Columbus Ohio Bans Night Fishing In City Parks

Fox 19 news reported that Columbus Ohio is banning fishing at night in their city parks between 11 PM and 7 AM.  They say it is from troublemakers that thought they would be safe as long as they had a fishing pole.  Once again a law is enforced because a few bad eggs ruin it for everybody. 

Realistically those people had ruined it for night fisherman in the city prior to now.  Most fisherman wouldn't even go into those parks at night to fish anyway.  There is too much crime.  Your chances of being robbed, beaten, raped, or vandalized were just about as good as your chances to catch a fish.

One of the reason's I moved away from Columbus was to get away from the crime.  It is crazy how bad the crime has gotten there.  My boys weren't allowed to play outside for fear of what could happen and was happening almost every day there.

Fishing in Jeopardy in South Central Kansas, North Central Oklahoma

A dust devil crosses the road in front of me.

This area may not have a lot of large lakes but it does have some good smaller bodies of water.  With the lack of rain and the overwhelming 27 days above 100 degrees already this year, these water sources are evaporating. 

Several rivers in the area have already stopped flowing and several have nothing but sand where water used to be.  Locals tell me they have never seen it like this.  The Medicine River is dry and you can't even see a pool of water as you drive across it near Kiowa, KS.

Lake levels are apparently low as well.  Over the 4th of July I heard that a couple of local lakes were closed to visitors due to low water levels.

This weekend we took a trip down to Enid, OK to check out the town.  On the way back to Kiowa, we stopped to look at Great Salt Plains Lake in Oklahoma.  What we saw there was beyond comprehension.  I had heard that the lake was shallow.  Now that the water levels are down the lake is not much more than a gigantic 8700 acre mud puddle. 

There were birds standing out in the water 200 feet from shoreline in 6 inches of water.  With the amount of lake there is there has to be some deeper areas that the fish can go.  Unfortunately, a lot of fish were unlucky enough to find that deep water.  The shores were lined with dead fish that likely may have died from getting stuck in too shallow of water or running out of oxygen from the combination of heat and low water.
                        

One of the Larger catfish that couldn't even float to bank as the water was too shallow

There was one catfish swimming through the water where we stopped.  It was a decent sized fish between 10 to 20 pounds.  Its fins were out of the water when it swam while it's lower side dragged against the muddy bottom.  It finally found its way from the dangerous grips of the shallows to a deeper channel that was still only a foot to a foot and a half deep.

The Great Salt Plains Lake is a beautiful lake.  It is large with lots of mature trees surrounding the Eastern end of the lake.  The Western end of the lake is just as spectacular with its salt flats.  Unfortunately the lake is unusable to any decent sized watercraft.  We did see a canoe coming onto shore.  The canoe had to be drug through the mud and shallow water about 50 feet from shore.

You can see the normal lake level

This area near the dam was only about a foot deep.

There is a auto tour trail North of the lake that is quite a spectacular drive.  It has some nice signs showing several different sized marshes.  The marshes were all dry as were most of the streams and rivers that flow into the lake.

The lake does look promising.  If it would come up around 4 - 5 feet it could be a very fun and usable lake.  That is if any of the fish survive these horrid conditions.

Too Hot to Fish?

Today Cherish has a swim meet, Todd will be going with her, so Christina and I will be watching 5 of the kids.  We cooked supper for everybody last night.  It takes a lot of food to put out a meal for 15 people.  We made some pretty good food.  We sauted chicken, mushrooms, snow peas and brocolli together in corn oil, then added it to parmesan noodles, the thin parmesean noodles out of a box.  Lastly we added sliced tomato to it.  We served it with corn and garlic toast.  We used 4 boxes of noodles and a whole loaf of bread.

Tonight should be a little easier since we are only feeding 7 of us. 

Tomorrow I am taking another half day of work off to try to get my drivers license.  Third times the charm.

I was considering going to The Salt Plains Lake in Oklahoma tomorrow evening to try my luck off the bank.  I heard it has catfish and Wiper and it's only a little over a half hour away.  I'm not sure I want to go over to the other house to get my fishing equipment though.

There's a wedding in town on Saturday that we will be going too.  At 110 degrees I would rather go to a wedding than fishing.  Ohio made me soft with those hot 80 degree days.

The Bass Scene in Kansas

As I was moving to Kansas I was looking at the surrounding waters to see where I would be fishing all of the time. The answer soon occurred to me, I won't be fishing all the time. There is not that much water close to where I live. I also have 2 boys that will be starting school, sports and other activities soon.

