Catfishing for Money - Ohio River

hey y'all Justin with kayak catfish well it is tournament day on the Ohio River and when I do these cat fishing tournaments I like to bring you all with me I'll show you my tournament strategy what went right what went wrong you see it all start to finish and so today we got a big stretch of the Ohio River that's open to us the tournament boundaries are from a place called I think it's pronounced meldoll Dam don't eat me alive in the comment box I ain't from around here folks but we've got access from that Dam down to Markland Dam which is like a 90-some odd Mile Stretch of the river the only catch is we got to use Public Access launches and we have to be back to our tournament check-in by 5 p.m today our tournament hours are from eight to four and we've got an hour to make it back to check-in which is in Rising Sun Indiana so my strategy is I'm going to fish pretty close to where our check-in spots at that way I don't have to leave the water early to get back I'm gonna be able to have lines in from the whole eight hours of a tournament here and so I'm I'm fishing basically a Big River Band here as we got a barge coming up first thing this morning I'm going to take this outside Bend and just kind of work the edge of the Channel all the way around I come up earlier this week my first time ever fishing the Ohio river and I fished this stretch got several fish got some good quality fish so I said you know what tournament day I'm gonna go right back here and try to hit it again see if we can replicate it right so the the scoring for this term our catfishing tournaments they go by length not weight we have a measuring board it's been approved by the tournament director we get a picture date time and GPS stamp on that board and submit it to a live leaderboard and it's going to score our three longest catfish that's blue cats flatheads or Channel Cats in any combination so it's gonna be a fun day y'all hopefully we're going to get some good fish and stick it to these these fellas that live up here by gosh that's what I want to do anyway so we got a few more minutes before lines in I'm gonna spin baits today we're going drag baits today we're going to cover water most importantly we're gonna have some fun today y'all so come with me let's go see what we can do in this tournament well it is 8 A.M time to clock in and get to work y'all let's get these baits down here my suspended rods here we've got Carolina rigs down to a 10 ounce size circle hook with a catfish Sumo bait stalker fly under that's a skip Jack Chunk on that rod I'm going to do a head and chunk off the front of the kayak suspended and then I'm going to drag a head and a chunk off the back of the kayak as we move along the current flow out here this morning very light it's like maybe 0.3 at the fastest so I'm going to just work my way down river with the current and supplement my speed to keep myself around a half a mile an hour so here's the skip Jack head on my suspended rig to get it down and then we're going to get these Dragon rigs out so my dragging rig here we've got 40 pound monofilament down to a three-way swivel I've got my dragging sinkers you can learn how to make these down in my video description there's a link down there very simple cheap easy to do but we've got 80 pound monofilament leader running off of that down to a three inch Peg float and Rattle and finally down to my 10 ounce size hook and a skip Jack head on this one I'm just going to let out some line as we move down through here and on this side of the kayak we got the same exact rig but with a body section and we're going to as I knock my shoulder motor handle off up there dad gum it batting a thousand already well that's going to be the the bait set up for now now as we make our way through the day again this is a three fish limit once I get my limit assuming we do well I sure hope we do then I'm going to probably switch out one of these body chunks maybe both of them for more head baits earlier in the week caught more fish on the body sections but my biggest fish came on the head so once we get our lemon I'm probably going to start swinging for the fences the rest of the day after that got a fish on right there just like that man who he's pulling too buddy he's pulling let's get fish number one in here y'all let's get on the board get the skunk out first thing 45 feet right here that's on the the chunk bait of skip Jack right there suspended yeah man we're a few minutes in here already hooked up fish number one that's a good sign my practice day it took me like hour and a half two hours to get my first fish yeah there we go buddy skunk Buster come on in blue kitty he's throwing our bait off I'm gonna grab another piece of skip Jack and put on this hook before we get him on the board and get our pictures and everything there's our next piece of skip Jack it's got part of a Shad that's half digested hanging out that's like two baits in one right there send it back down and then we'll get this fish here on our board all right y'all that one there is about 28 inches been uncooperative it's all get out man he does not want to lay there on that board for nothing hey you know what that's fish number one no skunk today y'all there we go fish there's a fish this number two we about to have to do some course correcting here y'all I got another kayaker in front of me that's pulling boards coming toward me and another boat to the left of him I don't know if they're anchored or pulling boards I don't think I mentioned in the intro there's a boat tournament out here today it's a huge tournament it's got 184 boats in it so inevitably we're going to get in the boaters ways they're going to get in our way you've got that many people it's impossible for a stall to work around each other but we do have another fish here number two toward our limit another one on the suspended bait let's bring him on in a little bit smaller than the last one but again I'll take it man I'll take anything till I get my my limit yeah that one there folks about 24 and a half inches he's not gonna do anything for us if he's on our score at the end of the day we're in big trouble but the biggest biggest challenge right now is just finding unfished water there's literally there's a boat right here to my left which I don't know if I think he's pulling boards I see kayaker right up here in front of me that's pulling boards and there's another boat kind of in between down through here so uh apparently I've picked a very popular area to fish but again I don't anywhere out here that you would want to fish probably going to have people all over it today so unfortunate how that has worked out but it is what it is we just got to roll with it it's own and a snag behind me oh it's real in the fish first and we'll work on the snag got a spot locked right here dead gummit them snags always coming to worst time get this one out we'll see if he's hooked good I'll put the rod back and Rod over and see if we can work it free okay you don't feel too bad yeah not a bad blue that's another one on the suspended bait all right come on in Kitty well he's going to complete our limit I gotta work on getting this other Rod it doesn't stand behind me here you sit there you sit there and behave a minute Kitty I mean it now we got big things happening here didn't come and I hate to them snags I just worked my way around there's a boat over here I just went by three more worked all the way around them finally had some Open Water here okay there it come finally had some open water every dog don't get snack we got us another fish foreign about 26 and three quarter inches so another dink but that knocks out my limit now let's work on getting spun back around here and getting back on the move I I hit the spot lock there when that fish hit the rod and I got snagged and the wind and the current here has spun me around so we're gonna have to just reel up it's probably time to replace all my baits anyway so we'll do that and then get back on the move here and I thought I had me some open water but here comes another boat with some planer boards and another one behind him it looks like covered up out here y'all there's those two another kayaker Boat Boat Boat and I'd went around another kayaker on the way down through here too man this is a popular area apparently but catching some fish I think we got another one on right here y'all we do we do that's on another on that chunk man I switched out I put another head bait on my dragging rod trying to swing for the fences now that we got our limit but I kept one chunk out because well that's what's been getting our fish the suspended chunk has been getting it done so we're gonna we're gonna keep rolling with it until it stops working but I do need a better quality fish at least one at some point in time because none of the fish on my score are and this one ain't gonna be one of them either none of them are very good that'll upgrade one of my fish there that one's 26 and three quarters so still not as big as what I need but that is a another fish another another little upgrade so I'm gonna just uh stay the course here y'all I'm gonna show you here I don't know if you can see I've I've got some distance between me and the boats now but man there was a whole damn line of boats working up this ledge they're all pulling planer boards going against the current I'm the current's very light the wind's blowing harder than the current but I've been going this direction and so uh you know with the current dragon 2 suspending all of my fish now have come suspended so um I don't know if that's making a difference or not but as I've went by and come up on these other boats I ain't seen none of them catching any fish so we'll see we'll see how it shakes out the end of the day but I am happy to be catching some fish we just got to find a way to get some better quality oh okay this one right there y'all foreign I was getting a snack I got my mouth for y'all bear with me I stopped at Bucky's on the way up here because ain't no road trip complete gotta stop the buckies so I got a mouth full of a mouthful of nuts right now we got another fish here 57 feet deep that was a nice boater right there he slowed down idled all the way through me and this other guy that was very courteous you don't see that very often I like to point out something courteous happening because I'm always complaining my videos about the the rude and disrespectful boaters that's so