Testing: Check 1, 2

Wow, I cant believe its been nearly four years since my last blog. Over the course of the last four years social media has served as my primary method of sharing fishing information. However, recently its became cluttered with political bullshit, self proclaimed professional fisherman, fad diet salesman/women, keyboard warriors/trolls, etc. On a recent float with a friend, Scott, we discussed the topic of blogging. He had followed the blog in the past and was curious to why I had stopped writing. I was blown away at the fact that he had once read the blog, and even more so after we had finished fishing. That conversation sparked my interest in writing again. I went back and forth for almost a week before I decided to jump on the computer and see if I could remember my old username and password. It took a few tries but here we are. I feel now is the right time to step back into writing, if nothing else for my own enjoyment and reflection.

Many of you may be wondering why I stopped writing the blog? The short, and purposefully clouded, answer is politics within the kayak fishing community. Maybe......No most certainly.....I felt I had payed my dues and was more deserving of recognition than some of the others in the community. As many of you know, or will soon find out, having unreasonably high expectations of yourself can often lead to some of the most disappointing and frustrating adventures. It is those experiences that humble us and allow us to learn and grow. Well that's essentially what happened with the blog but instead jumping back in and continuing to write, I tossed in the towel. My purpose in writing had changed and was no longer enjoyable for me. In the end I am glad things worked out how they did. I have matured a great deal, and realize now more than ever the purpose fishing has in my life.

 Additionally I'm not the sort of guy that needs to be in the spotlight anyway, especially when I'd be dancing to someone else's tune. So for now grab the flashlight and we'll put on our own little show. 

Rocky Fork Creek: A First Timers Tale

Preface:

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to float Rocky Fork Creek with Vic Mchenry. A week prior to this trip Vic and I had met up and fished for crappie out of my boat on the big lake. The bite was slow up until 4pm so we had a lot of time to talk about things. One such thing was floating Rocky Fork Creek. Vic had yet to experience this particular float and showed interest in heading back down to do so. Fast forward 5 days.....It's Thursday afternoon, I'm sitting at work dreaming about fishing. I check the weather prediction for Friday and looks absolutely amazing, I then start scouting water levels of local creeks and rivers. The very first place I checked up on was Rocky Fork Creek, Its a rather difficult creek to fish if the flows aren't perfect. Too high and your looking at Class II rapids (yes there are a few streams in southern Ohio that are classified as class II or better, not many but there are a few. Reference site: American Whitewater) and too low and you'll wear the bottom of your kayak out dragging through shallow sections of river. The creek just happened to be flowing at 190 cubic feet per second and dropping -2 cfs every other hour.  Now this was a little higher than I would have liked to fish the creek but it was safe enough to float and fish, in other words I wasn't going to waste this opportunity. I sent Vic a text to see if he was able to head down and fish the creek with me, and without hesitation he agreed to head down.


Story:

Vic and I met up around 10am and began moving kayaks from one vehicle to another. We arrived at the launch location around 10:30am and began carrying our things down to the water. Once our kayaks were loaded I told Vic that we were going to float our kayaks down past the first major rapid under the mill dam. This rapid was particularly violent, the current slammed into a large house sized rock, made a 90 degree bend, and then proceeded to run its course for 10 yards before running into another 90 degree bend with car sized rocks. Needless to say we were both relieved to get below this rapid. At this point I didn't realize anything out of the ordinary, I was leading the way and Vic was following. Vic on the other hand finally realized what I had gotten him into.

The next rapid came fairly quickly and he mentioned portaging and going around, the water was still ripping through this section so I portaged with him. The third series of rapids approached and he portaged yet again. This time around I went ahead and ran the rapid to show him that it was safe. At the bottom of the third rapid Vic mentioned that he had limited experience on moving water in his kayak. This was when everything clicked.

 (In my head I thought, "Great, I've brought this guy to one of the worst possible places to learn how to navigate moving water. We could have started out on Ohio Brush Creek or another small stream where riffles are miles apart and pools are slow moving.......OH NO! You've got to take him to the fastest moving stream in southern Ohio with riffles and rapids every 40 yards. Vic's never fishing with me again.")

Now that is what I thought, but I didn't dare speak it out loud. He needed encouragement, and quite frankly so did I....even if I didn't believe it myself. I just told Vic what I had been told to do on moving water and what I had learned through trial and error (lots of error). I told him to keep your nose going straight down the river.....Keep paddling through rapids.... always maintain control of your kayak, even if that means paddling faster......follow my path...etc... and you'll be fine.

Vic handled the encouragement rather well and began floating through some of the minor rapids. After each rapid you could see the relief in his face, he even made a few comments along the lines of....."I think I just peed a little!" The little bit of humor was just enough to dull the stress of the rapids, at least for a little while.  We'd each laugh and continue to float downstream to the next riffle. After a while his comments of concern seemed rather comical to me....We would approach a rapid that sounded particularly swift and he would make comments like, "That doesn't sound good!"...."I think I'll portage this one", Etc... And for some reason  I got quite the kick out of his growing concern for safety. At points I'd laugh so hard that I couldn't breathe....he quickly caught on and fueled the fire with more comments.

Halfway through the 6 plus mile trip, he had settled into a grove and was floating the rapids with confidence, even some of the trickier ones. 

