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!

8/20: Flathead Catfish, The one that DIDN'T get away!

Here's two fishing reports from my last two days of fishing. The first trip I spent bass fishing with Shawn at a local lake where we had been on a 20+" bass streak for well over 5 trips. We changed things up a bit and still managed to break 20" on a single fish....it wasn't a largemouth though. The second trip I spent with Russ flathead fishing  the following night. We each found a few nice buffalo feeding on floating scum mats before dark. As the sun fell over the tree tops the action really picked up........

8/19: 

Tuesday night Shawn Skidmore and I decided to head out and see if we could find a few 20" bass after dark. For the past few weeks I had been thinking about hitting the deep end of the lake in search of night-time bass. I specifically wanted to target a couple of shallow flats and rip rap points near 40+ feet of water. In theory these spots seemed like solid choices since the bass had less room to feed than they did at our other spots. If the bass were feeding at night near the deeper water they would have no choice but to be roaming the only shallow water available. That was my thought anyway. Shawn seemed to like the idea of fishing new water so that's exactly what we did.

Shawn and I met up at 7pm and hit the water. I knew the water very well so I began the trip by pointing out a few main lake points and drop offs that we could fish at night. After about 30 minutes of paddling and talking about where we could fish Shawn was ready to wet a line. We began on a shallow flat near 35 feet of water. The flat itself was 6-12 feet deep and expanded 2-3 acres. The banks were lined with rip rap and the back of the creek arm was covered in thick vegetation. If we were going to find a big fish, this was definitely the spot to do so, or so I thought. Shawn and I worked the banks and the drop off with creature baits but struggled to find fish. In the next hour and a half I picked up 2 small bass and Shawn missed a couple small ones. At this point we decided to start working our way back to the boat ramp and fish some of the main lake points that I had pointed out earlier. As we rounded the rip rap point we started working the steep bank that was riddled with fallen trees. I was in the lead and Shawn was working 10 yards behind me. I made a long pitch up under a tree and hopped my bait twice when I felt a solid thump! I reeled down on the slack and set the hook but nothing was there. I reeled in my bait to find that the greedy fish had made off with one of my claws. I looked back at Shawn and told him that it must had been a bluegill. I reached down into my bag, grabbed another bait, and began threading it onto my hook when I heard Shawn pull in a nice bass. His bass went a little over 17", which scored him 10 points for his Kayak Wars team. He began taking pictures of his bass on the hawg trough and I went back to working the banks. On my very next cast I hoped my bait once and felt another solid thump. I reeled down and set the hook, this time I connected! Halfway through my swing I felt weight, and a lot of it. The fish didn't move a whole lot at first but I could feel it swimming back and forth. I looked up to Shawn and told him that I thought I had a big catfish. I continued to work myself over top of the catfish and then it proceeded to pull me around for a couple of minutes. Eventually I pulled the catfish within reach and slipped my hands into its mouth. The flathead went 30" and 14.5lbs....quite the battle for a bass rod.

We continued working down the bank and picked up another half dozen bass before the bite went dead. We fished the next hour and a half and only managed 1 or 2 small bass. The main lake points failed to produce any fish. At 11pm Shawn and I had made our way back to the boat ramp and we began discussing our options. Shawn wanted to fish until midnight at the very minimum so we had a decision to make; (1) continue fishing down the banks near the boat ramp for an hour or more ,OR (2) head back to the rock point and fish where we had caught all of our fish just at dark? After a little debate we started paddling toward the rock point. I picked up a small bass behind Shawn within the first five minutes. Nearly 30 minutes later Shawn picks up another small bass. The fish seemed to be spread out and the average size was 13-14", so at 12:30am we decided to call it quits.



8/20

Friday I woke up around 9:30am and started swapping out my bass gear for my catfish gear. Not only did my rods and reels need to be swapped but so did my tackle boxes and nets. I also needed to grab a couple aerators, troll buckets, spot light, anchor, cutting board, filet knife, head lamp, etc. After an hour of running in and out of the garage I had everything loaded up and was ready to go. At 10:30am Russ sent me a text stating that he had gotten enough bait for the both of us. After a brief conversation we decided to wait until 2pm to meet up and hit the water.

