7/21: Change of Plans

Monday Jake, Amanda, and I decided to head out and drift the Ohio River for catfish. The plan was to launch out of a small tributary and drift pieces of cut shad down stream to a series of barge tie offs. (Large pillars in the water that the shipping containers of barges are tied off to when they aren't being used.) These pillars collect drifting debris, create scour holes, and create current breaks all of which are perfect spots for catfish to call home. We got on the water at around noon and began dropping baits behind our kayaks. We then drifted with the current and watched our rods for bites. While we were drifting along I payed close attention to my fish finder in case we came across a school of fish. I marked a fish every 80 or 90 yards, but nothing that really got me excited. I started noticing large marks suspended 10 feet deep in 30 feet of water. The arches didn't appear to be catfish, instead they were really long and thin arches. A hundred yards down the bank I soon discovered what I believed to be the cause of the weak returns on the fish finder.....gar. 

We drifted for nearly 2 hours before we got our first bite. As I was drifting around a rip rap bend I noticed a fish sitting very close to bottom on my fish finder. Less than a minute later one of my rods began to bend and then all of a sudden my drag slipped. I grabbed the rod and began playing the fish. It had some size to it, but it was far from a giant. For the first few seconds I merely pulled my kayak over to the fish, after that the fish started to roll back and forth. (Typical catfish behavior) Eventually I started pulling the fish up off of the bottom. I'd reel down and then lift my rod, reel down and then lift my rod, etc. The whole time I was fighting the fish I was still drifting with the current so my other rod was still bumping along bottom. At some point it had gotten hung up and it began to bend, and my kayak began to swing outward. Now one rod was snagged, the other had a catfish pulling on it, and the river was trying to push my kayak further down stream. I leaned over to my other rod and loosened the drag so that my kayak would slowly drift down the river while I fought my fish. As soon as I loosened the drag on my second rod, the line on the rod in my hand went slack. The fish was gone.

We continued to float downstream through the pillars that the barges use to tie off their containers, but we failed to get another bite. Once I got to the power plant we noticed a barge moving large containers around so I decided to sit in a pool of slack water in between pillars and wait for Jake and Amanda to catch up. As I was floating around in this slack water I noticed a gar breach the surface for air.  He gulped air and then quickly dove back down out of site. Less than sixty seconds later another gar breached the surface. At this point I decided to toss out a small shad on a float and see if I could temp the gar into biting. On my first cast a gar pulled my float under water within seconds.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now in the past I had targeted gar with hooks and cutbait and discovered that you had to let the gar run with the cutbait for a long time so that they could work the bait further down their mouth/throat. Now since I don't want to harm the fish I decided to use a circle hook so that the hook would slip out of the gars throat and into the corner of their mouth.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As my float slipped under I disengaged the reel and let the fish take all of the line it wanted. After about 60 seconds my line stopped...... now this is where the fish typically tries to swallow your bait, once your line starts moving again then you can apply pressure/set the hook. After about sixty seconds I discovered my float sitting on top of the water 60 yards away....the gar had gotten away with my shad. In the next 20 minutes I had a half dozen gar take the float under and I missed every single one of them. By this point Jake and Amanda had started targeting gar as well, and they weren't having any luck hooking up either. We needed rope lures and all I had brought along with me this trip was my catfish gear. Jake quickly went through his tackle box and found two that Russ had given him about a month ago....since there were three of us and only two rope lures we had to come up with some way to make another. I then realized that I had an anchor in one of the boxes on my kayak trailer, the anchor line is the exact rope that we used to create the rope lures. I gave Jake and Amanda two options, (1) we continue fishing for cats in the river or (2) we head back to the boat ramp and grab the anchor cord and make a few rope lures. They chose the second option.