He had essentially grew as a paddler as much in this one trip as I did in my first 2 years of kayaking. If someone would have dropped me in this creek on my first moving water trip I know for certain I wouldn't have handled it half as well as he did. After the third riffle I would have tried to find a way back to the car, I would have tied the kayak off and waited for the creek to drop if that's what it meant I had to do. In the end it was an experience that I was glad I got to share with Vic.

Soon enough Vic was rewarded for his efforts, as we reached the part in the float that we had been waiting for all day. (You really need to look at these pictures on a large computer screen to enjoy them fully....of course the pictures don't do the landscape justice)

9/24: 22" Largemouth Bass Streak Continues

If you saw the last blog we posted, Two Trophy Largemouth in 2 hours, you would have read a report in which I landed a 22" and 21.75" largemouth bass in under two hours. Since then I have hit the water a few more times and I haven't been disappointed.

Saturday 9/20

Saturday Shawn Skidmore and I went out and fished a few different lakes in hopes of upgrading our 5 fish total in Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail's Buckeye Bass Challenge. On our first stop of the day we hit a small state lake and began by throwing buzzbaits. At this point in the week we were fishing pre-cold front conditions. The water temperatures were holding in the low 70's and fish were still really active. The air temperatures at night hadn't dropped below 50 degrees yet, but they soon would. The buzzbait was hot, well for Shawn anyway. The day began rough for me, I ended up fishing more in the trees than I did in the water, broke my favorite buzzbait, and only managed two small fish (18" and 17"). Shawn on the other hand was on fire finishing the day with a 17", 17.5", 18", 18.5", 18.75", 20.5" and 22.25"! (Most of which were caught in the morning at our first stop.) 

At about 10am the wind started to pick up and fishing the small state lake became nearly impossible. We loaded all of our gear up and drove down the road to grab a bite to eat. From there we hit our 2nd spot of the day which yielded a few small fish but nothing worth mentioning. At about 5pm we loaded our gear up and drove over to our third and final stop. We fished until dark but failed to find any decent fish. 

Monday 9/22

Monday evening I went out by myself and tried to find the giant bass that I mentioned seeing in my "Two Trophy Bass in 2 Hours" blog. I had spent much of my time thinking about this fish over the last few days, "What if I tossed a jig back at him instead of pounding the water with the buzzbait?, What if I had stopped my buzzbait while he was following it, would he have ate it on the drop?, I wonder how big the fish really is? Will he make it another season?"...etc. It was driving me mad so I decided to head out and see if I could find my "white whale" and fool him into biting. At this point we were experiencing the full force of the cold front. Nightly air temps had been dropping into the low 40's and water temperatures were fluctuating quite a bit from dawn to dusk. I knew that the fishing was going to be tough but I couldn't help but to throw a black buzzbait. I fished for 4 hours and only landed one fish.  In the 4 hours that I fished I probably had two dozen bites on the buzzbait, and each time the fish would either miss my bait completely or pull my skirt down the shank of my hook. Since I was getting the bites I needed, I continued to make minor adjustments to see if I could trick them into inhaling the bait. I added trailers, I changed colors, tried triple bladed buzzbaits (as opposed to the traditional double paddle buzzbait), I changed my speed, etc. I went home that night with my head down, after several months of excellent fishing this trip really hit me hard. 

Wednesday 9/24

Shawn, Russ, and I went back out and tried to find a few quality fish. Shawn and I got on the water around 11am and Russ met us on the water around 1pm. Shawn started the trip throwing buzzbaits and crankbaits.  I on the other hand began with a hollow body frog and a jig. My thoughts were that if the fish were going to bust topwater again, maybe a slowly walked frog might do the trick. I worked the frog around vegetation and the jig around wood. I quickly found a few small fish on the jig near submerged wood, this would give me the confidence I needed to stick with the jig. About 50 minutes into the trip I hooked up with a solid bass on wood in 8 feet of water. After a short battle I landed the bass, took measurements, and pics. 

The bass went 21", which was good enough to bump my five fish total up by .5". I continued working the jig down the lake and landed several bass in the 16-18 range. On two separate occasions I hooked solid fish on deep wood and battled fish to the surface, after a few runs both fish found enough wood to wrap me up and throw the hook. I wasn't very happy that I was losing fish, but at least I was getting the bites I needed. Shawn on the other hand was having a very rough day. He struggled to get bites at all and he ended up spending more time in trees than he did in the water. At about 1pm Russ pulled into the parking lot and began unpacking all of his gear. I worked my way over to the boat ramp and waited to tell him that it was a tough bite but we already had one good fish on the board. As he was unloading I worked my way back into a small creek arm. I found a patch of duckweed setting in a little more than a foot of water and began working it with a jig. I had always gotten bites on a frog here before, but for some reason the fish had a hard time getting the frog in their mouth. I threw the jig onto the bank and began working it back to my kayak. With each hop of the jig I could see the duck weed move at the surface. At the end of my retrieve, about 3 feet from the edge of the duckweed, I hoped the jig and I noticed a boil of water push the duckweed away from my jig. I had either gotten somethings attention or spooked something. I gave the jig a quick hop and then waited........nothing. I pulled the jig up slowly and made another long cast, making sure that my jig was going to go through the area where the duck weed had been disturbed. I hopped the jig a few times and then I noticed my line jump. I dropped my rod tip and watched the fish swim away with my jig. I reeled up the slack and set the hook, and that's when the water exploded. It was another giant bass. After a few jumps and a couple slips of drag I pulled the fish into the kayak. 