rare to see somebody like that oh crap let's set this and back a second I got my other one hung over here I come up a little shallow oh crap come on now then okay we got that in free okay now let's get this one moving up Shallow that wind is blowing me let me get back over here a second get myself free position before we land this thing let me get my nuts out of the way too I want that fish splashing water down in my in my bag there doggone it all right fish come on in we'll throw him on the board here I don't know if he's going to help us or not but we're gonna find out well that one there slight upgrade 27 inches that'll give us an extra quarter inch we get him on out here I'll take it by gosh every quarter half inch it all counts today but I'm just staying the course man I'm letting the wind kind of push me it's moving me like 0.5.6 not really able to drag two baits right now because it's kind of spinning the back of my kayak around so what I'm doing is I'm suspending two still off the front and I'm dragging this one over here off the side I've got this one reeled up for the time being but I'm just letting this wind push me down my thought coming out here today was that I would I would work my way down a stretch of this ledge uh Downstream first thing and then turn and come back up but with all these boats going up River I'm just going to be pulling over used water at this point if I do that and I was thinking too with this boat tournament it's a two-day event and we're fishing the second day of their tournament with this area getting pounded so hard today I have to believe it was probably pounded really hard yesterday too so any fish that were caught here and again earlier in the week I got on some good fish here got several fish in this area those fish were probably caught and taken to their weigh-in and released there yesterday so this area could have very well been picked pretty clean by now but you know what we're still getting bit so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing it's working and hopefully some point down through here we're going to stumble into a big one so it's 10 23 we're a little over two hours into the tournament and the leaderboard right now has Jeremiah forward Hooked on Phonics couldn't help me pronounce his last name but he's got 88 and a quarter inches I'm in second place with 81 and three quarter inches and right now big fish is also Jeremiah with 33 and a quarter so still early on still anybody's ball game out here I've actually slid over and went higher up kind of on the top shelf here of this ledge right now I'm 36 feet deep I'm gonna try fishing shallow a little while I mainly wanted to move because I was up there right beside another dang boat and they were working Downstream also they were kind of like on one side of that channel and I'm on the other you know we were both 60 some odd feet deep there and y'all know I don't like talking on camera around people I'm weird like that and so even though I'm fishing in terms today I'm also filming a tournament today I'm going to be able to talk to y'all so I'm going to try it up here a little bit shallower just see what happens I caught a big fish on my practice day in the evening right before dark dragging against the car current back up up River here on this on this top of this ledge here right before it starts to go off so we'll uh we'll see what this does for us give a little time if you don't pan out well we'll get back out there at the deeper depths that one's going down right there man we'll get another one y'all it's been a long time a long time since I've had a bot I think it's almost noon now this one's Ada suspended bait a chunk man I left a chunk out I'm currently trolling into the current about a half a mile an hour which again the current's very light these suspended baits are kind of up in the water column because I'm going into the flow but I've left it out because that's the only way I can get a bite and by gosh we got another one I don't think he's going to be an upgrade though I don't think he's going to help us so he ended up being 27 inches which I believe is about a quarter inch upgrade and he's kicking my tail here these things small fish man they they never want to behave and cooperate on that board get him out of here yeah y'all it's been a grind the last couple hours I kept working my way Downstream there just nothing going on not seeing anything on the graph not catching anything so I turned I reeled up everything switched out my baits and now I'm working kind of back up this direction going into the current dragging couple off the back and and suspending off the front it's the wind is blowing Downstream with the current so going this direction makes it easy to control my speed which is a good thing but I don't know if you can see the angle there on my line when you're trying to suspend baits and you're trolling into the current it's kind of hard to control your depth on the suspended baits but the suspended base is what's caught me fish today so I wanted to leave them out and just try to you know try to try to play the angle so I can keep my baits there two or three feet off the bottom but I'm gonna work my way back up this ledge where I was catching fish the other