At 2pm we met at our take out location and loaded all of his gear onto my trailer. From there we drove upstream a few miles and started unloading gear. We both took our time carrying gear 40 yards down to the water. While I was on the bank I decided to retie all of my rods just in case I had a bad spot in my line. Russ got on the water and immediately began paddling upstream to one of his buffalo honey holes. He quickly caught a small buffalo that went just shy of 24". Once I was ready to hit the water I paddled across the river and worked a log jam on the front side of a bridge pylon. The buffalo were everywhere I looked, sucking scum in every spot that it collected. I spent the better part of an hour working a floating jig head with a piece of bread around the scum but failed to get my first buffalo. This type of fishing was becoming very frustrating.

At one point Russ and I were paddling side by side when all of a sudden we spotted a school of buffalo sucking on scum that had accumulated on a root wad. Russ told me to go over and get them, however I insisted that he showed me how to catch these frustrating fish. It was a challenge that he was willing to accept. Like a ninja Russ stealthily paddled over to the root wad and dropped his floating jig head tipped with nightcrawler into the scum where the buffalo were feeding. The first drop was a miss, but the second drop landed perfectly just mere inches from a buffalo's open mouth. He set the hook and the water exploded as the buffalo that he had hooked pulled drag and spooked the other dozen buffalo in the area. Soon enough Russ had landed the 24" buffalo, which was good enough for 10 points for our kayak war team.

Eventually I found my first buffalo of the trip, a small 22" buffalo from a school of 40 or more.

Russ, the buffalo expert went on to land 2 more buffalo over the 24" mark.

Eventually the sun began to set over the tree tops and the buffalo fishing was the least of our concern. We found a nice cut out bank with several fallen trees and set up for catfish. I tied off to a log running parallel to the current and tossed out a couple live bluegill. Russ anchored 40 yards downstream and tossed a couple baits out as well. The first bite didn't come until an hour or better after dark. Russ made quick work of the 24" flathead, it was a nice start to our evening but not quite what we were looking for. I eventually made a move downstream 60 yards and across the river from Russ. I found a nice hole, 12' deep, with 1 single tree in the core. This was the last deep water before a major riffle so I decided to give it a shot. During my paddle from spot to spot one of my bluegill had died so I cut his head off and tossed it to the outside of the fallen tree. Before I could even get my second rod out I heard the bait clicker go off. The fish pulled about 6" of line out and then dropped my bait. Five minutes later the clicker went off for the second time, once again pulling about 6" of line out. Eventually I picked the rod up and waited for a tug, and then I set the hook hoping to get the turtle, gar, or small catfish that was playing with my bait. I failed to connect but I did manage to get my bait back so I tossed it out a little further, hoping to get away from whatever had been pecking at my bait. Ten minutes later that rod began get a bite and the bait clicker began rolling slow and steady. I dropped my rod, engaged the reel, and set the hook.  Whatever it was I got it this time around, and after a brief battle I brought the flathead into the kayak. 

The flathead went 30", good enough for kayak wars so I snapped a quick picture. I sat in this spot and proceeded to get another 2 runs but failed to hook another fish. It appeared that the small fish were using this area to feed, maybe avoiding the bigger fish while they were feeding elsewhere???

Russ and I met up downstream and made our way through the next major riffle. Below the riffle we each took a side of the river and set up just upstream from where we thought the fish would be. I chose to set up on the head of a log jam, and Russ chose to fish a rip rap bank. I quickly tossed out two live bluegill, one of which was an 8.5" green sunfish and the other was a 5" green sunfish. The smaller bait was placed 10 feet off of the bank and the larger bait was placed 25 feet off of the bank. I sat around for 30 minutes without a bite. Eventually, I grabbed my phone and began scanning my news feed on facebook.....after 10 minutes I had read enough. Every now and then the big green sunfish would pull bait clicker and get my attention, but the clicker would stop and the line would slack up. At one point I leaned back in my seat and started looking for shooting starts, and thats when the rod with the large green sunfish began to click.......and click......and click. I sat up straight grabbed the rod, turned off the clicker mechanism, engaged the reel, waited for the line to tighten, and then set the hook. What I then felt was a large amount of weight. My rod was doubled and the fish wasn't taking line or letting me take line. Either this was a large fish or I was snagged, and then I felt two hard head shakes. With each head shake it felt like my line swayed 2 feet each way. My heart began to race. The fish made a quick run toward the bank and made a massive swirl 10 yards in front of me, my heart had now moved to my throat. I yelled across the river to Russ and told him I had hooked a good one. The fish then began running upstream, eventually puling the nose of my kayak off of the bank and dislodging my anchor. I was now floating with the fish, everywhere he went so did I. He eventually made his way into the line of my second rod. At this point I began to replay every lost fish in my mind. I thought about losing the fish to a bad hookset, a snag, breaking my line, breaking a rod, floating into a logjam, pretty much anything that could go wrong. After what seemed like 3 minutes the fish surfaced and at that point I knew it was big. I pulled the fish within grasp and I leaned over to grab the the flathead by the mouth when it decided it wasn't quite finished yet. It turned, threw water all over me, and then proceeded to rip drag. I knew that I couldn't let that happen again so I leaned forward and grabbed the net. On the next pass I managed to get the head of the fish in the net. At this point I still had tension on the line but the fish was 3/4 of the way out of the net. I lifted the net but it only seemed to make matters worse. I eventually used my foot to push another 1/4 of the fish into the net. At that point I felt confident in dropping my rod, grabbing the rim of the net,  and then working the rest of the fish into the net.  It was without a doubt a new personal best, the question now became; by how much? I told Russ that I had the fish in the net and that I would need some assistance. He asked how big and I replied, "Over 40 for sure, but I don't know about 50." Eventually he paddled over and we worked ourselves closer to the bank and began snapping pictures.

44"

Hawg Troughs......doing it right!!!!

We snapped a dozen or more pictures, put the fish back into the net and sat it in the water for a few minutes. We then repeated the process again. The result was the pictures you see above. As always Russ did a great job on the camera. THANKS RUSS!!!!!

The final count was 44" long and 47lbs 7oz in the net, the net weighs 1lb 5oz. so the fish went 46lbs 2oz. I dropped the fish into the water and let it, and I, recover. In less than 20 seconds it began thrashing around and was ready to swim off. (Hopefully to be caught again!) Russ and I then just sat around and talked about that fish. I kept asking him if he would have believed me if I had lost that fish? "If I told you I lost a nearly 50lber would you believe me?" I then reminded him of all of the big bass I had lost recently, some that would had shattered my personal best. "I doubt anyone believes those stories Russ" I told him. In my head I kept telling myself, If there was ever one fish this year that I didn't want to lose......this was it.

Russ and I then spent the next hour bouncing from spot to spot but the bites disappeared.  Russ had to take his daughter to kindergarten in the morning and I had work. So at 2am we called it quits.

Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail's Kiser Kayak Classic

Last Friday Russ, Amanda, and I drove up to St. Paris and set up camp with a few of our fellow kayak anglers. A dozen or more anglers had spent the day pre-fishing for the tournament, while others decided to simply kick back and relax. Jim Martin found success early in the day landing a three good fish, including a 21.5" tank . Other anglers weren't as fortunate however....Shawn Skidmore, leader of the BKFT Big Bass Challenge with a five fish average of 21",  came off of the water with his head down and confidence broken.

We arrived at the campground around 7pm and decided not to hit the water. Our game plan was simple, not to make a game plan. Now it wasn't because we didn't know the lake or that we were too lazy to pre-fish, but rather because of the sheer numbers of anglers anticipated to fish the tournament in the morning. On several occasions I had heard that there would be an excess of 50 anglers at the event Saturday morning. Fifty anglers on a 300 acre lake would surely make finding spots pretty tough.

Friday night we sat around the campfire, had a few drinks, and talked to our fellow kayak anglers. Stories of killer beaver (Russ) and killer swans (Chase) were repeated for the second and even third times, which even ignited the great debate of Swan versus Beaver. The debate became, which would be worse to encounter in a kayak a beaver or swan?  "You saw what that goose did to Drew Gregory right?......A swan is three times bigger than a goose!"......."Oh yea, well a Beaver can chew a tree down......imagine what it could do to your leg!" In the end I think the beaver edged out the swan as many anglers agreed that having a swan attack you in a kayak would be more preferable than having a beaver armed with razor sharp teeth and a bone crushing tail climb into your yak. At 1am we all retired to our tents and set our alarms for the next morning.

Anglers began rolling out of their sleeping bags around 6am. Some anglers began tinkering with rods and tackle while others hit the snooze button several times. I woke Amanda up around 6am and then proceeded to unload our kayaks and gear. Russ rolled out of his sleeping bag around 6:40, with less than 20 minutes to check in. At 6:45 we walked over to the check in location near the beach to find several dozen cars unloading their kayaks.

