able to fish the tournament we settled on meeting up for an unofficial event at Kiser Lake.  The weather was nice the morning of the tournament but the weather forecast for the afternoon called for  high winds.  High winds in a kayak make fishing much more difficult, so I knew if I wanted to have a chance at a win I needed to get my fish early. At the end of the last Kiser event I had left the fish biting and I was certain that I could find them pretty quickly if I headed back to where I had lost a few of the nicer fish in the previous tournament. I made a bolt toward the section of lake that I had planned to fish but soon realized that all the other anglers had headed the other way. I decided that I would slow down and fish some of the bank on the way to my spot. I rigged up a Texas rigged chigger craw and started working the bank. I quickly had my 3 fish limit, a 16.5”, 14”, and 13” largemouth. I was happy with my start but knew I had to be in the high 40” range to have a shot at winning. I rounded the bend to the spot I had missed a good fish the previous tournament and saw a couple competitors fishing in the lily pads. I continued to fish the outside edge and just as I was within casting distance of Jim Martin, Bam!, my line shoots under the yak. I reel up the slack and set the hook on a good fish. After a few seconds of an intense battle it was over, and  I have the 20” bass in the yak. At this point I have 50.5” and I feel I have a good shot at winning, but I know I have some tough competition on the water so I keep fishing.  The bite had either died, or my heart is racing so fast that I was pulling the bait out of their mouth. After a few long minutes I settle down and try to get my head back in the game. I notice a shad flip next to the edge of the pads, I throw on it, and quickly land a nice 15.5” fish. It is still pretty early in the morning but the wind is picking up so I decided that it was time to explore the lake a little more since it’s only my second time fishing it. I didn’t land many fish after the wind picked up so I decide to head back to the weigh in early, exhausted from battling the wind. At the weigh in my total holds up 52” with a 20” big bass, which good enough for my first tournament win.

               

Summer Slam: Online Event

 I decided that for this event I would take the family camping at Kiser Lake. I had good success at Kiser and it is also a beautiful place to visit. Friday morning was beautiful so I loaded the kids up and headed to the lake. I spent most the morning setting up camp and didn’t get to hit the water till the late afternoon. There I meet up with a few other anglers that were fishing the BKFT event and we fished till dark. Even though I hooked quite a few fish I only managed to land 1 13” fish. That evening it began to rain and then continued to rain for the next 14 hours. At this point everything was drenched in the tent so I decided to head back home with my family. Saturday was shot so I planned to meet up with my cousin and fellow competitor Brian Britton to fish a little honey hole of ours Sunday morning. Killdeer Plains is not a very big lake, but it offers an abundance of really nice largemouth. After just 4 hours into our trip I had a good limit. Good enough for a 7^th place tie.

Columbus Rumble on the River: Columbus Regional Rivers

                The next event was the Columbus Rumble on the River. I felt pretty good about this event; after all I cut my teeth fishing for smallmouth in the Scioto. Chigger Craw, Chigger Craw, Chigger Craw...... I had developed a strategy that involved the Big Darby and a chigger craw. I knew I had a winning combo. However, a few days before the tourney my hopes and dreams were crushed by another angler who wanted to fish with us. He wanted to float a stretch of the Darby that was unfamiliar to me. I was lost, didn't know what to do. So Friday night I loaded my SUV with chigger craws and kayaks. ……mostly chigger craws. I soon arrived at check in and told the my friend the location of the pickup vehicle and away I went. The morning started out slow, I drug my kayak through shallow rapid after shallow rapid. After an hour I reached fishable water and soon had a 12" smallie. I floated around this short stretch of fishable water waiting on my fishing partner to join me so we could drag our kayaks around together…….. Oh the fun we had (Sarcasm in case you missed it). We only found about 5 spots of fishable water in which I pulled out a 15, 15.5, and 16 inch smallies. At this point the only other fish we had seen were 12" or smaller. I thought I had a chance at a win. Then came a text from Larry 44" and culling. I tried to find bigger fish but only caught 13" fish and smaller fish. Measure-in was at Roosters so I grabbed a pitcher of beer and awaited the results.  After the dust settled 46.5” was good enough for a 2^nd place finish.