I took a picture of the fish on the board and then called Shawn to come take a quick picture for me.  By this time Russ was just paddling over to see what all of the commotion was about, it would build his confidence.....which would only be shattered as the day pressed on. We fished until dark and the bite never really turned on. Shawn went on to land 9 bass under 16" and Russ landed a 12" bass and a 10lb snapping turtle on a frog.

The fish went 22" and 5lbs 7oz. This would make the third bass for me over 5lbs in less than two weeks, and that's not counting Shawn's 5lb 13oz 22.25" bass....not too bad for a couple of guys from Ohio. I'd like to say that we have been very fortunate the last month, but to be honest its been a heck of a year. We have been blessed with quality fish after quality fish, which has me both nervous and excited. I am beginning to wonder if we have hit our peak, can we do any better in the years to come, or will this be the year we look back at and remember? I guess only time will tell! 

9/18: Two Trophy Largemouth in Under Two Hours

Toward the end of the work day Thursday Amanda called to tell me that she would be going to the mall with her mother. This could only mean one thing......I was free to fish! At the time I really didn't consider the fact that I had been on the water the previous two days, or the fact that I had been running on less than 6 hours of sleep. All I had on my mind was hitting a local lake for a few hours after work. For the last week and half Russ had been talking about his desire to fish a lake near my house. He didn't know it yet but those little conversations would push me into hitting that very lake this evening, which would then result in one epic day of bass fishing.

Before I hit the water I called Skidmore to talk about our weekend plans. We had made plans Saturday to head out and try to upgrade our five fish total in Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail's Buckeye Bass Challenge online tournament. As of now Shawn was leading the pack with a five fish total of 105.5" and I had slipped into second place with my late season run and was sitting at 104". The other anglers weren't far off, which was really putting some pressure on us. With less than two weeks to go we had to find a few larger fish. I also told Shawn that I was on my way to hit the water while he was stuck at work....just to shake him up a bit. I had no preconceived notions of actually upgrading my smallest fish which was at 20.25", however he didn't need to know that. We got off the phone around 3pm and here's the text messages that followed that phone call:

Clearly he was worried, and to be honest I was just poking the fire.

I got on the water around 4pm and started working my way around the small state lake. I had tied on a weightless plastic, a hollow body frog, and a jig. My plans were to work the frog along the weeded banks and see if I could tempt a few bass into crushing it. If that didn't work I was going to switch to a weightless stick bait and see if I could find a few fish sitting near wood. I had the jig as a back up plan, but I honestly didn't think I would throw it. Lately the fish have been feeding on baitfish, which means most of the time they are looking up in the water column, not down on the bottom. I began by working the banks with the frog and success came quick.

A 19.5" bass fell victim to a frog that was quietly placed onto the bank and then slowly drug into the water. It wasn't an upgrade to my five fish total, but it was worth sending a quick picture text to Shawn......poking the fire again. I turned my phone on silent and went back to working the banks. Ten minutes later I hook into yet another solid fish on the frog.....17" and worth another text to Skidmore!.

I worked my way around the lake with the frog, pounding the banks and every fallen tree I could find. About halfway down the lake I tossed my frog up onto the bank and pulled it across a scum mat, when all of a sudden a fish stirred the surface scum but didn't eat my frog. I stopped for a second and then gave the frog a couple quick twitches.....nothing. Once I cleared the scum mat I reeled my frog in and made another cast onto the scum mat. This time around I worked the frog more aggressively, jerking and pulling the frog quickly across the surface. The fish couldn't resist this time! The fish exploded on the frog sending scum and water flying everywhere. It was a good fish! I reeled down to take up slack and set a solid hookset. I fought the fish for 5-10 seconds and then proceeded to pull it up and over a small branch. With a couple quick head shakes and a wave of the tail she said goodbye. I was sick to my stomach. I feel confident in saying that it was ~20" give or take a half an inch....a good fish by anyone's standards.

I continued working my way around the lake and eventually made it back around to the boat ramp. I had done my damage with the frog, landing 3 bass over 16". At this point the sun was starting to fall over the trees so I cut off my frog and tied on my lucky buzzbait.  I had just enough daylight left to work the lake one more time if I hurried. I started working the buzzbait by casting as close to the banks as I could and then ripping it off and slow rolling it back to the boat. Every now and then I'd twitch my rod and splash the surface just to give the bait a little extra noise. I was hoping that this extra splash would call in a few fish that were setting deeper in the water. After 20 minutes I was losing hope in the buzzbait.

On one particular occasion, I underhand casted my bait under an overhanging limb and proceeded to slow roll the bait back to my kayak. As soon as the buzzbait made its way past the overhanging limb something sucked the buzzbait under the surface. It wasn't your typical explosive topwater bite but this fish was moving. I couldn't even drop my rod to set the hook, as soon as the fish took the bait he dove back down to the bottom. I could tell pretty quickly that this was a good fish. The water visibility was about 3 feet and that's just about where this fish stayed. I couldn't see the fish, but with every change in direction I could see it stir the surface of the water. Eventually it surfaced beside the kayak and I landed the fish quickly. At fist glance I thought I had beaten my person best of a public water bass of 5lbs 1oz. I had tied this personal best twice last year and fell only an ounce shy one other time. Onto the scale she went......5lbs 2oz. A new personal best by 1oz. It wasn't the break out fish that I was looking for, but I would take it. It also went 21.75", which tied me with Shawn in the BKFT Bass Challenge. (Remember the text above.....I pretty much called that!)

 I broke the news to Shawn that we were going to be tied going into our fishing trip Saturday. I continued working my way down the lake and picked up a few fish here and there. Halfway up the lake I casted my buzzbait into a pile of logs and began slow rolling my bait back to the kayak. As soon as the bait hit the water I saw something wake off of the bank and head right to my buzzbait. It kept its distance at first but eventually it found itself trailing the buzzbait. It would burst forward, disturbing the surface of the water,  like it was going to hit the bait, and then it would fall back. This fish followed my bait all the way to my kayak and as I went to lower my rod and try to "figure 8" the buzzbait I caught a glimpse of the fish. It made the 5 pound fish I caught less than an hour ago look like a baby. It took one look at my kayak and took off, throwing water everywhere. I threw my buzzbait for nearly thirty minutes around the wood, and even threw my jig a time or two but the fish wasn't interested. There was nothing I could do so I began working back down the lake.

At  8pm I decided to paddle back the lake toward the boat ramp. Along the way I stopped and hit a few spots that had produced fish earlier in the day. Eventually, I paddled up to the spot where I had landed the 21.75" bass earlier and threw my buzzbait up and under the tree again. This time around the buzzbait didn't even have the chance to clear the overhanging limb before something exploded on it. I didn't get to see the explosion, but the fish felt solid. About 10 seconds into the fight the fish cleared the water, and with a few head shakes tried to free the hook. It was another good fish! The fish made a few good jumps, and then swam up to the side of my kayak. I was hoping the fish would clear 6lbs and help me break out of the 5 pound club. After a few pictures I placed her onto the scale.....5lbs 10oz....a couple tail shakes......5lbs 12 oz,.......and then it settled on 5lbs 8oz.

 Lightning had struck twice....two five pound fish, over the Fish Ohio trophy length, from the same exact spot, and less than 2 hours apart. I was pumped! I continued working around the lake until well after dark but failed to fool another fish into biting. I broke the news to Shawn and told him that I had landed yet another giant bass, which propelled me into first place. After doing some math he figured that he now needed a 22" fish to beat me, which under normal circumstances would be tough to do. However, in the last 2 weeks I have landed 6 fish over 20" in 6 trips, 2 of which were over 22". With those odds anything is possible.



------------------------------------------Update--------------------------------------
A few days later we weighed a fish in the 5.5lb range on Shawn's scale and I had a hard time believing his scale was accurate so I weighed the fish on both scales. My scale was 10-11oz short of Shawn's scale, which only happened to be a few weeks old. He went home and ran a few tests to verify his scale was accurate, which more or less meant my scale was going bad. Not that it matters much, but I will consider my personal best 6lbs 3oz....adding the 11oz difference to what I previously thought the fish weighed. 

9/9: Night Bass Fishing, SMOKIN' HOT

Tuesday night Shawn Skidmore and I decided to head out before the front and try to find a few night time bass. However, we couldn't quite make up our minds on where to go. We had fished lake "X" the last three outings and struggled to find quality fish. Lake "Y" on the other hand had been putting out some seriously large fish but it wasn't a good spot to go out and catch a bunch of fish. At first Shawn told me to pick a lake, then I told him to pick a lake. After some back and forth discussion we had decided to settle things with a coin flip, lake "Y" would be heads and lake "X" would be tails. I soon received a picture text message of a coin facing heads up, lake Y it was!

After work we met at the lake and proceeded to unload all of our gear. By 6:50 we were on the water and ready to fish. Shawn decided to throw a buzzbait for the rest of the remaining daylight, so I started tossing a creature bait. If the fish were active and  feeding near the surface Shawn would find them, if they were staying deep and sticking close to the bottom I would get into them. More than likely one of us was going to stumble upon a pattern. It didn't take long to find out where the fish were either. No more than 20 yards from the boat ramp I heard Shawn hook up with a nice fish. It went 19", not bad for our first fish. On the very next cast Shawn hooked up with another quality fish, this time he yells out "20", so I began paddling that way to snap his picture. It didn't quite make 20" but since I was over there I went ahead and snapped a quick picture.

19.75"

It was a nice fish, especially for the pre-night bite. At this point the fish had given us a pretty solid game plan for the rest of the evening. Shawn and I proceeded to work the banks with buzzbaits. An hour and a half and zero fish later, I decided to ditch the buzzbait and start working the banks with my Texas rigged creature bait. I had immediate success, landing a 16.5" bass in the first 10 minutes. The sun soon fell over the trees and Shawn and I went separate ways. I alternated between buzzbait and my creature bait for the next hour, but failed to find a single fish. At 9pm Shawn called to tell me that he was getting a few smaller fish on a jig and craw combo across the lake. I told him that I was struggling back in the creek arm that I was fishing. He said that he was going to turn around and work his way back up the lake toward the boat ramp. I paddled out of the small creek arm and began making my way back up the lake as well. Over the next hour and a half I tried a half dozen different baits: crankbaits, buzzbaits, rattletraps, weightless sinkos, etc. but they all yielded the same result.