day and then I do that until I get up to I don't know maybe two o'clock this afternoon and then we'll drift back down and we'll see we'll just keep working this area man that's all I know to do is this is where I caught fish the other day I kind of committed myself to this spot when I come out here today even with the you know the boats and stuff because it's in a kayaking you just can't you don't have an outboard you know you can't crank up and run 50 miles an hour to the next spot if I take out of here go hit a different boat ramp I've lost a ton of time on the water so I think it's best to just keep working this area where I was getting fish the other day and hope for the best so I just got my other fish submitted it did upgrade my score by a quarter of an inch but I have fallen down the leaderboard we're right here at the halfway mark of the tournament 11 55. Jeremiah is still in the lead he's added to his lead there he's at 92 and a half inches but I've fallen down to fifth with 82 inches and you can see here from second to fifth we were separated by two and a half inches right there so it's it's a battle of the dinks today but still a lot of time left so it's anybody's game still look right here that dang Rod man that one is the popular raw today that chunk just keeps getting bit that is all they have wanted today a dang suspended chunk but can we find one big enough to improve our score that is the question here I did thought I was going to switch everything over to head baits at some point I may switch them all over to chunks before it's said and done make some progress on this here any improvement in our score at all would be would be a boost there's so many of us there just a couple inches away from each other slide upgrade could mean the difference between cashing and not and this one's this one's fired up is what he is but I don't think he's going to help us I don't think he is folks we're going to put him on the board and find out though grab him right quick so I don't think he's looking very good [Music] well maybe he's hooked better than I thought I saw that hook kind of dangling there I said I better grab him real fast just in case all right folks that one's 28 and a quarter inches so inch and a quarter update buddy I mean that's that's big this tight up at the top that's huge so I'll take it I'm happy with that get on out of here you old fat thing I'm gonna cut another chunk up man this has been the winning bait for me today it may not win me any money in this tournament but it's been a winner for catching fish and I may you know we're we're a long ways in this tournament I can't buy fish on them Dragon baits I'm thinking about switching all them over just switch everything over to suspended and just go for it today man because the the dragon I mean I can't believe I ain't caught a single fish not how to bite anything on them Dragon rigs but I haven't this suspended chunk it's been well it's got it all done so we may just switch everything over and try to go all suspended backroad background we finally got a different Rod hit now this is a suspended bait I switched over my dragging rigs to suspend it we're going all suspended rest of the day since that's what's working that's what we're going with we're going to try to increase our odds here this one ate a chunk I got out one head three chunks right now sitting up here I don't think he's gonna be an improvement but we'll get a look at him and find out yeah I'm gonna throw him on the board but I don't I don't think he's gonna do nothing for us no that one there he might graze 27 inches but that's our smallest fish on the scoreboard right now so he ain't gonna ain't gonna be an upgrade get out of here you old fish well for those of you who are still watching to this point in the video first off thanks but if you have stuck around this long you're pretty much committed at this point you might as well just go ahead and watch a whole tag on thing but if you are and you're curious on the standings here's you another leaderboard update so it's currently 2 28 p.m so we got basically an hour and a half left to fish Jeremiah is still in the lead with 92 and a half inches I have fallen down to seventh place with 83 and a quarter inches but while I have fallen in the standings I haven't really Fallen that much in overall inches that's what's crazy about this everybody's catching small fish today so one good fish I mean one just good fish not even great a good fish what I call Fun Size you know something 34 to 36 37 inches it could go I mean just Propel me several spots up and that's the case not just with me but with all of us here that are kind of bunched up together just a few inches apart so they're still plenty of time for anything to happen in the standings but uh it's it's just a grind man it's been an absolute grind today I've moved made a run up here up this ledge I saw an opening there was no boats here there was no kayaks here it looked like Wide Open Water and I said you know what there's a chance maybe these fish up here ain't seen a bait in 10 or 15 minutes I'm gonna go see what's going on so I'm currently drifting just drifting Downstream with basically the wind the current is very light still but the wind is moving