I won't be fishing every weekend like I did last year. I still plan to get in on some BFL action next season. Those tournaments will be 5 - 6 hours away. It will require me to use vacation, but I have to get back in the tournament scene.

I can't believe how many people I met in the bass scene the last two years. I met and hung out with lure manufacturer's, guy's that put together tournament series. I even got to hang out with and introduce my kids to this years BFL All American Champion at last years Regionals.

The bass scene was booming in Ohio. The fishing is awesome in Kansas and Oklahoma, but it seems like the bass scene is not as big here. We will see once I start getting into tournaments again. I didn't realize how many people in Ohio were into bass fishing until I started fishing tournaments and joined a club. Maybe the scene is just different here.

Our New Home - Kansas

You know it's been a long time since you posted when you can't remember your password to your blog site. There's a few excuses why I haven't blogged in a while.

1. I moved and have not had internet for over a month.
2. I'm too lazy to go to the library.
3. I haven't had a lot of content anyway.

We made the big move at the end of May over Memorial weekend. I thought we were going to get our house at that time so I accepted a position at the hospital to do purchasing and moved across the country.

We were not able to move into our house right away because the people we are going to be renting from are remodeling the house they will be moving in to. At first we were going to get the house in the middle of May, then the end of May, then the end of June. Now they are saying they might be in their new place by August. I'm hoping we will be in there by fall.

We have all of our belongings in the living room of that house and my boat in the garage. In the meantime we are living with our Sister and Brother in law and their nine children.

It has been a fun summer so far. I spent the first week with Mizike and Kimmer in Oklahoma. We caught up and did a little fishing at Thunderbird Lake. I caught a nice bass a nice catfish and a nice drum all on a rubber worm. We kept the drum to eat it. It was really a good tasting fish with big white flakes. It reminded me a lot of eating a walleye.

Here's Mizike with my catfish

                                          This is the Drum we ate!

Leo had a couple crappie to the bank but couldn't get them up onto the rocks where we were fishing and Mizike caught one crappie we ate for supper.

Once I got back to Kansas, (right on the Oklahoma border) I started my new job. We have been to see my parents and Christina's parents several times already, along with a reunion and my grandfather's 80th birthday party. It is nice to be close to family again.

This weekend has been my only other fishing trip. We fished Kaw Lake and Sooner lake in Oklahoma.  I didn't catch a thing but Leo, Mizike and Ryan all caught a fish a piece.  Mizike had the first fish.  He caught a little tiny, small, miniscule, itsy, teeny, catfish.  (That still doesn't help me get over the fact that he out fished me.)  Ryan caught a white bass.  We had saw them splashing the surface, chasing shad for a split second.  He got in there with the right bait and got one.  I had a gar on but the hook.  It pulled loose as it torpedoed away from the boat.  Leo out fished me again and had the biggest fish of the day when he pulled in a 2 1/2 to 3 pound channel cat nightfishing at Sooner lake.

It was extremely hot in the middle of the day when we did most of our fishing.  It was close to 110 degrees.  We had to jump in the lake a few times to cool off.  It wasn't ideal conditions for catching fish but it still seemed that we should have caught more fish at Kaw.  I would like to try it in the spring and fall to see if it is better then.  There's been too many times where I ruled out excellent fishing lakes from one trip to them, come to find out, years down the road, that they had awesome fishing.

Now I am dealing with trying to get cars and the boat tagged. I'm also attempting to get my driver's license before August when it expires. I have been to the DMV twice in the last 2 weeks. I have to take a half a day off to go then drive an hour each direction. The first time I had a birth certificate and my birth registration card along with everything else they asked for.

The said my birth certificate was the wrong one and they stopped accepting birth registration cards in 2007. I tried to order a new birth certificate from the state and they said since they were mailing it to a Kansas address I had to have a Kansas driver's license. WHAT???? That's what I need it for. Then they told me I had to have a blood relative order one for me.

I called Mom and she said she has the original. She said I could borrow it but would have to give it back so I don't lose it. THIS IS MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE RIGHT? Luckily she had a second one she had ordered to give me a long time ago.

The next Friday I take off a half a day on Friday. I get to Pratt and the County Examiner had taken the day off. Oh, by the way, they only do out of state driver's licenses on Thursdays and Fridays. Brilliant!

The car tags are going about as good. We bought a Ford Explorer to pull the boat once we move here and have been able to get that tagged but once you go to tag out of state vehicles with Liens on them look out! Nothing is good enough.

Amazingly everything else worked out so well. The house sold the day I was moving. I got a job offer a couple days before I was moving and we have a place to stay while we are waiting on our rental.

The Last of my Ohio Fishing Experiences

The closer I get to the move the more hectic my life is becoming. This weekend I will be moving, then things should start slowing down.

The last post I had I was preparing to fish a club tournament at Buckeye. We fished that tournament. My predictions were somewhat right. The fish were either hard to catch or had been caught the day prior. I ended up with 2 fish, good enough for 4th or 5th place in the club. The winds were blowing about 30 mph so we were confined to the channels.

The next weekend we had a club open tournament at Alum Creek. The weather was awful. We had high winds again, rain, and at one point the boat was covered in hail. There was only 1 person that caught a bass all day. He did catch a nice 5 pound smallmouth. I tried everything including taking the boat through a narrow culvert to fish an area that never gets fished. The boat got scratched on the bolts. Even that didn't work.

I had a few weeks off and last weekend the club had another tournament at Rupert lake. I had an interview in Kansas so I missed the tournament. Quite a few large bass were brought in to weigh in.

This weekend we fished Knox lake. We hit it perfect for the spawn. Bass were on beds everywhere. My day started off horribly. I had 7 fish come unbuttoned before I could get them in the boat. It was more than likely the way they were biting. I got it figured out though and ended up having 5 nice bass for the weigh in. Several were 2 to 2 1/2 pounders. We had a paper tournament since Knox has an 18 inch length limit. Nobody caught a bass over 18 inches. I finished 4th in the tournament with 9.7 pounds. Third place was 9.76 and Gene who was fishing with me had 9.85 pounds and finished 2nd. The winner had slightly over 10 pounds.

Knox was a great tournament and gave me some much needed practice on sight fishing. I had 2 baits that worked well to get them to strike. One was a small red slugo rigged on a drop shot. The other was a 6 inch morning dawn roboworm rigged wacky style on a flick shake jig head. I would cast out to where there beds are and twitch the baits until they would strike.

With the big move being only a week away, I am pretty fortunate to have things work out the way they have. The house sold really quick. We had to take a loss. I had a face to face interview last weekend for a position at the local hospital in Kiowa. If that doesn't work out I will try to start my own business there. Our house is not quite ready for us to move into but the owners are going to let us keep our things there until they are moved out. I have also trained my replacement at my current position.

I don't have any plans to fish any more tournaments this year once I am moved to Kansas. That will likely change once I am there and look into the tournament scene. For now I am looking to fishing for fun with my parents, friends, and Leo and Gavin once I return.

Next year I would like to get back into the FLW BFL and see what other circuits work with that schedule.

Fishing Time

My world has been tumbling for over a month now. Am I Finally at the bottom of the hill? I have been without my wife and kids for 4 or 5 weeks now. Loneliness has sank in. At first I had an overwhelming workload to accomplish. I had to paint, pack, clean, repair everything so we can sell the house. The house is listed now and the first potential buyer is coming today to look at it.

I have put in my notice at my work so that they could establish a plan of action for getting me replaced. I will be moving to Kansas May 27th. That gave us 1 week to do phone interviews, 1 week for face to face interviews and we will hopefully have 5 weeks of training. I will stay out here longer if needed to get the person trained.

We have a house lined up in Kiowa, KS. It will be nice to be close to family again.

During my struggles with the house I did manage to get out fishing 1 time so far. Gene and I went to Buckeye lake to prefish for our club tournament coming up tomorrow. He caught 2 bass and I managed to catch 5. Unfortunately, I caught the only 3 that would have kept. One was a hefty 2 to 2 1/2 pounder. We put together a game plan on where we would start out come tomorrow.

It will be a tough tournament. They are having a large tournament at Buckeye today. I am guessing they are hitting the canals hard and plucking all the bass. We will be throwing back a lot of 11 1/2 inchers tomorrow.

I have one spot that I think could be ok. It is a feeding flat that I located. Not that the whole lake is not flat but this spot was a little shallower had some close structure and I saw quite a few bass chasing shad there. Besides stopping at that spot a couple times we will be beating the canals with the rest of the crowd. I will try a couple main lake areas but there isn't a lot of the main lake that looks great.

Now the house is ready. The weather is just starting to warm. We have our first tournament this weekend, and will have tournaments the next few weekends. It is fishing time in Central Ohio.