The struggle in Indiana is real.

You remember that movie Cool Runnings? The one where a bunch of dudes from Jamaica wanted to start a bobsled team....in Jamaica? Yeah, that is how I feel sometimes being a smallmouth angler in Indiana. In fact Indiana is what I like to call "water poor", meaning we have next to nothing for fishable water of any kind. To make matters even worse, we have a very healthy population of outdoorsmen who like to fish. The only redeeming quality for me is that very few guys fish for smallmouth. There are only a couple of reservoirs in the state that have any smallmouth in them (and I'm just not that into lakes), so that leaves the rivers and creeks. Rivers are my sanctuary, and frankly I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else when I'm not at home. River smallmouth grow slower in general than lake smallmouth, so that makes this challenge even harder. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm not gonna lie, the idea of catching a 23-inch smallmouth in my home state is kind of far fetched. I think that there are probably a few old girls out there somewhere pushing 23, but im sure they are smart, and very very hard to catch. I would love to break the 23-inch barrier in Indiana, but I do think our best shot will be on a destination trip. Judging from the post I put up on the KBF page the other night, it sounds like the New River might be our next stop. :)

The response that we received from the kayak community is very encouraging and we all look forward to telling you all about our journey. We all fish as much as we can (or at least as much as our wives let us), so there will probably be quite a bit of content between the 4 of us. We also have a few other buddies that will contribute to the blog as well. If any of you serious smallmouth guys have suggestions on destination trips where a 23-incher might be possible feel free to shoot us a line and send us some insider info. Our email address is questfor23fishing@gmail.com. Tight lines!

-Josh