At 4:30pm we made it back to the boat ramp and I quickly ran up to the car and grabbed the anchor line from one of the boxes on my trailer. I had also discovered an old rope lure that had fallen through my milk crate at one point. With three rope lures and nearly 100 yards of anchor line we hit the water. Amanda was the first to get on the board with a small gar, only 20 yards from the boat ramp. It wasn't very big, maybe 18", but she was glad to have caught her first fish of the trip. She paddled up to me and I quickly untangled the gar and set it free...at that point I told her that she was going to have to start taking her own off or that she'd have to fish for something else. (She had taken her own off in the past so I know she was capable of doing it....she just didn't want to.) At first she said she was just going to quit fishing.....2 minutes later she spotted a 4 footer and changed her mind. We floated along and started picking up gar in the 25-35" range. They weren't anything worth bragging about but we were having a blast catching them. Every now and then Amanda would spot a true giant, 45+", since she could easily stand in her kayak she was always the first to see them and the first to cast at them. I bet she had 4 over 40" bite her lure and get off. On one occasion she spotted one in front of my kayak and it was a true giant. She was 50 feet or better away and I was only 15 feet away so without hesitation I casted to it. (Boy was she mad.) The gar heard the rope lure hit the water and he immediately engulfed it. I let him wrap himself up a few times and then I engaged the reel and started applying pressure. At that point he decided he was going to give my drag a proper work out. Now Amanda is really fuming, she even says, "I hope you lose it...that was my fish." Sure enough 15 seconds later my rope lure pops out. (I think that a tight drag and rope lures may be a bad combination....it may pull the lure free. Just a thought)

In less than an hour and a half I landed 6 gar over 25" and 2 under 25" so I wasn't too upset that I had lost that gar. I went back to fishing and about 20 minutes later I tucked up under an overhanging tree to find 2 small gar sitting near the bank. I decided to pass them and look for a bigger fish, I go to take a paddle stroke and I saw a gar rising toward the surface to gulp air. It was another good gar, not quite as big as the one I had just lost but it was definitely over 40". I put the rope lure about 3 feet off of the bank and drug it right over his nose and he slapped at it. He actually missed the lure but had bitten over my line so I pulled the lure into his mouth and let him start thrashing. Thee minutes later I had won the battle and it was now time for the fun part.

The Hawg Trough just wasn't long enough so we broke out a tape measure that I had found in the Walmart fabric isle and stretched it out over the gar. It went just over 44", the gar wasn't perfectly straight so 44.5 or 45" would be a safe guess. We continued to work the banks but once the sun fell over the trees the gar seemed to spread out. At 8pm we decided to head back for the evening. In the end we turned a rather slow catfishing trip into a fairly productive gar trip.

7/13: Sight Fishing Longnose Gar

Yesterday Russ and I made plans to head out and hit the creek again. The water level had reached its typical summer level and water clarity is improving. The last time we went out I estimated the clarity to be around 8",  the clarity for this trip was somewhere around 10-12". With those two factors in mind I decided to float the bottom section of the creek.  The bottom section is significantly deeper with less riffles, which meant we wouldn't have to get out and drag our kayaks as much as we would in the shallow northern stretch. Since the lower section of creek is deeper and slower moving it holds less smallmouth. In this section you typically find  "big river" fish such as gar, freshwater drum, catfish, spotted bass, carp, etc. With that in mind Russ and I decided to tie on a few rope lures (A home-made lure created from braided nylon rope. Used to tangle in the teeth of gar.) and see if we could find a few gar while we floated along the slower sections. The plan was to hit the rocky shallow shorelines, weed lines, and riffles with crankbaits and soft plastics for smallies and then paddle through the slower moving (deep) sections and look for gar.

We got on the water around noon and immediately had to get out and drag through a series of riffles. Between the riffles we worked crankbaits and plastics but failed to find our first fish. As we were dragging through the last small riffle I noticed a gar breach the surface in the slack water below, he gulped air and then dive back down. I didn't know what to think of this, on one hand I knew the gar were close but on the other hand I knew that this particular fish wasn't staying on the surface. In short, if we cant see gar on the surface then we cant catch them with a rope lure. About 20 yards down the bank I got my first bite of the trip on a jointed crankbait, but the fish quickly shook off  the treble hooks. Five minutes later I heard Russ say, "What the heck?" He too had gotten his first bite of the trip, but it cut his line immediately. It appeared as if the gar were active but they just weren't staying high enough in the water column for us to see them. Russ shook it off, retied, and went back to fishing for smallies on this rip rap shoreline.

About 1/3 of the way through the float we had only managed to catch one small drum, but our luck was about to change. We had paddled to a section of creek that was deep, slow moving, and had a few fallen trees. It was actually so slow that scum and leaves had started to accumulate on the surface. I started slowly paddling along one bank and Russ took the other. I quickly raised my seat to the high position and started scanning for gar. I didn't see my first gar until I got to a huge fallen tree that spanned 3/4 of the creek. The gar wasn't very big, maybe 18", so I decided to let it swim by. I was hoping that I'd get a shot at a much larger one down the creek....and I did. I quickly spotted a gar sitting a few feet off of my bank near a fallen tree. I made a cast over its head and quickly drug the rope lure across his face....and he hammered it. I quickly dropped my rod tip, let him thrash about and wrap himself up, and then started adding pressure. I brought him to the surface and began taking pictures.

It wasn't a giant, but I was defiantly glad to get on the board. Now it was time for the fun part.....unraveling the rope lure from its mouth. To do this I took a pair of metal fish grips and clipped his bottom jaw, and then began carefully picking at the rope lure.

I was a little rusty so it took me a little longer than usual to free the rope lure and the fish got a little cranky. As I put him in the water to release him he began trashing about, eventually landing a quick shot on my upper wrist. It was just a minor scrape but it bled for what seemed like forever. (Side note: It may be a good idea to bring a first aid kit when targeting gar!)

Fifteen minutes later I spot yet another gar, probably less than 10 yards from where I had landed the first one. I made a long cast over his head and began pulling the rope lure across the surface. This time around I didn't have to bring it over his nose, he heard it hit the water and he took off like a torpedo after the lure. I gave it a quick tug just to entice him even more and he blew up on it. I dropped my rod tip and started adding slow and steady pressure until I felt he had sufficiently wrapped himself up. This fish went 3" longer than the first one, but was still far from what I would call a big gar.

All the while I was fighting and landing fish Russ was working the gar over on his side too! He managed one gar at 29" and lost several others. The gar were definitely drawn to this particular spot for some reason, and it wasn't until later that we realized that the gar were holding close to wood. Russ and I paddled down the stream very slowly as not to spook any gar near the surface. We could each see about 10 feet from our kayaks until the glare started to hinder our ability to spot gar. For that reason we paddled about 10 feet off of each bank and scanned both sides of our kayak. About an hour later Russ and I found another good school of gar, the first of which I saw in the middle of the creek near Russ. I whistled at him and pointed toward the gar...."One at 11 o clock." He made a cast but ended up missing the gar by about 5 feet. On his second cast he brought the rope lure within a foot of the gars nose and that's when the water exploded. It was a good gar, somewhere in the 40-45" class, and it was pulling drag like a champ. Less than 10 seconds later Russ' line went slack, the gar hadn't wrapped himself up good enough. We continued down the bank and eventually ended up losing another 3 gar. These fish were smart, some of them hitting the lure and never moving an inch. They would clamp down on the lure and then would just sit there. Once we added a little pressure they would simply spit our lure back at us. After loosing a couple fish in the 35-40" range I decided that maybe I should try a new rope lure. Mine had lost a few strands from its encounters with gar and maybe that was part of my problem. Russ tossed me a thick rope lure and I trimmed it to about 6" in length. I was hoping that the thicker lure (more strands) would tangle the fish easier, but there was only one way to find out.

I eventually found a gar willing to thrash about for me. I actually made a bad cast and decided to reel my lure really fast back to the kayak and make another cast when he decided he was going to eat my bait anyway. I took about three handle turns when I noticed him swing around and take off toward my bait, the whole time the water was swelling up behind him as he was putting off a miniature wake. Once he got on top of the lure I slowed it down and he hammered it. Once he realized it wasn't food he went nuts.....and that's just what I needed him to do.