us along 0.5.6 a little quicker when it gusts I've got all four rods suspended now suspended baits is all I've been able to catch a fish owned today so that's what we're rolling with here in the final stretch so I'm just gonna drift this ledge I'm just going to work it down through here and see what happens and hopefully climb up into one of those money spots if I can luck into a good fish and I don't know if I mentioned it or not earlier in the video if I did disregard if not and you're curious about the payouts this tournament that was my I I thought a rod got hit it was bouncing in the wake I'm seeing ghost bites out here but the Chaos's tournament first place pays two thousand dollars second place a thousand third place was either four or five hundred dollars and then big fish 750. and in addition to the payouts for the individual tournament this is our last tournament of the season so it's going to determine the angler of the year and coming into today Ryan Bortz was leading the aoi race I was in second place now Ryan I think Ryan let's check the board on him here he's in sixth place right now so he's down there with me so who knows what's going to happen in the aoi race it is wide open right now for that as well but the aoi points leader the top three in that get a check so there's still a chance y'all even if I crap the bed in today's tournament there's still a chance with the aoi standings and how those shake out that I could still walk out of here getting paid as crazy as that is but anyway y'all I'm gonna quit flapping my guns kick back and drift my way down this ledge I got something happening here on this back rod let's reel this one in here spot locked here a second while we deal with this I don't think he's going to be an upgrade though I only need something bigger than 27 inches to upgrade but that's easier said than done today yeah and right there definitely ain't gonna I ain't gonna cut the mustard as they say at least he left me the bait on that was nice of him it's the least you can do for me fish there oh we got this one going down let's let that go that one's a better takedown right there looks like all right business picked up here that's a oh my gosh and he just come free he just come for a stole my bait too man crap that was on a head bait that's the first time I had bait has been hit today I felt like a better fish too just ripped the dang head off all right we got to rebate right quick y'all business picked up I might get another one here y'all let's reel it in as the barge goes by seen a bunch of them today seen a bunch of them boats over there they heading back to their way in I reckon but we ain't seen a whole lot of fish have we that in there ain't to fly got one on a stinger fly y'all but definitely ain't gonna be an upgrade where's your where's your bigger Kinfolk at fish as you get my line all tangled up this fish ain't gonna tell me he said he'd never rat out his friends look that he twisted my line all the Hades right there that's a dang kayak man there we go I'm gonna drop that back down right quick y'all win the final 30 minutes here way in the home stretch of this thing all right guys it is four o'clock it is over and we got a new leader at the top of the scoreboard John Ratliff caught a fish in the final hour there put him at 92 and three quarters inches a quarter inch above Jeremiah and Brandon Hunter there so he's going to take home the win I am down in eighth place so I just could not move up the leaderboard for anything big fish 34 and a quarter inches to Ozzie dangerous what a name that is but uh just one of them days for me y'all but it ain't all bad news because even though I didn't do worth a Diddly poo in the tournament today things worked out for me to take home a little money so Ryan Bortz he was ahead of me and the aoi race coming into this he's going to stay ahead of me congrats to Ryan boards angler of the Year well deserved on his part he has earned it he's going to get 1800 and some odd dollars for that prize now again I think I mentioned before the aoy race pays out three spots in our in our tournament club here so I'm gonna finish and second on that which is going to pay me 780 some odd dollars so I wish I could have got to win today but I'm at least going home with a little more cash that I came up here with they call that a moral Victory folks and gosh I'll take it so anyway I'm headed off the water now gonna go congratulate everybody and then I'm going to take it back to Tennessee I'd say it's been fun but well most of you all of my audience are men and I only lie to women so it's just been one of them days I'll see you next enjoy

Channel: Kayak Catfish

Views: 42,731

Keywords: kayak catfish, kayak catfishing, catfish, catfishing, how to catch catfish, kayak catfishing setup, catfish bait, flathead, kayak, catfish rod, ultralight fishing, bluegill, crappie, gulp, gulp minnow, fishing, kayak fishing, bank fishing, cut bait, best bait for catfish, catfish rigs, golly whopper, kayak carp, kayak carp fishing, carp, carp fishing, carp bait, carp rigs, hair rigs for carp, pack bait for carp, catching carp with corn, best bait for carp, how to catch carp

Id: ejpfccljQjA

Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023