3/1: 12 Hours on the River

Last week I made plans with Jeff to head out and fish the Ohio River. Jeff's been dying to get out on the water but most of his water is under 8 inches of ice, and whats not frozen is too high and muddy to fish. He officially got fed up with winter and decided to come down to fish a local warm water discharge. We planned on meeting at 10am Saturday morning, however I decided to head out early to check on the conditions of the river. On occasion the warm water discharge goes cold. I'm not sure why it happens, maybe its caused a sudden drop in electricity usages caused by a warm spell or maybe its caused by maintenance at the power plant, either way it happens. Russ and I have made the trip down (1.5 hours each way) only to be met with 35 degree water and a proper skunking. So to help Jeff avoid wasting a day and a ton of gas money, I decided to check things out early Saturday morning.

I loaded my gear onto my yak and drug it down to the water at 7am. I powered up the fish finder and awaited a temperature reading........65.5 degrees. It wasn't as hot as it typically is this time of year (70-85 degrees), but it was definitely warm enough to fish. I sent Jeff a quick text message and began working lures in and around current breaks. The visibility was awful, in most places it was no more than 2 inches. I'm not talking the, "I could read the letters on a penny at 2 inches" kind of visibility, I'm talking about the, "I could see my black paddle at 2 inches" kind of visibility. I spent an hour looking for a bite before I decided to abandon lures and start throwing shrimp soaked in chicken liver blood. I figured with the visibility so poor maybe the fish would be feeding more on smell than they were on sight. Another hour passed and I was still without a fish. I thought to myself, "Well this isn't good. Jeff's halfway through his trip down and I'm working on getting skunked." I debated on texting him that I hadn't caught any fish yet, but I didn't want to discourage him.

To be honest I was working spots that I hadn't worked before, trees or current breaks that I had paddled by in the past. I really didn't want to fish the spots that I knew held fish, because I knew if things got rough I could send Jeff over to one of those spots and get him on a fish......and in turn not make myself look like an idiot. A half an hour later I anchored up near a tree that was positioned parallel to the current in the middle of the stream. These trees don't create as much slack water or current breaks that the trees that lay perpendicular to the current. I tossed my first rod out at the head of the tree....near the root wad which was laying upstream. My rigging was simple, a Carolina Rig consisting of a 1oz casting sinker, barrel swivel, and a size 1 hook attached to a 10 inch leader. I had baited this rod with chicken liver, something I always do when I first set up on a spot. Chicken liver gets picked off easily so you typically don't catch fish on the liver, however it is a good chumming bait. It gets the scent out in the water and starts to draw the active catfish out of the snags. I casted that rod out and set it in my rod holder, I then grabbed a second rod with a 1/2oz jig head and began to thread shrimp onto the jig. Before I could even put the lid back onto the container of bait the rod in the rod holder begins to bend. All of a sudden the rod gets slammed and then pops back up, which is pretty typical of chicken liver. However, the way in which the fish hit the bait wasn't indicative of a small fish trying to clean the liver off of my hook. It began with a slow and steady pull (as the rod began to slowly bow) and then when it felt the hook it bolted off (the slamming action before the rod popped back up). Curious to see if I could fool that fish into biting again, I baited back up with liver and put the bait back into the same spot. No more than 20 seconds later the rod began to bend once again, this time the hook had found some flesh. As the rod went down and the fish realized it was hook and made a quick run causing the drag to slip while the rod was in the rod holder. (Which always puts a smile on my face.) I struggled to get the rod out of the rod holder, but the fish soon turned and began working toward the fallen tree creating enough slack for me to pick up my rod. I picked the rod up and after a brief battle I brought the 23" channel into the kayak.

With one fish down I felt a little more confident about Jeff making the trip down. For the next couple of hours I made my way downstream, working areas that I had typically passed up on previous trips. I caught a few small channels and even a small blue catfish before Jeff called and said he had made it down to the parking lot. I told him to unload all of his gear into his kayak and that I'd be up in a few. I then paddled a half a mile upstream and met up with Jeff and his friend Mike. I gave them the run down of my morning and tossed them each a tub of my liver-shrimp concoction. Jeff then looked at me and said, I thought this was going to be a clean trip. I had forgotten that he recently bought a new Wilderness System Ride 115x from Whitewater Warehouse. If you haven't noticed the pictures in my previous reports, there is nothing clean about this spot. The creek is often full of foam which sticks to your kayak, the banks are nothing but a sand/clay mix that is super sticky which sticks to everything it touches (kayak, boots, anchors, etc.), and channel cats slime up everything you own. The blood soaked shrimp was the least of his worries, but I didn't tell him that..

Jeff in his new Ride 115x....and a couple of photo bombing deer. (on the ridge just below the fence)

We set out and started working current breaks on the way down. I gave Jeff one of Russ' favorite spots, a huge log jam in some slack water. I told Jeff that Russ would live at this spot if he could. I then showed Mike a spot just downstream where I had caught a few nice channels and even hooked and lost one giant fish. I paddled downstream a little further and noticed the water churning in 7 feet of water. I had never noticed this before, so I went over to investigate. The churning near the surface could only mean one thing, a current obstruction below the surface. It turned out that there was a fairly large tree laying in seven feet of water, which happens to be just about as deep as this creek gets. I anchored on the bank and worked the shallow side of the tree. As I was fooling with my rods I hear Mike yell over that he's got one, sure enough 30 seconds later he catches a small channel cat. This is a pretty good sign that everyone's going to catch fish. I then toss out one rod and begin retying my other rod, which fell victim to a snag previously. As soon as I got to the spot in retying my hook where you make 8 twists and then thread the tag through the loop, my rod starts to bounce. I stop tying the knot and watch the rod. After a few more bounces the rod starts to bend slowly, I drop the hook that I was currently retying into my lap (which unravels) and I set the hook. After a brief battle I bring in a 19" channel cat. I snap a few pictures for kayakwars and I toss another rod out. I retie my hook and finally get both rods out when the rod with the 1/2oz jig head gets thumped. I dropped the rod tip and let the fish take line. I felt the line get snug and I slammed the hook home, which made the fish pretty unhappy. The channel cat pulled drag for a solid 5 seconds on my medium heavy bass rod paired with a Shimano Chronarch spooled with 20lb braid and a tight drag. I knew this was a good fish, I also knew that he had pulled enough line out to reach the core of the tree. A few seconds later he stopped pulling drag and I felt dead weight.....and then he pulled again. He had gotten wrapped up. I kept tension with that rod, reeled in my other rod, pulled anchor, and paddled with one hand out into the current. I worked myself over top of the snag and began applying pressure at every angle I could. As a last resort I thumbed the spool to stop the drag from slipping and I pulled as hard as I could.....and then the fish popped off and rolled to the surface. I quickly noticed that the hook was no longer in its mouth, it had now slipped to the side of the channels head. The large channel cat was wrapped up in line too. I couldn't get a fish grip on him because he wasn't hooked in the mouth, I don't carry a net either so I had no option but to grab this huge channel cat.  I quickly pinned him to the side of my kayak with one hand and began to slide him up into my lap. (All of this is occurring as I am drifting at a moderately fast pace downstream backwards.)I get the fishes head on top of my right leg and then I sat my rod down to grab his tail with my other hand.  At that point he decided he wanted to go swimming again, he began to shake violently and slipped out of my hands. I grabbed my rod to see if he was still attached, nope he had won the battle.  It was a good channel, I'm guessing him to be in the 27-29" range, probably 8lbs. Not my biggest channel ever, but would have been my biggest from a kayak. I guess I may need to invest in a quality net for larger fish, I just hate the idea of having more gear in my kayak. Here's a picture of my 1/2oz jig head after losing that fish. These are saltwater hooks that I bought down in Florida. They are not easy to bend, but the combination of the snag, the big channel, and me pulling as hard as I could with 20lb braid was too much for it.

I licked my wounds and paddled back over to the bank with my head down. I no more than got anchored when I herd Jeff say hes got a big one hooked. I pulled anchor and paddled up around the corner to see Jeff off anchor, wedged into Russ' tree fighting a fish. I paddled up and the fish quickly wraps Jeff up around a limb in 2 feet of water. I probed around with my paddle to see if I could jump out and untangle the channel cat. One spot was 1 foot deep, the other was 3 feet deep less than a foot away. I fumbled the idea of jumping in the water around but then I thought of the possibilities of sinking in soft sand, getting hung up, etc. I then started grabbing branches and pulling them up to see if I could see the fish attached to Jeff's line. Soon enough I pull a mid 20" channel (5-6lbs) to the surface with half of a tree, it then starts rolling and pops the hook. We had lost two good fish in less than 10 minutes. We anchored and fished the same spots for a few more minutes before deciding to head down stream a little further in search of better, undisturbed spots. 


We each anchored up at spots 30 yards apart and began fishing. I tried a new spot that Mike Murphy had caught a massive buffalo carp from a couple weeks earlier. It was fairly deep for the creek, at 5-6 feet, and was loaded with smaller trees. I quickly caught 3 channel cats over 18" on the outside edge of the snags. Jeff also starts catching fish at his spot, the first of which was his first blue cat at 19". Twenty minutes later I hook into a good fish, which surprisingly swam upstream toward my kayak. The battle really only began once he started to swim past me and noticed I was pulling him the opposite direction. He did a few laps around my kayak and then rolled onto his side beside my kayak. I tried to get the fish grips on him for a few seconds, but he wasn't opening his mouth for nothing. In fear of losing him I reached down and grabbed him behind is head. I slid him up the side of my kayak and into my lap. He went 25.5" and was as chunky as they come. I'd guess this channel to be in the 7lb range.

I got the fish grips on him, stuck him back into the water, and paddled over to Jeff for a quick photo. Shortly after Jeff snapped the picture I told him that he was more than willing to have my spot if he wanted, but he said he was going to stick with his spot for a little while longer. I paddled back over and dropped anchor. A few minutes later he paddled over and sets up 20 yards downstream. Shortly after that he hooks into a solid fish. I watch him fight this fish for a minute and I notice that its making quick runs left and right, not very typical of a catfish. I yell up and ask what he's got, he soon replies a good wiper. I pull anchor and paddle downstream to take a closer look, and once again he gets wrapped up. These fish really knew what they were doing. I start grabbing limbs again while Jeff kept constant pressure. Soon enough I see the hybrid launch out of the water up and over the snag. Fearing the worst I look up to see if Jeff still had pressure on the fish. Sure enough he clears the fish of the tree and lands the hybrid striper.  It went just over 19" and I'd guess it to be around 3 pounds.

Jeff, Mike, and I then sat around at this spot hoping we'd find a few more hybrids as they made they're way upstream from the river. After 30 minutes we all decided to head downstream to see if we could find a few more fish before the sun disappears over the hills. We anchor up at our next spot and worked the head of a huge snag, one of my favorite spots on the whole creek. Its a group of three trees, or more, near a small feeder creek. The current has scoured a hole out before and after the trees. This spot has depth, cover, and structure so it makes a good spot for almost every species of fish in the creek. We quickly anchor up and begin fishing. At this point I'm anchored in the middle of the stream, Jeff to my left on the bank, and Mike to my right on the bank. Everyone but me starts getting bites, which seem to be nibbles more than bites. Jeff and Mike swing and miss on fish at least a half dozen times each. Soon my rod begins to bend, and bend, and bend. I pick the rod up and apply evn more pressure. The fish then starts rolling and eventually makes its way to the surface. I see its tail break the surface as it throws water a couple of feet into the air. This was another nice channel cat. I sat up a little straighter in my seat and began working the fish. I knew if it pulled drag it was going to make its way into the snag. This particular rod was a Shimano Compre medium heavy paired with a Shimano Curado spooled with 10lb suffix siege monofilament. I had a lose drag, and with 10lb monofilament I couldn't apply near the pressure that I did with the 20lb braid. Luckily for me the fish began to swim upstream. He too made a few laps around the kayak before he rolled on his side and allowed me to land her. (Channel Catfish sex can be determined by head size and color. Darker cats with large heads are males, and lighter colored channels with smaller heads are females. Its said that this occurs because male channel cats guard the nests after the female releases her eggs. Male channel cats with larger heads prevent predators from raiding the nests more so than male cats with smaller heads. So over time male channel cats have evolved to have larger heads.)  This one was a little longer than the 25.5" channel, but it was a good pound and a half lighter. I snapped a few pics for kayakwars, put the fish grips in her mouth, placed her in the water, and paddled over to Jeff for a few photos.

We fished for the next remaining hour and a half before the sun set, moving from spot to spot, catching a fish here and a fish there, but failed to catch much else worth mentioning. Jeff did get a bite on one of his rods while he and I were talking. He picked his rod up and set the hook, and at that point the water exploded where his bait had been sitting. I don't know what he missed but it was huge. At about 6:45pm we made the mile paddle back upstream. It was well past dark, and we still had to carry the kayaks out of water and up the sticky, slick banks. We started with Jeffs new yak first, to which I then dropped when I lost my footing and face planted into the back of his kayak. I'm pretty sure that is not the appropriate way to handle a new kayak. In the end we had a pretty good trip. Jeff caught his first blue cat and his first hybrid striper, he even had a few good fish hooked. I fished 12 hours and landed nearly 20 channel cats, 11 of which were over 18", 7 were over 20", and 2 were over 25".  I lost my fair share of decent fish as well.