Fish Ohio 2000

The year 2000 produced two Fish Ohio catches. The first came on August 13TH during the dog days of summer. I was fishing the aerator at Lake Hodgson. I was on the lake by 6AM in order to beat the heat. I had caught quite a few crappie by 8AM and was happy at how the day was going. I was catching the majority of the Crappie on a live minnow that I was working into the boat when something big grabbed hold of the bait. I set the hook and started to work the fish toward the boat. Whenever I feel something large on the line I always get my net ready to pick up the fish. As I got the fish closer to the boat I saw I had a large Crappie on the line. I put the net in the water and brought the fish into the net. I did a preliminary measurement and felt it was a Fish Ohio Crappie. When I had it measured at the bait shop it turned out to be 13 1/2" long which qualified it as an award fish.

The next fish was caught two days later. I was fishing a private pond of a friends which no one fished. I got permission to take my Grandson with me. He was 5 at the time so I had to help he most of the time. We were using dough balls because the people feed the fish in the pond with bread. I had a heavy outfit which I let my grand Son use and I used my ultralight outfit. We were catching big Channel Cats on almost every cast. They were good fighters in the 20" to 24" range which we released. My Grandson cast once near shore and brought in a big Blue Gill. It was 9 1/2" long and I knew he caught his first Fish Ohio catch at that young age. I decided to cast in the same spot and caught the identical size fish. We ended up catching 2 each of the big Blue Gills. They were beautiful colored and it was a special time. We had them measured at the bait shop and both received our Fish Ohio Awards for the catches. That really made it a special year indeed.