I was beginning to get really frustrated, I knew the fish had to be feeding somewhere but I just couldn't find them. This trip was quickly becoming the third bad trip in a row that I had fished this lake, so I was beginning to second guess its potential. I eventually went back to our night time bait, a jig and craw combo. My hopes were low, but I was going to finish the trip out. A little before midnight I had made my way back up to the boat ramp and began working the illuminated rip rap. In less than ten minutes I landed three bass in the 12-15" range. It was a much needed confidence booster. I continued working down the lake past our put in location. At this point it was midnight and we had about an hour to fish before Shawn needed to hit the road. I continued to work my way down the lake and even picked up a few fish off of rip rap. On one cast I felt a solid hit and I set a solid hook. It was a good fish, and a smart fish at that! As soon as I set the hook it made a run right under my kayak, at which point my line found my camera mount sitting on my gear track by my feet. As I tried to free the line from the camera mount the fish found some slack in the line and threw the hook. All I could do is shake my head and laugh at this point, I had worked all night for that fish and it just made me look like a fool. A few minutes later I heard Shawn paddling across the lake about 30 yards ahead of me. At this point he was going to work his way back to the boat ramp and call it quits. I continued working my way up toward him to see if he had found any more fish. I got within 10 yards of Shawn and casted toward a small area of rip rap placed between a private dock and a row of trees. I put the jig on the bank and pulled it off of the bank a foot. I kept the line tight and gave the jig a quick hop, at the top of the hop I felt a thump and my line went slack. I reeled down until I felt pressure and set the hook, right into a swimming freight train.  The fish immediately went to the air, nearly giving me a heart attack each time it breached the surface. I eventually got the fish to the side of my kayak and I reached down to land the fish, when it decided it wanted to jump one last time. The next few seconds felt like a lifetime, as the fish jumped my line went slack and as it fell back into the water I felt the weight of the fish on the line still. I swung the fish beside the kayak and slipped my thumb into the corner of its mouth. I pulled the fish out of the water and told Shawn its definitely over 20".....and I was right!

22.5"

The night had certainly taken its tole on my emotions; excited at the Shawns quick bass before dark, frustrated at the lack of activity up until midnight, rejuvenated with three small bass in less than ten minutes at the boat rapm, depressed after losing a good fish to my camera mount, and now pumped as I landed my longest largemouth to date. We had 30 minutes before we needed to start packing up......and it was going to be a long 30 minutes!

With five minutes to go Shawn hooked into a solid bass and quickly won the battle. It went 20.25", which made this our first trip with multiple 20+" fish after dark.

 Shawn looked over at me and said, "We cant leave, can we?" "We have to leave sometime." I replied. We continued working down the bank and picked up a couple fish, including one at 19". As Shawn was paddling back up the lake toward the ramp he saw the flash go off on my camera.....He yelled out, "You've got to be kidding me....you got another one?"

"Yep and its a good one!" I replied. We had fought the good fight, and were now nearly a half an hour late. Shawn had to get his daughter on the school bus in the morning and then go to work. At some point we were going to have to call it a trip, I slipped the 19"er back into the water and paddled over to Shawn. It was time to go. In the end I had 58" in my top 3 fish and Shawn had 59.25" in his three fish total. It has been a very exciting year, and we have been very fortunate to have found quality fish nearly every outing.

9/3: Lemons to Lemonade: Bass Fishing in Tough Conditions

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade....or something like that. That life lesson pretty much summed up my last bass fishing trip. Here's the report and lessons learned:

Tuesday evening Shawn Skidmore sent me a text stating that he might be able to fish Wednesday night, however, he wouldn't know for sure until Wednesday evening around 1pm. Since Wednesday was my only weekday off  I didn't want to wait around all day and possibly find out that Shawn couldn't fish, so I decided to hit the water early and meet Shawn later that evening if he was still available. Wednesday morning I loaded up my bass gear, kayak, and grabbed three rods to which I had tied on a weightless sinko, a creature bait, and a crankbait. Around 12:15pm I hit the road. As I was pulling into the boat ramp I noticed one major issue....

Life giving me a lemon!

A massive mat of floating algae covered 95 percent of the lake. I knew that the lake was home to some large bass, but I wasn't real sure how the algae bloom had affected them. Since I was already at the boat ramp I decided to give it a shot. This algae mat was thick, and it was clinging to everything it touched. I couldn't take a paddle stroke without having to shake the algae off of the shaft of my paddle. Add in the fact that my kayak only piled up the the algae instead of cutting through it and you have the beginnings of a very frustrating fishing trip.

I had prepared for this trip by tying on 6 feet flourocarbon leaders onto my flipping rods with the intentions of tossing creature baits and weightless sinko's.....needless to say that wasn't going to happen. I quickly cut off one of the flouro leaders and tied on a hollow body frog. I began working the banks as if the algae wasn't even there. I hit the shaded banks and the fallen trees, or at least the areas where I thought the fallen trees were.  After an hour I was really beginning to second guess myself, I had even began to mentally prepare for fishing another lake up the road. Once I got about halfway up the lake, I started seeing movement under the algae. Every time my frog hit the water a little too hard I noticed something take off from the bank. It could have been carp or catfish so I didn't let myself get too worked up. A few minutes later I paddled/push poled up to a group of fallen trees and began working my frog around them. On my first cast I placed my frog under an overhanging tree and quickly pulled it into an open spot of water. I immediately got hammered in that very small pocket of open water. I set the hook and felt the weight of several pounds of algae.  The battle was over before it had even started. I pulled the five plus pounds of algae and fish to the side of the kayak and began looking for my catch.

Since I lost my hawg trough in the river last week I had to go "old school" and break out the fabric measuring tape. She went ~18", not a giant but a good start to the day.  I quickly released the fish and went back to tossing the frog along the fallen trees. A few casts later a fish busted through the algae and missed my frog, I paused and then gave it a twitch.....nothing. I quickly reeled in and made another cast right to the same exact spot, where the bass was waiting for a second attempt. He didn't miss this time.

Two fish over 18" in less than 10 minutes, It appeared that I was well on my way to making lemonade. I continued down the bank until I reached the shallow end. In the next two hours I picked up 2 more fish in the 16-16.5 range and a half dozen or more under 16". At about 3:30 the wind began to blow from the south end of the lake, which eventually cleared out 2-3 acres of water on the shallow end. Most of the open water was less than 3 feet deep, but it gave me the opportunity to switch things up and take a break from frog fishing. At this point I was getting tired of throwing the frog anyway so I decided to tie on a buzzbait and hit open water for a little bit......and I'm glad I did.

On the first ten casts I averaged a fish every other cast, none of which were over 13"but it let me know where most of the fish in the lake were. I quickly racked up a dozen or so bass in the 13-16" range. I couldn't help but to brag so I sent Shawn a text while he was at work.....

"They are killing the buzzbait dude. The wind cleared out the shallow end and I'm blasting them in less than a foot of water. 5-6 KW's (kayakwar fish.....>16") and tons of 14's and 15's."

It appeared that I had managed to put myself in the right place at the right time. I gave the buzzbait a break for a couple minutes just to let the water calm down a little. I got something to drink and grabbed a handful of trail mix. About 2 minutes later I noticed a small school of baitfish that looked like they were getting chased into the shallows. At that point break-time was over, back to the buzzbait I went. Eventually, I had worked myself into some really skinny, shallow water. My kayak was sitting in no more than 8" of water and I was casting in no more then 2 feet of water. Amazingly, I was still catching fish so I continued to work further up the lake.

On one cast I put my buzzbait 5 feet into the algae on the other side of the lake, I gave the rod a quick jerk as to flip the buzzbait up and over the algae mat. Once my buzzbait cleared the algae I began to slowly roll it across the main creek channel. I looked away from my buzzbait for a split second when  all of a sudden the gurgling sound of the buzzbait stopped and the resistance of the buzzbait on my reel was gone. I quickly reeled down and set the hook into a solid fish. The fish began throwing up a mud trail as he ripped from one side of the lake to the other. He made a few good jumps and then swam up to the side of my kayak.

It went 4.5lbs and 20.75", which happened to be my largest bass on a buzzbait to date. I took a few pics and then put her back. I only had an hour to fish left since I was set to meet Shawn around 7:30pm. I spent the next hour fishing the small clearing of water with the buzzbait but failed to find another decent fish. In a little under 4 hours I managed to land nearly 40 fish including a top three fish total of 57.5" (20.75, 18.75, 18). It wasn't easy but I managed to make the best of a tough situation......In other words, I made lemonade out of the lemons that I had been handed. 



 At 7pm I loaded up my gear and quickly hit a local sub shop down the road. At 7:30pm I met Shawn on the water and we began working a small creek arm. Of course I couldn't put the buzzbait down after the action I had just left on the other lake. I quickly picked up a small bass around 13" by working the buzzbait around private docks. Shawn too picked up a bass on a buzzbait before dark, his went 18".

The sun soon set and we began to fall into our night time tactics, jigs and creature baits. The bite was much slower than it had been the last few trips. In the first three hours I managed to get two bites on my jig but failed to hook either of the fish. Shawn was struggling to find fish as well. At midnight we worked our way into a the creek arm that had produced a few fish a week earlier. I managed to get yet another small bass on a buzzbait from a lighted dock. I was now up to 2 fish in 5 hours, nowhere near the numbers that we were used to seeing. Eventually, we worked our way back to the take out and to be honest I was ready to go. Shawn had another hour or so left to fish before he had to be home. For some reason he wanted to hit the other side of the creek arm and see if he could find a few fish to salvage the trip. He paddled across the creek and began working a small flat near a steep drop off.  I worked a lighted marina near the take out with my buzzbait. No more than five minutes later I heard what appeared to be a fish flopping around on the bottom of a kayak. I waited to hear if Shawn needed help, but he didn't say a word. About five minutes later I heard another fish flopping on the floor of Shawn's kayak, and that's all I needed to hear. I paddled over and began working my jig through the area where Shawn had just fished. At 1am we began paddling back toward our cars. Along the way Shawn hit the shoreline near the marina, he was just going to take a few casts so I continued to paddle to my car. I drug my kayak out of the water and began putting my things away. As I was nearly ready to load up my kayak I see Shawn round the bend. As he gets up to the bank he tells me that he just caught a 20.25".....and sure enough he had.

