Have Yak Will Travel- March 29th, 2017

        
Today Jared and I prefished three more area in an effort to find where we wanted to spend our time. We talked to everybody and anybody who would talk to us at gas stations and launch ramps about where the fish are and what they were hitting. I landed a 19.25 inch bass early off of a square bill on a wind blown rocky point. A pattern was starting to come together. I caught a few up shallow on a plopper but they were all dinks. The bigger fish seemed to be holding on secondary points that had rock with close access to main channel. It was great day of traveling and fishing on Kentucky lake.

All the Small Things- March 28th, 2017

           
Today was a mixed bag sort of day and the first of two prefishing days prior to the KBF NC's two tournament days. I did not want to beat any one spot up too much and did a lot of exploring and trying different lures. Jared and I fished three different places. I got bit on square bills in green tomato craw and magnum trick worms. We hit up three different areas by days end. I landed only small fish less than 12 inches along with a crappie or croppie as they call them in Kentucy and a sauger. My friend and fellow Summers County Kayak Bass Angler Brian Aliff had a day of a different sort. He landed a 25 inch 10 pound 2 oz. monster largemouth. The sad part is had he waited just one more day until the big bass brawl prefishing event began he would have ended up winning a $5,600 kayak package. Heck of a fish brain. A fun day to spend on the lake. We drove by and through and elk persever in Kentucky along the trace road. It was cool to see bison and elk both roaming open fields. We also saw some apache attack helicopters and blackhawks fly over at one point in the day.

Lighting Delay on Arrival- March 27th, 2017

    
After an 8.5 hour drive from Hinton, WV to Kentucky lake Jared and I were greeted with cloud to ground lighting. We got to fish an hour and 15 minutes at Moor's landing. I caught one largemouth off a riprap retaining wall and missed a big drum on a main lake point. Then the storm hit and did not let up until well after dark. We used the rest of the day to get settled into our house along with 11 other KBF NC qualifiers from WV. My initial impression of Kentucky lake is that it is beyond huge. KY lake is 163,000 acres, 2054 miles of shore line, and is 5 miles wide in sections. Not exactly yak water. But we will improvise and see what we can do. The lake itself is not overly developed like Smith or Guntersville. The land around it is wilderness for the most part that is full of wildlife. You gotta love that.

First Day of Spring- March 20th, 2017

      

On this the first Spring day of 2017 I went to Shanklins solo for a day of fishing. It started off cold but warmed up as the day went on. The water coming down from Clayor was dropping which made the bite hard to figure. With water falling and clear the smallie bite was scarce. I did manage to catch 2 smallies on green pumpkin tubes fished deadstick in water six feet deep or deeper that had moving water nearby. The squirrel pick came from as I was walking back to my truck he ran into and outhouse and jumped down the hole to get away from me. It did not take him long to jump back out. I saw only one other person all day long. Anyday you see more bald eagles than people you had a good day.

Miles floated = 1.75

Time fished = 4.25 hours

Fish per minute = 127.5 minute

Fish Lengths = 14" and 16"

President's Day Trout Hike - February 20th, 2017

      
Jared and I did some hiking, exploring and fishing today on Piney creek. We did a lot of walking over uneven rough terrain to get to the places we were fishing but the scenery was very much worth it. We managed to snag into a couple wild browns on our journey. Even though I live here West Virginia never ceases to amaze me with it's natural rugged beauty.

Panfish Day on Bluestone - February 18th, 2018

     
Brad and I headed to the lake on a warm Saturday morning for some panfishing. We were drop shotting crawlers in the deep channel between the two buoys on the main lake. We managed to catch 27 total. The biggest two fish belonged to Brad. He had a citation bluegill and a 15 inch spec to round out the day. We were averaging a fish every 17.7 minutes, not too bad for February.

All Beagles No Bunnies - January 21st, 2017

 
On a warm foggy Saturday morning the Cox family and myself headed out to find some rabbits with some new pups that Charlie was training up. The dogs worked around most of the morning but the fog lead only to two chases in which we could not see any rabbits. It was a fun morning to watch the dogs work and get a chance to be outdoors and talk.

Thinking Ahead to Fishing 2017/Looking Back on 2016 Year End Review

Next year looks to hold the promise of many exciting fishing adventures. 2017 will be the first full season for the Summer County Kayak Bass Anglers. We already have a joint event lined up with the SWVKA in August and are working on partnering with River Bassin tour as a qualifying event as well.  We will be changing to a points driven AOY system and will be awarding trophies at each event. I expect membership and participation will increase some as well this next season. I have made many new river friends through this organization that I started in July of 2016 and I hope to make many more in the year ahead.
   2017 will be my first ever start in the KBF National Championship event March 31-April 1st on Kentucky Lake in Paris, TN. I am looking forward to a week of pre-fishing, fellowship, and competition on kayak bass fishing's grandest stage.  The KBF organization will also be hosting not one but two national Open events in WV in 2017. One at Stonewall Jackson Lake in April and the WV KBF Open will return to the New River and Hinton, WV for a second straight year. I hope to keep work at bay long enough to fish both of theses events.  
    I hope to change the way I spend my time non-tournament fishing in 2017. I hope to spend more time on water I don't know and less time on water I already know so well. I hope to get a few more floats in on the New river in VA and see some sections of the New in WV I have yet to float. I also want to fish some sections of water in Summers County that do not see as much pressure as my usual haunts. I have a bad habit of allowing work and time to dictate where I go. All to often if it is easy to access it is also very pressured water at this point in the game. I do truly hope to fish at night, target some lesser pressured areas that are harder to access, make more data driven fishing decisions in the year ahead.
   2016 was a fun year to be in WV on the water that also had some remarkable and memorable days for me. My week long adventure on the South Branch of the Potomac and finishing 9th at WV KBF Open in September certainly rank up there for me.  I have dramatically increased my tournament fishing participation and feel that it will in time make me a better angler. I have really enjoyed getting to know and fish with a great many folks whom I only knew of distantly before. There is culture of brotherhood and friendship that exists in competitive kayak fishing that is not seen in other forms of competition. That being said lets take a look at the data and numbers I was able to archive from 2016.

Trips out on the Water in 2016 = 42
Average Fishing Outing = 4.59 hours
~ Hours spent on the water in 2016 = 192.2hours (8.03 days)
Total Fish Caught in 2016 = 711
Largest Fish of 2016 = 20.5inch Smallmouth
Average 3 Fish Limit (warm season only) = 40.9 inches
Biggest 3 Fish Limit of 2016 = 52.5 inches
Minutes per Fish Average 2016 = 16.3  (range 40.0-7.0)
Total Fish Caught since Jan. 2007 = 7,197
Fish per Year Average over last 10 years = 719.7

"Two in the BOX" - December 9th, 2016

Brad and I went on our annual doe meat hunt on this blue cold weekend. This year just happened to fall in muzzleloader season given my work schedule. As usual Lowell's farm did not disappoint.  After a quick hour and a half hunt Brad and I each had a nice three plus year old doe down and ready to prep for the freezer. Both deer went into the back of the Kabota and off to the barn to hang. It was a quick hunt but a productive one. It becomes shooting deer and not hunting deer when it takes more time to cut them up than kill them. It was a fun weekend and a good time was had by all.

Sugar Camp Doe - November 25th 2016

  
Ron Lilly would have been proud on this day, when his oldest granddaughter killed a legal doe. "Any legal deer" was often his creed when hunting public land in WV and VA. Avery got up at 5am two mornings in a row, missed time she could have been playing with her cousins, and braved the cold to get this shot. She made a solid behind the shoulder shot at around 15 yards. She was excited to have deer meat to eat and to have successfully killed her second deer. Avery killed this deer on her great Granddads Vernon Haslacker's family farm, the very same farm he grew up in and his Dad before him off of Stormy Dam Road in Jordan Run Grant County, WV.