With nearly 20 kayaks on the water at the campground and nearly 30 kayaks on the ground near the beach it appeared we had exceeded 50 anglers. I walked around and found a few familiar faces, I took pictures, shook hands, etc. A little after 7 we had our brief captains meeting which highlighted the tournament rules, check in times, etc.  Ten minutes later the meeting was over and everyone took off from the beach. Kayaks started heading every direction, and those fortunate enough to have a peddle powered yak set the pace.

Russ, Amanda, and I casually walked back over to the campground and made our final preparations. We launched from the campground and began scouting the shoreline for any available openings. Straight across from the campground we found a spot that spanned  50 yards between two kayak anglers, with no better options available we paddled over. We tucked into the pads and began working frogs, poppers, creature baits, etc. Russ quickly picked up a couple small fish by fishing shad schools on the main lake. Amanda and I worked the lily pads, but failed to find any fish early. Eventually the kayak anglers in front of us decided to paddle across the lake, which opened up a rather large section of lily pads for Russ, Amanda, and I. We paddled up the lake to the next section of pads and I quickly caught a 13" bass on a Texas rigged creature bait just outside of the pad edge. A few minutes later Amanda got her first fish as well, also a 13" bass. Now these weren't fish that we were too particularly proud of, but with the given conditions (constantly fishing behind people) I figured that 43-45" would get us in the top ten and possibly get our entry fee back. We continued to work down the shoreline and at one point we had caught back up to a group of kayak anglers. We sat around for a while and tried to decide whether or not to pass them or just stay where we were when all of a sudden they took off paddling across the lake as well. This was the second time this had happened, which had me thinking that someone on the other side of the lake had caught a few fish and the word had gotten out. Either way I was happy to continue working down the bank and flipping the lily pads.

At this point is was nearly 11am and we were struggling to find fish. Russ had two fish for 27" and Amanda and I each had one at 13". We paddled 30 yards up the lake and started fishing again. After a couple casts Neil showed up and started talking to Joel Hains about fishing. He then paddled down to us and started talking as well. I asked if he had heard of any big fish yet and he said that he had heard of at least one 17" fish and a couple people in the mid 40" range with their three fish total. I told him that we were struggling to find our first three fish.  He wished us luck and paddled back down the lake. Within minutes I picked up a 15" and a 14" fish on creature baits while working the pad edges. Amanda started getting bites on her creature bait as well. She was tired of switching back and forth between the Texas rigged creature bait and a hollow body frog so she chose to employ a new technique. She was tossing her Texas rigged chigger craw into the pads and bringing it across them like she would a hollow body frog, as she came to pockets of open water she would let her bait fall to the bottom. I had used this technique in the past with a weightless plastic on thick vegetation mats, but never before with any weight. She quickly caught a 14" bass on this technique about 10 yards behind me.

We only had one Hawg Trough (Measuring Board) between the two of us so I paddled down to her and helped her take a picture of her fish. I then paddled 30 yards up the lake, around Joel and Russ, when I heard her say she had hooked another one. At this point I had just spent 8 minutes or better paddling to her, helping her get a picture of her fish, paddling back up the lake to my spot, and now I had to paddle back to her again. I was not happy to say the least. I turned around to see her rod doubled over but not moving. She was surely snagged, so I sat and waited for her to tell me it was just a snag. However, she was persistent that the fish was still on the line and wrapped up in the lily pads. I paddled 30 yards down the bank, mumbling not so nice comments under my breath, watching her rod for movements the whole time. I eventually pulled up beside her and asked if she still had a fish on, to which she replied, "I don't know." I paddled into the pads 10 yards and grabbed her line where it entered the water. I felt a lot of weight but it felt too heavy to be a fish. I could move it off of bottom a foot before the braided line started to cut my hand. At this point I looked back at her and said, "I think you've snagged a tree branch." I gave it another strong tug to see if I could pull the limb close enough to the surface to grab it and untangle her line. As I pulled the line it began to cut my hand again so I dropped my hand let the line go slack, and that's when I felt something tug back. "He's still on there" I told her. I grabbed the line again and started pulling from different directions when all of a sudden I felt something break free. I could pull now pull another 6-8" of slack out of the line. I began pulling the slack up and that's when I saw it. Wrapped around 2 lily pad stems was the giant head of a largemouth. He wasn't moving at all, to be fair he didn't have an inch of line to play with.  I didn't do anything at first, quite frankly because I didn't know what to do. It was a foot under the water so I'd have to put some pressure on it to get it up and close enough to the surface to grab the fish, and at that point the line would most certainly break. I had a net that I could use but I was afraid that if I touched the net to the fish that he/she would start thrashing around and throw the hook. I looked over to Amanda and gave her the, "You've got to be kidding me" look. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "What." I just shook my head and said, "Its a big bass." At that point she perked up in her seat and started watching every move I made. The best plan I could come up with was to grab the fish without spooking it. If I pulled the line to hard it would break. If I tried to break the lily pad stems by hand the fish could work itself free and possibly jump and throw the hook. If I touched it with a net I could spook it.  I took a deep breath and started pulling her line up toward the surface once again. I got the fish within sight and slowly lowered my arm into the water. I tried to move very slowly as not to freak the fish out. I buried my arm up to my elbow before I felt the fishes mouth. I slid my thumb into the corner of its mouth and it went nuts. I kept a firm grip and pulled it out of the water, snapping the lily pad stems along the way. It was a big bass, but now the question was how big? The answer.....22.25"

At this point we began crunching the numbers.....there were 59 anglers, maybe 50 of which payed into big fish. Give or take this fish would be worth around $250. I then told her that if she could upgrade her 13" fish to a 16" fish she would have a shot at winning first place as well as big fish! From that point on she was in it to win it. She stood up and made every cast count, stomping her feet the floor of her kayak when she missed a fish.

It was just the spark that Russ and I needed as well, we also got back into the grove of things. Russ finally picked up his third fish of the day on a frog....which happened to be his first frog bass ever. A solid bass at 17"

Ten minutes later I picked up a 16.25" to bring my three fish to 14", 15", 16.25".

I felt pretty confident about cracking into the top ten with my three fish but to be honest I had my sights set on Amanda's three fish total. All I needed was a decent fish to give Amanda a run for her money.  She had 49.25 with her three fish total, which meant I needed a 19" fish or two 17" fish to tie her. It wasn't impossible but very unlikely. About an hour later Russ yelled over and said, "The words out!" I turned and looked across the lake to see at a minimum of 15 kayaks heading our way. We debated on letting everyone have our spot, one we had sat on for the better part of an hour and a half, and then heading across the lake to the spots they had just left from. We ended up waiting for the boats to arrive and talked to a few of the anglers. Each one of them had asked about Amanda's big fish and even told us how they were doing. Most guys were struggling to find fish over 14", they had three fish but very few of them had any size. Things were starting to look up for Amanda, maybe she could pull off a first place finish with one big bass and two small ones. Eventually, Jeff Bennett came from around the bend and started talking with us. He had around 45" and was looking to upgrade a 13" fish. We told him what we had caught and how it all happened. After talking with everyone for 20 minutes we all decided to paddle down the lake and fish back to the campground.

Along the way I picked up another decent fish to add to my three fish total, a 16" fish.

At this point I knew that all I needed was a 17" fish now to beat Amanda, which I felt was rather attainable. Russ, Amanda, and I worked our way down to the campground, eventually making our way into a crowd of 15 anglers sitting 30 yards from the campground. It was a little after 2, we had slept very little the night before, had ate nothing all day, and it was now raining lightly and windy.........we were ready to get off the water. So 45 minutes early, we pulled our kayaks out of the water....a decision that I later discovered would turn out to bite us in the butt. As we started walking toward the check in I heard Neil say,  "You quit too early...... Two anglers landed 20" fish 20 yards from the campground with less than thirty minutes to spare." Persistence had rewarded those tough enough to stay on the water.

We walked over to the measure in site and began taking peoples badges and SD cards. After 40 minutes of measuring fish we all waited to hear the results. (I'll hit the highlights here but be sure to check out all of the results at the Buckeye Kayak Fishing Trail website.) Russ had placed 12th and won his entry fee back. Shawn Skidmore landed a 20" bass with 30 minutes to go which propelled him into seventh place. Larry Haines landed 2 small fish and a nearly 18" fish to propel him into 5th. Jeff Bennett had three decent fish which was good enough for 4th. I took third with my three decent fish and won $150. In 2nd was Aaron Stiger with 2 of his top three fish coming 20 yards from the campground with 45 minutes to go, including one 20" fish. Both Shawn and Aaron earned their money with persistence. And finally in first place with the big fish pot was Amanda.

  She ended up with 49.25" in three fish and walked away with two trophies and over $500 in cash. (The largest payout in BKFT history.)

All in all everyone had a good time. We wanna thank everyone who came out to this event, and our sponsors who made it all possible. If you haven't checked out Smack Tackle, KFA Sponsor and BKFT Sponsor, please do so. http://www.smacktackle.com