The bite was slowly picking up, probably because the water temperatures were cooler after midnight than they were at 9pm. We both had things to do in the morning so we called it quits. Shawn managed to salvage his night and pull together a three fish total of 55.5. (20.25, 18, 17.25). All in all we did fairly well. We were both persistent (Shawn after dark and I in the thick algae) and it payed off.

8/27: Kayak Flathead, RED HOT!

Wednesday night Russ, Amanda, and I took to the river in search of flathead catfish from our kayaks. Since our last trip yielded a 46lb flathead, and several smaller ones, our hopes were riding high. Here's the report of how our trip went:

Tuesday night we went out to a local lake and gathered approximately 50 bluegill ranging from 4" to 7.5". I knew at the time that between the three of us (Amanda, Russ, and I) we had the potential to use every bit of the bluegill on the river the following day. With that in mind I set my alarm Wednesday morning an hour earlier than I needed to. I planned on meeting Russ the next day in hopes of getting out and finding a few more bluegill before we hit the river. I woke up around 9am and started loading all of our catfish gear into the car and onto the kayak trailer. At 1pm we met up with Russ at one of his bait holes. When Amanda and I pulled up to Russ' bait hole he had three pieces of bait in his bucket already. Russ said the bite was slow so we decided to head over to a different spot to see if we could find bait a little bit faster. After an hour and a half we decided to give it up and go buy a few pieces of live bait from a local bait store. We didn't necessarily need these baits but they would serve as a good insurance policy in case we started to run low. On the way to the bait store I accidentally lowered my back window instead of my driver window (still getting used to my car), and I then proceeded to shut the window. Somewhere along the line my ultra light combo had fell over and was leaning against this window, so when I accidentally rolled the window down the tip of the rod stuck out the window. As I began to close the window I heard a crunch.....which prematurely ended the life of a good rod. The damage had been done and there was nothing I could do about it but laugh, so I shook it off.

After we picked up bait Russ, Amanda, and I ran through the shuttle routine.....drop Russ' car off at the take out, load up his gear onto the trailer, drive over to the launch location, etc... By 3:30pm we were on the water and looking for buffalo. If you read the last blog you may already know that buffalo fishing has become one of our favorite daytime activities on the river. Flathead catfish rarely bite during daylight hours so we find it more productive to search out buffalo feeding on floating scum mats. (Note the different colored text.....keep this in mind!)

We paddled around for the first 15 minutes and quickly realized that the buffalo weren't feeding. The river was receding from a large rain event and was still a foot high and a slightly stained. Since the buffalo weren't feeding we decided to anchor up on  a couple of the deeper holes in the river and try our luck. This was also a way to use up some of the bluegill that had died over night. Before we went our separate ways and anchored on our own spots I had to give Amanda a few of the dead bluegill, which I had stored in a five gallon bucket in the back of my kayak. As I reached back and grabbed the bucket I heard something hit the water.....after further inspection I noticed a white hawg trough (standard measuring board) sinking like a stone in the current. This trip was quickly becoming quite costly.

Once again I shook it off. I anchored up on the head of a hole and began tossing pieces of cut bluegill out along current breaks. Ten minutes later one of my bait clickers began going off. I grabbed the rod and swung for the fences....and connected. The fish stayed low and began working its way into the swifter water near the middle of the river. It never took line but it felt heavy. After a two minute tug of war competition I realized that it wasn't a fish at all, rather a giant leatherback turtle. This trip was not turning out how I had imagined it.

After an hour and only a turtle to show for our efforts we decided to head down stream to the next deep hole. Once again I decided to take the head of the hole. I quickly tied myself off to a tree that was sticking out of the water. Russ paddled downstream to the core of the hole and positioned himself on the bank near the calmer deep water. Amanda found a school of feeding buffalo so she began drifting chunks of night crawler to them. Less than five minutes later my bait clicker started going off. I set the hook and connected once again, and then I quickly realized a problem with my choice of location. The current where I had chosen to anchor was pretty swift, which made for landing/fighting even the smallest fish a difficult task. After a 3 minute battle, which should have taken 30 seconds, I landed my first fish of the trip.

You can see above that the current is literally ripping around my kayak. This is not the kind of place I like to put myself in when fishing for big fish in deep water. 

I quickly snapped a few pictures for kayakwar points and tossed my rod back out. A few minutes later I hear Russ yell that he's got one. I couldn't make out everything he said because the current was making sounds as it rushed past my bait bucket, transducer arm, and kayak. Amanda was located in between Russ and I and she caught the whole comment. She looked over to me and said, "He said he had a GOOD one!" I yelled down to him that I was on my way. I quickly began reeling in rods and unwrapped my anchor.

As I rounded the bend I saw Russ with his rod doubled, tip nearly hitting the water, and kayak scooting toward the middle of the river. I paddled up within 15 feet of him and began getting the net ready. He then proceeded to tell me that he couldn't do anything with the fish. It was on bottom and it wouldn't come up for anything. I watched his drag slip a few times as he lifted the rod and applied pressure. He had 40lb monofilament on his rod and from what I could tell he could still afford to crank the drag down tighter.  He really had no choice at this point, the river bottom was littered with trees and it was only a matter of time before the flathead found one and wrapped him up. With a couple cranks of the drag Russ was able to make some progress and pull the fish free from the bottom. Now this is where things began to get interesting. We were both drifting down a river, he being propelled by a fish and current and myself being propelled by current. It took less than thirty seconds for the flathead to pull Russ within an arms distance of my kayak. I quickly began to back paddle but it only seemed to make things worse. At one point Russ was actually fighting the fish around my kayak. Eventually, the fish made his way back around Russ' kayak and we were able to push off of each other. The fish then began boiling the water at the surface each time it made a run. We could tell that this was a long fish, the point at which the line went into the  water was a good 40" or more from the boils that the fish was putting off with its tail. Eventually, Russ got the catfish to surface within an arms reach. It was a pig and he wasn't waiting for me to come over with the net. He quickly leaned over and grabbed the fishes lower jaw. At that point I paddled over and got the net under the rest of the fish. Now we had to get to the bank to get pictures and get a weight. Russ reeled in his other rod and gave me the net. (my kayak is deeper so I could securely hold the fish and paddle over to the bank.) We paddled over to the bank and began snapping pictures.

It went 42" (when straight) and 36lbs 8oz in the net....with the net deductions it weighed 35lbs 3oz. This was certainly the right way to start a trip! We took pictures, weighed the fish, and then released her back to be caught another day. We paddled back upstream and tossed a few baits out and waited till 8:30pm before we decided to head downstream and start working some shallower wood covered shorelines. We got anchored right at dark and started tossing out baits. I started at my spot with two live bluegill. I placed one five to ten feet off of the bank and the other about 30 feet off of the bank in the deeper water. Literally within seconds of placing my last rod down, the rod that I had placed near the bank began to get a bite. It pulled my bait clicker and then stopped, five seconds later it pulled a little more and then stopped again. I quickly got impatient and picked the rod up and waited for the fish to pull the slack out of the line.....swing and a miss. Over the next hour I got nearly a dozen runs and missed well over half of them. I did however land three small fish, the first of which was a small flathead tjust short of the length needed for kayakwar points, the second was a 22" channel, and the third was a flathead in the 25" range.

At 11pm Russ and Amanda were ready to head downstream and give another spot a shot. We each went our own way and dropped anchor. This spot was no different than the last. Lots of bites near the bank, and a lot of missed hooksets. The fish were either too small to get the whole bait in their mouth or very smart. Amanda ended up landing a nice channel in the 25-28" range thirty minutes after setting up anchor, however she was after bigger fish and decided not to take a picture with it. After a couple hours in this spot everyone was ready to move on and find more active fish. At this point I was on my last piece of bait so I had to bum bait off of Amanda and Russ, who seemed to be having a slow night judging by the amount of bait they had left.

We found another spot nearly a half mile down stream and began tying off to limbs and anchoring on the bank. Russ took the head of the log jam, Amanda the core, and I took the end of the log jam. I found a nice spot with a clean bank about 20 yards upstream from a log jam and overhanging tree. I buried my anchor in the sand on the bank and began tossing out my rods. Within ten minutes the rod that I had placed closest to the bank began to get a bite. I grabbed the rod, dropped the rod tip, engaged the reel, waited for the fish to take up the slack, and set the hook. The drag immediately began to slip as the fish made a hard run. This was a strong fish. About 45 seconds into the fight the fish found a piece of wood. I wasn't wrapped up too bad yet because I could still feel him swimming around. There just seemed to be a point where I couldn't get him over a log or something, so I pulled anchor and went out to fight him from the other side. A couple minutes and several strong runs later I landed what I believed to be my first 20lb flathead from this river. (Russ and I joke all the time that the river doesn't hold fish in the 20-30lb class. We have caught dozens of flathead with a few over 30lbs and yet to get one in the 20-30 lb range.) I yelled up to him and told him that I had a "20", eager to see this mysterious creature he paddled down to investigate. He immediately said, "Nope......not quite 20. Maybe 18." Onto the scale she went...........and Russ was right, not quite 20lbs.

It went 35" and 17lbs. At this point it was 3am, everyone had pulled off anchor, and was sitting around. We had a 30 minute paddle back and an hour or so in loading up/getting the vehicle at the put in location. I knew Amanda was ready to leave, but I wasn't quite done yet. We managed to pull enough energy together to hit one last spot. I anchored downstream of everyone again and began tossing baits out. The rod near the bank was hot again, I quickly picked up an additional two flathead with the largest being 28" and in the 8-10lb range.

At 4am we decided to call it quits and make the paddle back. All in all we had a pretty good trip. Everyone caught a flathead, Amanda even got a nice channel cat, Russ caught a pig at 35lbs 3oz, and we all had a pretty good time. Maybe it will be Amanda's turn for a giant next time!