               

Buckeye Open: Online Event

The next BKFT online event was August 30^th to September 2^nd. I scheduled off work with the plans of putting in long hours to find 3 quality fish. Each morning started the same, at Upper Sandusky Reservoir at sun up then over to Killdeer Plains by 10am. I fished with my cousin Brian each day. The first day we both were in the mid 40” range. On day two we arrived at Upper Sandusky and Brian nailed a 20.25” largemouth before sunrise. Upper failed to yield any more monsters. We headed over to Killdeer Plains and shortly before noon I hooked up with a 19.75” hog.  

We each finished the morning in the low 50” range. We then decided to hit the Scioto River that afternoon and landed quite a few 15” and smaller smallmouth, but not the monsters we were looking for. On day 3 we headed back to Upper Sandusky where Brian landed a 2^nd 20” largemouth before sunrise. Just a few casts after his I had a huge blow up on my jitterbug but failed to get a good hook set. As the sun rose the action died. We headed over to Killdeer Plains and started working the KVD sexy frogs across the scum. Brian soon lands his 3^rd keeper at 18”. I continued to fish hard well behind him at this point and just before we call it a day I landed a 17” largemouth, which was good enough to cull one of my smaller bass. On day 4 Brian decides to stay home feeling confident that he has a good enough total to finish near the top. So I headed out for Killdeer Plains to try to find one more fish to up my total. I arrived well before sunrise and began to work the frog over the scum. In the dark I hear a blow up near my frog; I waited until I felt some weight on the end of the line and set the hook. With little to no resistance I reeled in the bass that took the frog. To my surprise I look down to see an 18” largemouth that looked severely obese. I snapped the pic and continued to fish till sunrise. At this point I’m exhausted so I decided to head home. I submitted my 3 fish and awaited the results. After a few hours I find out that I have finished 4^th on the BKFT tourney and 5^th on the Kayak Anglers of Western PA tourney.

            

Fall Finale: Nettle Lake

Nettle was quite a drive from central Ohio, so my day started at 1:30am. I hit McDonald's on the way to pick up Brian Britton, I would soon discover that this was a very bad decision. While there, the lady at the window offered me free apple and pumpkin pies so I politely asked her to throw a couple in the bag to take with me. I'll finish that story in a minute.  A few hours later we arrived at Nettle Lake, upon arriving we had seen that Rylan Hayes had arrived early too. We chatted while we waited for the rest of the competitors to arrive. By 7:30am everyone had showed up, signed waivers, and we hit the river. Brian and I worked our way down the west bank toward the north end if the lake. About half way down the lake I hooked up with a small northern. I quickly landed the fish and the we continued  down the bank. Next I hooked into a decent bass off a lay down, and after a few jumps he spit the hook. The next cast on the very same lay down I hooked into a nice northern pike. It didn't take but a few seconds for him to slice through the line. Eventually we arrived at the cove at the north end of the lake. At this point we were discouraged but hadn't completely given up. Brian soon found a 12" bass at the entrance to the cove. I tossed my chigger craw to the same spot and landed my first 14" bass. We worked back to the northern most part of the cove and I landed 2 more fish at 10.75” and 10.25”. At this point Brian put down the chigger craw and started tossing a strike king sexy frog. After a couple minutes he started getting a few strikes, but it was difficult to get the frog down thru the thick pads. I started chucking the frog high into the air so it would crash thru the pads. This was producing strikes. I quickly landed 2 more 14" bass on the frog. At this point I'm at 42" and feel that I will finish well. Sean then paddles back into the cove. I paddled over to see how his day is going when he tells me,  “not too well. ” At this point I'm starting to feel really good because he is a serious competitor. With no other hits I leave Sean to fish the cove while I head to the main lake. Now back to the apple pies. This was a bad idea because my stomach began ache and cramp. I then spent the rest of the day choking back down partially digested apple pies. The wind soon picked up and started howling across the lake. We fish the main lake for an hour and then head back to the cove up north. This time around Neil occupies the northern cove which kind of discourages me because I'm sure he has spooked all the big fish. He tells me that he just lost a nice fish on a worm (which I'm sure was exaggerated). I cast my frog to the pads to the left of me and get a good strike, set the hook but missed the fish. I toss it back for round 2, the fish strikes yet again; I wait a second and then slam the hooks home. This time I connect with a nice bass 18.5".  I tried the frog for another 15 minutes without another strike. While I'm talking with Neil, I had drifted into the pads. I put the frog down and pick up the chigger craw. I drop it into a hole in the pads and get a strike, another 14” bass. I continue this method the rest of the day and upgrade my smallest bass to 14.75”. I end the day with horrible stomach cramps, 47.25", and managed to hold onto 1^st place.

Dayton Kayak Fishing Experience: Dayton Regional Rivers

                The final event of the year was the Dayton Kayak Fishing Experience which was held during the Midwest Outdoor Experience. For this event we had the choice to fish the Greater Miami River, the Little Miami River, or Stillwater River. Having never fished any of these rivers before I decided on fishing the LMR after hearing it was a lot like the stretch of the Scioto River that I fish near my home. Brian and I hit the river at about 7 am and begin our journey. We quickly noticed that fishing this river required a lot of portaging around obstacles that blocked the path of the river. The first portage went smoothly and we continued to fish our way down the river. We soon arrived at the second portage and drug our yaks out of the river, up a hill, and thru the woods. We arrived back at the river to be greeted by a 6’ mud slope back down into the river. Being the genius that I am I decided I would sit in my yak at the top of the hill and ride it down the slope into the water. I thought that I would skim across the top of the water and continue fishing…… Boy was I wrong. My yak torpedoed under the water and rolled leaving me standing in waist deep water scrambling to gather my gear. I was able to recover most everything from the water except for a few bottles of Gatorade and my cell phone. After a good laugh we continued to fish and I landed my first measurable fish at 14”. We continued down the river and I managed 2 more measurable fish by the end of the day.  Soon we were back at the measure-in, after a little wait I found out I had placed 6^th in the event. I considered it a pretty good finish given the day that I had just had. Being the last tournament of the year we waited for the announcement of the Yak Ohio winners and angler of the year. Neil tallied the points and began with Yak Ohio awards. I had tied Rylan Hayes in the crappie category for the Yak Ohio award with a 14.5” crappie and received a nice trophy and some lures. Rylan Hayes also took the trophy for biggest largemouth at 22", Larry Haines took the smallmouth category with a 19.25" smallie, Mike Lyon took home the Saugeye/walleye trophy with his 19.25" saugeye, Russ Mcdonald took the catfish category with his 42" flathead, Neil won the rockbass/panfish Yak Ohio with his 10" rock bass, and Tim Sylvester II took the home the musky/pike category with his 35.5" musky. Next up was the coveted AOY award.  After a little confusion Neil announced the winners. 10th place went to Chase Bateson, 9th Larry Haines, 8th went to Brian Britton, 7th/6th tie went to Amanda Jones, 7th/6th tie Neil Farley, 5^th place went to Travis Belcher, 4^th place Logan Estep, 3^rd place Sean Stone and a tie for first between Rylan Hayes and I. Neil had decided the previous week that should this occur there would be a fish off.

Fish OFF: Kiser Lake

                This event took place mid-October and in Ohio. As fall of the year arrives in Ohio, the weather patterns can become unpredictable, as was the case during this event.  More on that later. The weekend before the fish off I met up with Neil and Sean to pre-fish for the event. The weather was beautiful and the fish were more than willing to bite. The following weekend the weather turned cold, rainy, and the wind was unrelenting. The day of the event we met at the launch at 8am where we had a brief meeting and then hit the water. I decided to hit an area that I had success the previous weekend. I started out with a flitterbait, a blade bait that Sean had given me the week before.  I had caught most of my fish the week before on the flitterbait so I figured it was a good lure to start with. I worked the flitterbait around the edges of the lily pad beds and wasn’t able to get the same reaction bite I had the week before. I switched over to a Texas rigged baby brush hog and quickly found my first bite, a nice 15” largemouth out of a pocket in the lily pads. The first bite was the only bite I had for the next hour. I worked my way down the bank and soon came across Neil who had a few but nothing much to brag about. I found a log stuck in the mud in a hole in the pads that just looked like something big should be laying there. I tossed the brush hog to the log and boom, fish on, a 12” monster.

I headed back the other direction and ran across Travis Belcher who was on a hot bite. He was catching schooling fish on a spinnerbait. He invited me to toss a line so threw the flitter bait at the boils of schooling fish. Soon I had my third keeper, another nice 15” largemouth. The bite died and I headed on down the bank sticking with the Texas rig and a buzzbait most of the way. The weather continued to worsen and many anglers considered throwing in the towel ….and some did. I had a lot on the line so I continued to fish. Soon Brian Britton landed a few nice fish next to me on a buzzbait, it appeared that the fishing was picking up. He quickly passed my total of 42” and it was looking like he may have a tournament win in the very near future.We continued fishing and were able to land quite a few fish in the next few hours. With about an hour left in the tournament and only 42” stringer I was starting to get nervous. I had not seen Rylan or heard how he was doing the entire day. I worked toward the spot where I had caught the 20” largemouth during the unofficial event. I casted to the “spot” and bam, fish on.  Lightning struck twice with a 21” largemouth that would help to seal the deal on angler of the year.

I learned a lot fishing the Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail this year and also met lots of great people whom I enjoy fishing with. I’ve been prepping for next year and I’m excited to get back on the water. I can’t wait to see friends and meet new anglers…….oh yeah and of course hopefully land some big fish.

               

1/4, Hot Bite on the Ohio River

Saturday Russ and I hit the Ohio River in search of anything that was willing to bite. We brought ultralight spinning combos, medium heavy catfish gear, bass rods, and as much tackle as we could get into our milk crates. If something was feeding we were certainly going to try and catch it. Our last trip to the Ohio River was rather disappointing. That trip Russ caught small channel cat, I on the other hand didn't catch a single fish. This time around I was going to do everything I could to ensure that we were going to catch fish.

Friday morning I tried to encourage a few other kayak anglers into hitting the water with Russ and I, but everyone else seemed to have plans. One friend told me that he had heard that the spot where Russ and I were going to fish had been lousy for the last few weeks. I jokingly made the remark that all we needed was chicken livers and live bait. "Real Fisherman don't use chicken livers, nightcrawlers, etc...".  Atleast that's a running joke that I make all the time when I'm fishing with Russ. He always seems to have a dozen night crawlers or other form of live bait with him even when we go bass fishing. I like to give him a little grief about it from time to time, but the sad fact is that he can go to any body of water catch fish in just about any condition. There has been more than one time when he's caught the only fish of the trip.

As the day progressed I kept thinking about how bad our last trip to the Ohio River was. I sat around thinking about every bait I could throw, what colors to use, what rod to use, where to fish, etc. After a while I broke down and decided to head to our local Walmart and pick up a few supplies for a secret bait concoction.

I'm not real fond of chicken livers for multiple reasons: first off they are messy, secondly they are hard to keep on a hook when casting, they stink, get picked apart by little fish, etc. Even though I don't like chicken livers, the fish seem to love the bloody gooey mess. One trick I have found to be quite effective was to use shrimp to soak up the blood of the chicken liver and then use shrimp as bait. I would bait up with a chicken liver and then wait for the fish to find it, which in most instances resulted in a few bounces of my rod and then me reeling in an empty hook. Once the scent was in the water, I would switch to the shrimp that had soaked in the liver blood. It was a lot harder for the fish to clean off of the hook, and was a lot easier to handle.  Less goo, less mess.

The picture above shows the supplies needed for the secret concoction, a bag of large shrimp ( cooked or uncooked), chicken livers, and zip lock bags. I divided the shrimp evenly among two ziplock bags, I then dumped one tub of chicken livers into the bag with the shrimp. I then placed the ziplock bag into another bag, a fail safe in case the first bag leaks....did I mention chicken liver stinks and is messy? Once the shrimp and liver are mixed I placed the ziplock bags in the fridge to soak over night.

With my stash of "cheater" bait I felt confident that we were going to catch fish Saturday morning, even if the fish weren't willing to hit my lures. I rigged up my rods and then went to bed for the night.

Saturday morning I woke up and met Russ at a local gas station, we quickly loaded up his kayak onto my trailer and hit the road. We arrived at our destination at around 11am and started loading gear into our kayaks for the long drag through the field, woods, and then down hill to a small tributary of the Ohio River. Along the way I stopped to take a few pictures. The snow made life a lot easier.

 Russ and I battled the muddy banks as we launched our kayaks, slipping and sliding into the water. Luckily we each managed to stay dry, however, our boots and now our kayaks were full of mud. We paddled upstream and quickly dropped anchor at a known hot spot. I had already given Russ his bag of shrimp and liver so he tossed a rod out with a piece of shrimp. I too tossed a piece of shrimp out and set the rod in a rod holder, on my other rod I worked a flitterbait along the banks. It didn't take long for the fish to show up.

Russ had caught the first fish of the trip, a nice channel cat. We took a few pictures and released it back into the water. Less than 20 minutes later, Russ had hooked and landed another fish. This time around he had fooled a small hybrid striped bass into taking his chicken liver flavored shrimp. At this point I had given up on the flitterbait, it was time to catch a fish and avoid getting shut out for a second time. We had a limited number of shrimp each, and it appeared that we may use them rather quickly......so I decided to tie on a 1/4oz jig and tight line small pieces of liver on my bass rod. I figured this way I would save my shrimp for later and I could keep myself entertained while I waited for a larger fish to swim by my my other rod. Needless to say I kept myself entertained. I landed nearly a dozen fish in a little over an hour, including a blue catfish, 3 small channel catfish, and a half dozen small hybrid striped bass. Here's a look at a few of my smaller fish....oh yeah and a picture of Russ looking particularly happy about his first channel cat of the year. (The fish had flopped away from him during his pose for a photo so he pulled it up by its tail and gave the largest smile he could possibly muster.....I thought it was too good not to post.)

Top Left: Channel Catfish, Top Right: Hybrid Striped Bass, Bottom Left: Blue Catfish, Bottom Right: Happy, Happy, Happy.

Among all of the small fish I finally found my first decent channel cat of the evening, a 21" catfish on shrimp.

After a few minutes without bites Russ decided that he wanted to venture out into the Ohio River to see if we could find a few larger fish. We each had over a dozen fish on the trip and a channel catfish over 20", so even if the rest of the evening failed to yield another fish we'd be happy. We made the paddle down stream and out into the river. I tied the flitterbait back on my bass rod and began working current breaks and ledges. As we rounded the bend I noticed that the banks were lined with blue herons, which meant that the shad had to be pretty close to the banks. I started casting at the herons, hoping that I would find something that was chasing the shad to the banks. On one cast I hooked into something that felt rather odd. I was reeling at a slow and steady pace when my line went slack, I set the hook into something solid and it began to move off very erratically. It wasn't the back and forth line ripping runs of a hybrid striper, or the constant rolling of a channel cat. It almost felt as if I had snagged into the side of a fish, but after a few seconds my line went slack again. I examined my flitterbait for scales, but it was clean. I shrugged it off and made another cast. I started the slow and steady retrieve when I felt a thump and watched as my line went slack. I turned the handle on my reel a few times to take up slack and set the hook. This time it felt like a fish that was hooked correctly, and after a few quick burst from side to side I was sure it was a hybrid striped bass. After a few slips of drag and a few laps around my kayak I brought the hybrid to the surface, it went 17.75"......good enough for a picture. I placed the hybrid in the bottom of my kayak and paddled up to Russ. We then paddled to the nearest bank and took a few pics.

Russ and I then proceeded to drift with the current and cast toward the banks, once we got away from the herons we would then paddle back upstream and work back downstream. We made two more passes but failed to catch another fish, the herons on the other hand were devouring the shad. 

After a half an hour we decided to head back into the tributary and work a few fallen trees that we had seen on our way out into the river. I set up on the upstream side of the first tree and Russ anchored 50 yards downstream of me. Within 30 minutes of dropping my anchor I had landed 3 additional small channel cats. I had ran out of shrimp at this point and was down to chicken livers. I started threading whole chicken livers onto my 6/0 circle hook and tossing it out near the fallen trees.  I set my rod down in a rod holder and went to retie a 1/4oz jig on my bass rod. Before I could even thread the braid through the eye of my jig, the rod in the rod holder started to bounce. I thought for sure I was going to get cleaned by a small fish so I went back to tying my jig on. The rod the bounced a little harder, which peaked my interest. I quit tying my jig and watched the rod intently. Maybe this wasn't a small fish after all. The rod tip then began to bend slowly toward the water and then the circle hook found its place into the corner of a fishes mouth. The rod now had a significant bend to it. And then fish finally realized it was hooked and it went nuts. I grabbed the rod and began applying pressure. After a short battle I landed another good channel cat just over 23".

Russ made the paddle up to me and snapped a few pictures. I continued to throw chicken livers out as the sun began to set. As the sun set over the hills the temperature plummeted. The action had slowed down and Russ had given up on his spot. He pulled anchor and started heading my way. After a brief conversation we decided to just call it quits for an evening. We had at the most 30 minutes of daylight, and our drag back to the car was at least 15 minutes.

We paddled back and proceeded to drag our kayaks up through the woods and then through the field. The snow had all but melted making the uphill journey much more difficult that we were prepared for. We quickly loaded our gear up, scraped mud out of our kayaks, and hit the road. All in all we had one heck of a trip for January in Ohio.

A Summer Bait in 36 Degree Water

Author: Jeff Little

Would you throw a topwater popper in the first week of February?  Maybe if you’re at a warm water discharge, or on a vacation to Florida.  But what about in the frigid waters of Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna river?  Well I won’t tell a fish tale about that bait working magic in water with skim ice on the shoreline.  But another warm water bait rigged and fished a little bit differently did open my eyes to a new pattern last winter.  

Call it a fluke, that I tried, well, a Fluke, or soft plastic jerkbait last February.  The few that I had in the bottom of my tackle bag must have fallen to the bottom and got lost the previous September.  Five months prior, the river smallmouth were slamming them as I fast twitched them out of the downstream end of grass beds.

But that cold February day yielded almost no action until I took that baitfish profile and rigged it on a 1/8th ounce Confidence Baits Draggin Head.  I had tried hair jigs, finesse tubes and a soft plastic craw rigged on the same swim bait style jig head.  On a trip two weeks prior, I did well with a dead drifted hard jerkbait.  But that didn’t bring them up in 36 degree water.

In utter frustration after several fishless hours, I dug around in my bag.  My fingers came to pinch a soft bait down deep where I could not see.  With the unearthed soft plastic jerkbait in one hand, and the Draggin Head tied to my line in the other, I shrugged, pinched the nose of the bait and screwed the bait holder into the minnow profile.

The bait didn’t settle on the bottom long when I felt the line just slowly build pressure.  I looked laterally at the shoreline for reference.  No, I wasn’t drifting that fast, my line was moving because of a fish.  I buried the hook deep on the hookset and winched the 18.75 inch smallmouth to my net.  Two casts later, another chunky smallmouth whacked the bait.  

I was onto something.  The only problem was the one every angler fears most.  It’s what causes us to spend our children’s inheritance and aggravate our spouses when packages from Bass Pro Shops show up on the doorstep.  It’s the problem that makes us carry enough tackle to give a man a double hernia.  I found the ONE THING that they were biting, and I only had three of them with me.  

Luckily, I didn’t have the dilemma of deciding “to share or not to share” said bait with a buddy - I was alone this trip.  So I re-rigged the soft plastic when smallmouth after smallmouth shredded the bait with bulldogging surges to the bottom, and even a few jumps.  I bit the tattered nose off and put it back on the screw lock until it would no longer hold it.

The three baits held up for several hours, and when I went home I had some soft plastic injecting to do to make more.  But more importantly, I had figured out how to make a warm water bait work in the middle of winter using an unconventional rigging and presentation.  

Jeff Little owns Confidence Baits, manufacturer of the Draggin’ Head.  He has produced four instructional DVDs on kayak fishing, available at ConfidenceBait.net.  Recently, he has started a new media project: The Tight Line Junkies Journal.  To watch a video of Jeff catching the fish you just read about, or to watch the specifics of this presentation, click the preview button below: