First Ohio Bass of 2012!!

March 11th, 2012-

Just the simple fact alone that we're able to fish on March 11th is fantastic. The weather this year has been unseasonably warm with little to no ice all winter. It will make for an interesting fishing season to say the least. Chris and I took advantage of the 65 degree day yesterday and went to a local spot on Hilliard in hopes to put the first fish of 2012 on the board.

We worked one side of the pond for nearly 45 minutes without getting a bite. I was working senko's sloooow and on the bottom thinking the fish wouldn't move much to hit a bait. As I got around the far side of the lake I was pulling the senko through some heavy cover and felt a biggun come up and absolutely CLOBBER the bait! FISH ON!!!

Ended up being 20", close to 4.5 to 5lbs! INCREDIBLE for my first Ohio Bass of 2012, and the middle of March!!!

Chris caught a very nice Crappie and I ended up catching 2 more pretty nice ones. We were going out hoping to get 1 bite and ended up putting 4 in the boat in just 1.5 hours! A sign of things to come???

Disney 2012

March 1st, 2012-

Much to my dismay our annual trip to Disney did not reproduce last year's 12.1 pound MONSTER that Toby caught. Just for good measure, let's see her again

It wasn't for a lack of effort though. This year we loaded up with 5 rods and reels and enough tackle to catch every fish on Disney property. Twice.

The first day was promising. We caught 20+ between the 4 of us (I caught 9, the most by far...for the record) and Todd caught a very nice 6lber that went 22".

Kughn also caught this very nice 4lber off the dock in front of the bar, with many onlookers OHHing and AHHing

The next night I caught 11, including this very nice 4lber right in the same spot Toby caught the 12lber last year.

Then, the bite died off. We fished every night, worked our tails off to only catch a few a peice. But hey, at least we were wetting a line while it was cold and crappy in Ohio.

However, we did experience a 1st...A 4 foot Gator was trolling for dinner and Kughn, being the redneck from Zanesville that he is, decided it would be a good idea to try to hook up and land the gator. After failing to get a hookset several times on a worm he switched to a topwater. the moment the torpedo hit the water the Gator went into "Kill Mode." Nothing mattered to him besides eating the bait. Well, Mr. Gator didn't anticipate there being a guy from Zanesville trying to catch his ass.
The gator ate the topwater and Kughn let him have it for a while before BLASTING it with an earth shattering hook set. GATOR ON!!! He fought it for nearly 20 minutes trying to land it by grabbing its tail. Eventually after hundreds of death rolls the gator managed to spit out the topwater bait. A damn good fight, and a damn good story as only Jim Kughn can produce

Lake Toho: Rollinbass

December 10th, 2011-

Mark it down. 12/10/2011. Best day of fishing I've ever experienced. Dotson and I decided that Columbus sucks in December and took a trip to Orlando to charter the legendary Lake Tohopekaliga. Lake Toho is constantly rated as one of the top Largemouth fisheries in the world. 12lb+ bass sounded way better than freezing rain
We chartered with Captain Dean Puller of Gatorbass.com and had an absolute blast. We met Captain Dean at the dock and hopped in the boat. Dean was a terrific guide and an absolute hysterical charactor. After a 3 minutes ride in the boat we were at a patch of grass and catching fish. There is quite a bit of hydrilla and thick grass beds in Toho and we were nailing them right off the edges of the beds. 1 after another on the Carolina rig got tiresome, so we switched to wild live shiners. They're 6-8" live minnows that Bass just go bonkers for. Within minutes of the rig hitting the water there'd be a big ol Bass on it. No wonder shiners are nicknamed Bass Crack.

Once the shiners came out the action got ridiculous. There was fish on every pole. We barely had time to take pictures! It was Chaos in the boat. Our arms were getting dead tired from fighting the fish. We lost track around 30 and ended up landing 60+ in 6 hours. Dotson caught the biggest going 7.5 but most were in the 3-5lb range. I caught a new Personal Best Largemouth 6lb 6oz.
Captain Dean with gatorbass.com did an outstanding job and I'll definitely be back down to see him again. Thanks to the Dotson's for sharing an incredible weekend with Heather and I! Enjoy the pics:

One of many quality Largemouths

 Dotson with a powerful hookset!

Dotson his best of the day. 7lber!

These were the average size we were catchin all day. Giant's in ohio but small for Florida!

