Friday I woke up at 4:35am and loaded some gear into my car, I then drove down the road and picked up my little brother Jake. We then made the 1.5 hour drive to the river, stopping at walmart along the way to pick up liver and shrimp....just in case the fish weren't actively searching for food. We got on the water around 6:45am, just before sun up. We then paddled down stream and met up with Rob and his friend Kurt. We then proceeded to work a spot that we had all found to productive in the past. Kurt was the first on the board with a nice hybrid striped bass, which I'd guess to be in the 16-18" range. At the time I was throwing blade baits, but I wasn't getting the reaction I was hoping for. After an hour or so I decided to switch to a 4" Storm Wildeye Swim Shad in the natural shad color. I started slow rolling it along current breaks, but again I failed to fool the fish into biting. I then switched my retrieve from slow and steady to a hoping action. I'd toss the bait out and count to five, I then lifted the rod tip from a 30 degree angle to 90 degree angle. The initial lift of the rod tip speeds the bait up and really gets the boot tail of the swim bait thumping, and then as the bait falls the tail flutters. Just as I was about to switch baits I get a thump on the fall of my retrieve. I pause for a second and then set the hook. After a short battle I brought the hybrid striper into the kayak.
Kurt, Rob, and I then proceded to work the area in rotation. We'd paddle up stream and then work the current as we drifted back downstream. Kurt hooked up shortly after I released my hybrid striper, it gave him a pretty good fight but it wasn't the drag ripping runs of a hybrid. It was doing its best to stay down in the current. After 30 seconds Kurt had the fish whiped and brought it to the surface. He had landed a small 15" (approximately) flathead catfish, a rare sight in the month of January.
Jake wasn't enthused about our choice of spot and decided to work is way upstream by himself. He started working current breaks created by fallen trees with shrimp and liver. After the action died where I was fishing I decided to head upstream and check on him. I paddled over to him and asked how he was doing. He said he had lost a good fish, which he explained made a few quick runs and threw his hook. But other than that he hadn't caught anything. We then worked our way upstream and fished the fallen trees together. We sat around for about an hour and he said that he was ready to head even further upstream, but no sooner than he had finished his sentence his rod began to bow. He quickly pulled in a small channel cat.
We stuck around for a little while longer, but the fish weren't real active at this particular spot. About five minutes later Kurt and Rob pass us up, so we decided to follow them upstream. Jake and I stopped along the way to hit a huge log jam on an undercut bank. This was channel cat territory so I figured maybe Jake would hook into a good one. The decision to stop and fish this spot was a bad decision for two reasons. The first reason was that we didn't get a bite, the second reason we uncovered as we rounded the bend. Here we saw Kurt in his kayak with his rod doubled over, drag ripping. We got about 40 yards from him when his line goes limp and he lets out a scream. He had lost a good fish, or at least that's what I was guessing. We then paddle up to find Rob on the bank, rod doubled over, fighting another good fish. We pull off and watch as he battles this nice fish. After what seems like a 2 minute battle he brings in a hybrid striper in the 5-6lb class. He snapped a picture really quickly with his camera and went back to business. As he was walking back he told us that Kurt had lost 2 really nice fish before we showed up and that he had caught another fish previously. He told us to hurry up and get a line in the water, he was sure that this bite was going to die. Rob took another cast as we were walking over and BAM!!! another good hybrid. This time around it was in the 2-3lb class. After that the bite died, Rob had called it. We worked that spot for another hour without a single bite to show for it.
Rob and Kurt then decided to give the spot a break and head back downstream, Jake and I had seen too many big hybrids in a short period of time to give up on the spot to leave, so we stuck it out. Jake started tossing shrimp out and I worked a dozen different baits in my box at various retrieves with no luck. Jakes shrimp on the other hand was an instant hit with the smaller fish, he did however manage one nice 16" hybrid.
We worked that spot for a solid 2 hours after Rob and Kurt had left. Jake caught nearly a dozen small hybrids and I managed one decent channel cat and 2 small hybrids.
Around 4:30pm we decided to call it quits, I was running on 3 hours of sleep and Jake had 4. I had plans to fish with some friends Saturday so I needed to get a little more rest.