We went on to catch a few more gar in the 28-32" range and lost nearly a dozen other fish before coming up on our take out. Since the water was slow moving  we decided to paddle on past the take out and fish a little longer and then paddle back upstream to our take out.....and its a good thing we did. Just below the take out we found a nice school of gar with fish in the mid to upper 40" range. We had a few takes but they just wouldn't wrap themselves up for us. On one occasion I saw an odd looking log under an overhanging tree, I thought that it looked awful orange for a log. I told Russ that I saw something, "If its a gar its a good one!" I made a under hand cast up on the bank and brought it right over the log, when the log made a move...it was a gar! I made a couple quick twitches on the surface and then began a slow and steady pull and that's when the gar started following it. At this point he was 15 feet from the yak and he was stalking the bait slowly....if I waited too long he would see me and get spooked so I made the decision to move it real fast and see if I could get a reaction out of him like I did out of the other one. Sure enough that's exactly what he wanted, he took the rope lure about 8 feet from the kayak and just sat there. He was just close enough to where I could drop my rod tip and wrap him up myself so that's what I tried. I pulled the line tight and began to wrap my line around his nose, all the while he started shaking side to side as he tried to throw the lure. It was too late for him, the more he struggled the worse the rope lure tangled. He then decided to give up on freeing the lure from his teeth and then focused on trying to get away. My drag began to sing as he made a hard run downstream. With each burst of drag I just shook my head and smiled at Russ. Eventually I got the gar to the kayak and began my work on the rope lure.

The gar went 44", which happened to be my biggest caught while sight fishing out of a kayak. Shortly after we released this fish the sun began to set over the tree tops, the wind picked up just enough to put ripples on the water, and the gar began to disappear.

Night Bassin'

I've spent the last few weeks chasing largmouth bass well after sunset and into the early morning hours of the following day..... as you may know from my last blog. The success that I found in June was more than enough to fuel my desire to head back out and continue my quest for a giant night time largemouth. Here's a couple reports from the last week and a half.

July 1, 2014
 
 June 30th Shawn Skidmore and I went back out to the same lake that I had found success on with my little brother a week earlier. It's one of the largest lakes in southern Ohio, and quite possibly one of the most pressured lakes in Southern Ohio. I had only been out one time after dark and landed over a dozen small bass and one 20.25"er. Now, that could have been a complete accident, a fluke if you will, but it was more than enough to get the attention of Shawn Skidmore. For weeks we had been hitting one of his favorite lakes after dark with success, however this week he was ready for a change in scenery. He sent me a text that June 31 and we made plans to meet up and fish the "Big" lake at night. We got on the water around 6:30pm and began working thick vegetation hoping that the fish were buried in the weed beds. By 9pm we were both discouraged, the day bite failed to yield a single fish. However, once the sun set the bite picked up. I quickly landed 3 fish on a black and blue jig, all of which were in the 12-15" range. Now they weren't big, but they let us know that the fish were definitely feeding after dark again. Just as quick as the action picked up it died....the fish had seemed to shut down again. Shawn and I continued to work the banks, and at this point we were slowly working toward the area that I had caught my 20.25" bass and the 17.75" bass the previous week. Once I got to the exact spot where I had caught the 20.25" bass I slowed down and worked that area extra hard.......nothing. About an hour later Shawn makes his way into the light of a nearby boat dock, and no more than 10 casts later I can hear the sound of a bass thrashing the surface. I could tell that he had hooked a bass but I didn't know how big it was, assuming it was the typical 14" fish I went back to fishing. Fifteen seconds later I hear Shawn yell over that he's got a NICE one! I quickly reel in my rod and paddle over to find him holding what looks to be a 5 pound bass.

We quickly snapped a few pictures, put it on the hawg trough, got it on a scale, and released it. The bass went 21.5" and 4lbs 8oz. We were pumped, this was the fourth fish  over 20" that we had landed in our last five trips out after dark. We fished for another hour and a half but the fish just weren't willing to cooperate. In total we landed 7 fish, significantly less than what we typically would on a given night. At 2am we decided to paddle back over to the boat ramp and call it a night.