Monster hog!!

1st one on the Carolina Rig

Dotson holding another hog, me holding the camera. Again.

Good ol 3.5 to 4lber

2011 Season in Review Part 1

November 24th, 2011-
What a wacky fishing season...as soon as the water unfroze the heavens opened up and dumped rain on my pre-spawn parade. It rained something like 36 of 42 days. As soon as the monsoon season stopped it went directly to Death Valley-like conditions from Memorial Day until September. However, we still managed to get out and catch a hell of alot of fish. New spots were discovered, new techniques perfected, and bass were rolled. Here's a photo gallery of some of the better Bass we caught in 2011. One of these cold winter days I'll include a story or 2 behind some of the more memorable fish...or not.

Running Marathons and Rolling Bass

Again, Dotson's holding a 6+lber and I'm holding the camera

Yet Another 3lber from Mt. Vernon

Corey with 1 of many giants caught livebaiting in the Darby

Topwater Yum Dinger pig!

My personal Best LM caught in April. 6.2lbs!

Why am I always holding the camera for this dude!?

5lber straight ANGLED off a bed in Tennesse while golfing

All day, everyday in Mt. Vernon

Toby with another quality Mt. Vernon Bass

The biggest of 46 pictures caught in 4 hours in July! 4.5lber!

This picture might have been taken the day Yuengling hit ohio

Toby with 1 of 30 fish caught on an epic day jerkbaiting flukes

The Asian Sensation rollin smalleys!

19" Darby Smalley!

Mikey with an incredible Smallmouth!

1 of 46 fish caught on this epic day in July!

18" Darby Smalley on the last cast! NEVER GIVE UP!

PB Smalley on the Darby!

3lber at Waldrens early spring!

22" Fish Ohio Smallmouth caught on the Darby

See a theme here? It's Corey holding giant smallies and me holding the camera

This just in! I'm a slacker...

October 18th 2011-
So I totally Slacked this year updating my Blog...but that doesn't mean we weren't out catching great fish. Between a demanding job, a demading wife, and marathon training my free time was very limited. I'll just post a bunch of he pics from the year and maybe this winter i'll go back and write up the stories behind the fish. But probably not. Since, you know, I'm a slacker and all....Here's everything but the Bass which I'll post seperately. Enjoy!



My First Striper!



How come Poppa Rob is always catchin Carp???

14" Fish Ohio Crappie!

One of my favorite pictures with my favorite fishin' buddy

5.5lb Sheepshead caught out of the Darby!

EPIC day!!

May 21st, 2010-

Rain, rain, go away...

Central Ohio has had only 11 of the last 60 days where it hasn't rained. The water levels in the rivers and ponds are at record highs. While my grass is as green as i've ever seen it, it doesn't do much good for the fishing. This is the 6 week span that every angler dreams about...the 6 weeks that gets me through winter. The late april through May period where the big females expose themselves to spawn, and Males sit on beds protecting the spawing area. And the rain is ruining it all. Once that water temp reaches 60, they're going to start spawning regardless of my feelings about the matter. Selfish bastards...all i want to do is have my picture taken with you! Is that too much to ask?

We FINALLY got a reprieve in the weather today. Forecast was 80 and sunny after a cold front this week that had the highs in the 50's. Dotson, Mevers and I met up to see if this was going to be one of those Epic warm spring days, or one of the sunny hot days that push fish into deeper colder water.

All week we had been looking forward to the Ohio Smallmouth Alliance meeting where they'd talk about conservation, lure building (the boring stuff) and then we'd all disperse to the Darby to wack my favorite fish: the Smallmouth Bass. However, the rain has raised the water levels higher than snoop dogg, and the water flow was so fast they cancelled the meeting. We decided to go to Marysville and wack the hell out of some smaller bass since we were all itching to set some hooks.

I joked that the winner of our Derby would have to catch 25 fish. I was short...I ended up with 33, Dotson with 32 and Mevers with 21. We WACKCKED em. I DESTROYED fish on topwater like I've never done before. Hands down, top water is my favorite way to catch fish. The sun was shining, the beer was cold and the fish were biting. If that nutjob was right and the world ended today, it woulda been a-okay in my book...

After nailing a ridiculous amount between the 3 of us, mevers and I decided to go search for some big one's at a private pond in Delaware. This place was POPPIN. We continued banging em up. Here's some pics of the bigger ones: