Nimisila Reservoir in Northeastern Ohio is becoming one of my favorite places to fish for big bass and is a great place to practice my grass fishing techniques since the lake has large grass flats and a lot of lily pads. Having fished there a handful of times now, this is one of the few lakes where I have a little “history” to fish… I am very fond of a big off-shore grass flat that can hold bass… but I have never had the time to explore the rest of the lake so that was the goal of this pre-fishing weekend, learn more of the lake and find more fishy spots! My buddy, Kevin, met me up at the Nimisila State Park Campgrounds and we fished for a few hours Friday afternoon with some awesome BIG bass (I got a 20+incher!) when they started hitting the fluke in the grass and then on the water all day Saturday. The only negative of the weekend was that my fish finder didn’t work when I got there (I have been having power and wiring issues all year), so instead of the off-shore electronics mapping I had planned on, on Saturday I pedaled my Hobie Lynx around the perimeter of the lake checking for juicy looking spots for my next tournament. But pre-fishing or just having some time to learn a lake is a rare and special thing for me so it was a little heartbreaking to not have electronics for the weekend, but any experience on a lake is better than nothing!
Many of the lakes we fish on my local trails I have never been to before since I didn’t grow up fishing and when I finally got into it I was in California, so when I started following my local Kayak Bass Fishing trails around Ohio a few years ago I had basically zero experience on any of these lakes (and let me tell you how scary it is to launch pre-dawn at a ramp you’ve never been to onto a dark lake you’ve never seen before!). I panic a little that I will never catch up to the experience of my competitors so I am always looking for things I can do to make up for that… I listen to BassU seminars in the car on the way to work, I have books on bass behavior waiting for me to have a day off to read, and on the rare occasion I have a weekend off work and no tournament planned I spend it on a lake I know our trails will be back to like Nimisila. But like most people I work full time and have zero free time outside of the weekends to fish, and I have been scheduling a tournament almost every weekend to try and get as much experience in as I can as quickly as I can. I dream of fishing national-level tournaments (and my completely unrealistic fantasy is getting a little camper van and a trailer and hitting the road to fish full time) but I don’t see how that will ever be possible since I can’t afford the time off work to pre-fish the lakes and I am not sure I can justify the cost of the entry fees and travel expenses for bigger tournaments when I will have no experience on that water and no time to practice and I would be competing against people who have so many saved waypoints and so much history. Well, all that and I can’t seem to catch tournament fish even locally yet. 🤣
So it is almost time to start planning my 2024 schedule. Should I fish fewer tournaments which would allow more free weekends like this one for practice and pre-fishing? Or do I keep going with my theory that tournaments give double the value in lessons and experience since they are helping me learn both competitive fishing and the actual basics of just catching fish? This all would be so much easier if I had discovered fishing before my 30s, but I’m doing my best to make up that lack of experience, and if hard work pays off in fishing my results should start picking up soon and then we’ll see what happens!
Thanks to Strictly Sail & Kayak for my amazing Hobie Lynx! I can’t say enough good things about my Lynx… light enough for me to easily car-top after a long tournament day, fast, agile, stable, comfortable, and it makes me feel safe and brave even out on unfamiliar waters!
Check out Strictly Sail at their shop in Cincinnati or online:
https://www.strictlysailandkayak.com/girlgonefishing
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