July 3rd

Thursday after work I couldn't resist heading back out to the "Big" lake and trying my luck again. I was feeling pretty good about our success so I decided to try out a new spot. I started fishing around 6pm and fished till 2am. The first few hours of daylight were spent bass fishing as I normally would, but the entire time I was watching the shoreline. I tried to remember where the fallen trees where, which shorelines had weeds, which were rocky, etc. I was mentally preparing for the night bite. For the most part, the area I had planned on fishing was as good, if not better, than the area that produced a 20.25" bass and a 21.5" bass. I was pretty excited to give this spot a try. However, that was pretty short lived as boats began arriving, one after the other. I had overlooked one key issue.....a holiday weekend. Fishing became rather difficult as I had to position myself just right with each passing boat. (Nose into the wakes created by the boats.) Once it began to get dark the boats slowly cleared out....but now I faced another issue, Fireworks. This trip was slowly becoming a nightmare. To make a long story short....I landed 3 fish in the 14-15" range, I broke our streak of 20" fish, but I did find what I believe to be yet another productive shoreline for night bass fishing.

 July 6th

Once Sunday rolled around Shawn was ready to head back out and try out his lake again. There was a slight catch though.....he had all day and night to fish but his lake was bombarded with pleasure boaters left over from the holiday weekend. We eventually decided to hit 2 lakes in order to avoid boat traffic. First off we would hit a lake by my house, a small 100 acre electric only lake. We planned on fishing it until 7pm and then heading over to Shawn's lake to finish out the trip. Plan A started out rough.....at one point I even called Shawn to tell him maybe we should make new plans. The wind was ripping right down the small 100 acre lake, and at points evening making white caps. Before Shawn arrived the wind had almost completely died down so I began unloading my gear. As luck would have it the wind was far from over. Shawn and I decided to paddle up the lake and fish down the lake with the wind. After 2 hours we found a productive pattern....tossing jigs along the edges of lily pads on the windblown side of the lake.

Shawn's fish went 17.5 and mine went 16.75", both of which were super healthy. At 7pm we decided to paddle back to the boat ramp and head over to the other lake for the night bite.

We got on the water around 9pm and began working our way toward the bank that produced Russ' big bass a few weeks earlier. This was also the same bank that produced my 19" bass and the bass that broke my line. It had been nearly 2 weeks since that trip, but we were hoping that the bass were on the same feeding pattern. Shawn and I worked the shoreline all the way down the lake, picking up several fish in the 14-16" range....all on jig and craw combos. At about midnight we decided to turn around and head back up the lake to where we launched from. About halfway up the lake Shawn and I start missing hooksets. I'm not sure what was going on to be honest, I assumed it was small bass and bluegill hitting our jigs. Needless to say I was getting irritated. Shawn and I rounded a small point and began working a rip rap bank when I felt another thump......fearing it was another bluegill or small bass I set the hook hard out of pure frustration. I reeled down until I could feel pressure, swiveled my hips toward the rod, and swung with all my might......I was going to send a message to this little fish. My sweeping hookset was stopped halfway through my swing as I connected with something solid. Seconds later my drag began to roll off of my baitcaster. Eventually the fish made its way to the surface, revealing itself to Shawn and I. It looked to be another fish in the 20" class, but we'd have to get it on the board first to determine that. This was a strong fish, probably the strongest bass I had fought all year. After 3 good jumps and a few drag slips I pulled it in close enough to get a net under it. 

It was yet another 20+" bass, officially measuring in at 20.5" and weighing 4lbs 3oz. Shortly after we released the fish we noticed the wind starting to pick up. Which happened to be blowing right in our faces. We worked through the wind and finished out the shoreline, landing a few more bass each before arriving at our take out around 2:30am.

In the last month and a half we have successfully landed 5 bass over 20" during the 7 trips we've made after dark. (And one of those trips can be blamed on fireworks and pleasure boaters....but anyway. ) In our minds there is no doubt that the big fish are feeding heavily at night. This may be a rather bold statement, but I feel pretty confident that we will find a fish over 22" if we continue to put the time in on the water. If you haven't got out at night yet, give it a shot.