Saturday morning was the start of kayakwars and Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trails online tournaments. Earlier in the week I had talked with Logan Snakes and Michael Murphy about doing some kayak fishing, both Logan and Mike were friends I met last year while fishing the Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail tourneys. Since Saturday was the first day of the online kayak tournaments, and the weather was foretasted to have highs in the low 50's both guys were willing to make the long drive down. I met Russ and Logan Snakes and a local gas station at 10am and then drove down to the river where I met Mike.We unloaded our kayaks and hit the water. Logan started the day off right with a 19" channel cat on his very first cast with a gulp minnow.
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| Logan snapping a pic for his 10 points on Kayakwars. |
Thirty minutes later Russ answered back with a channel cat of his own, a 21" channel cat coming off of shrimp and liver combo.
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| Yep, 10 points for Russ too! |
At this point I was throwing a swimbait and working around a pile of fallen trees that Russ had been fishing. I watched as Russ pulled in fish after fish on his liver soaked shrimp. After the fourth or fifth fish I had seen enough, it was time to break out the shrimp. I tied on a 1/4oz jig head and started working the back side of the fallen trees. On my first cast I felt a solid hit, I lower my rod tip and watch as my line began to move down current. I let the fish take up the slack and set the hook, getting stopped halfway through my swing by a solid fish. The drag went off for 5 seconds before my line went slack, I look back at Russ and say, "I don't know what the heck that was, but it was big." I rebaited and tossed back into the same spot as before and as soon as it hits bottom.....BAM! I swing hard and this time around I connect. He pulls drag for the first 2 to 3 seconds and then starts working his way back and forth through the current, eventually pulling me off anchor. I let out more slack on my anchor line and wait for the anchor to grab the bottom. I then proceed to work the fish to the surface. As soon as it surfaced I saw a face full of whiskers and a 1/4oz jig head barely hanging from its mouth. I got the fish grips on it and brought it into the kayak.
I got a few pictures of it on the measuring board for kayakwars and BKFT. I then went to grab it to take a picture and it went nuts, falling back into the water. I grabbed my line and began to bring it back to the kayak when the hooked popped out.
Now this is where my kayaking adventure ends for the day. About 20 minutes after releasing my fish I was greeted by two game wardens/park officers. I was happy to see them out and checking everyone for their license. I pay $20 a year for a license and most years I don't even get checked, so when the time comes to show my license I feel like I get my moneys worth. In addition there are a lot of guys out at this particular spot that over harvest fish, use more rods than they are legally allowed, leave trash, etc. So when they called me over to the bank I was happy to oblige. They asked for my license and told me that the reason they called me over was because they couldn't see my registration showing. I told them that the boat had other forms of registration and I then pointed them out. Little did I know that that the tags on the boat were expired. The boat was registered, but since the new tags weren't on the boat I was asked to get off the water and was escorted to the parking lot. In the parking lot I was asked a series of questions and they took all of my information down, 5 minutes later I was then slapped with a $112 ticket for "Operating a watercraft without displaying current state registration decals." It didn't matter if the kayak was registered or not, the fact that it wasn't on the kayak was irrelevant. I was pretty upset at the time, not upset at the wardens/park officers because they were just doing their job, but I was upset because I had to leave a hot bite while everyone else finished the day out on the water. I sat in the car for the next hour scrolling through facebook posts, reading posts on Ohio Game Fishing, and txting friends before I realized that I was stupid for not going out and bank fishing. I grabbed a couple rods, a couple boxes out of my milk crate, locked the kayak to my trailer with a bicycle lock, and walked down to the water.
I walked down to where the game wardens had pulled me to the bank and I began to fish. After 30 minutes Michael, Logan, and Russ showed up to talk. I told them what happened and I asked them how everyone was doing. Russ had caught several channel cats, a few hybrid stripers, and one 22.5" blue cat of which he was very happy to have. Russ prides himself on submitting the most species he can on Kayakwars, and last year the blue cat eluded him.
Logan said he had caught a couple more channel cats since I had left, but they weren't large enough to submit for points through kayakwars. Michael said he had caught 2 or 3 channel cats, one of which was 19" (good enough for 10 points). It seemed that everyone was having a pretty good time, I mean honestly what was not to like....they got a semi-guided trip, caught fish, and got to witness me get escorted off the water and to the parking lot....whats more entertaining than that?
About 30 minutes later Amanda paddled over and started talking with us. She had caught 3 channel cats over the 18" mark and had 2 hybrid striped bass that were barely short of the kayakwar length requirement. Her biggest fish of the day was a 22" channel cat.
All in all I would say we had a pretty successful weekend of fishing.
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