Clear Creeek WMA - Hopkins County.

Me and a couple of budddies have been fishing Clear Creek WMA in West Hopkins County and been catching a lot of Bluegill, Crappie, Spotted bass and Largemouth. We have even got into some decent Rockfish in the ten to fifteen pound range on larger sized Rapala Floating Minnows and Rattlin Rogues. There are some nice quality size fish of all species in this creek and its definitely worth making a trip down to Hopkins County and getting in on it...you definitely wont be sorry you made the drive down. Even if you happen to come on a slow day the view alone is more than enough to make up for a slow bite.

We did our best on Largemouth and Spots by putting in at the Highway 109 Bridge and fishing the grass and thick stuff on down to the Highway 293 Bridge.
From the Highway 293 Bridge on down to where the creek empties into the Tradewater River weve been doing real good on the Crappie and Bluegill and we have been getting into the Rockfish and Hybrid Stripes from the mouth of the creek well on upstream past the last of the largest of the stump fields. We talked to a young guy maybe in his late teens who was running jugs and several days in a row there he had some darn nice flat heads maybe weighing ten pounds or a little more on his stringer. We traded him some crappie for a few of his cats and they were pretty good eating.

Snakey WMA, not just for cottonmouths anymore.

The area between Highway 502 and Highway 109 does have some cottonmouths but there seems to be less snakes west of the Highway 109 where Weirs Creek joins into Clear Creek. Ive noticed for the most part the snakes seem to pretty well mind their own business.

We went to Clear Creek again this morning and filled the stringers with some real nice size bluegill with the largest of the gils weighing between two and three pounds. Caught them all with a 12 foot crappie rod and using a pink 1/16 ounce jig with a white curl tail grub suspended beneath a balsa float. Hung what looked like was a drum that pulled our tin boat in circles before he hung up on a log and broke line and that was probably the funnest part of the whole morning.

Those are some very large bluegills. You probably have some kind of record if you have a gill pushing 3lbs. My friend caught a 16.5 inch crappie 2 wks ago and it weighed 2.75 lbs. Those gills must have been as big as hubcaps. I may have to haul my canoe down your way.

The Kentucky state record for Bluegill is four pounds and three ounces and that fish was actually caught in a strip mine lake in Hopkins County.
I checked that scales we were using and it was bit off and we are now thinking those two fish were right at two pounds or maybe a few ounces more.
Its not uncommon to catch sixteen inch crappie in this creek. My buddy caught a huge white crappie with a dark stripe between its eyes and down the length of its nose and its soon going to the taxidermist.

[QUOTE=stickbait;486096]Those are some very large bluegills. You probably have some kind of record if you have a gill pushing 3lbs. My friend caught a 16.5 inch crappie 2 wks ago and it weighed 2.75 lbs. Those gills must have been as big as hubcaps. I may have to haul my canoe down your way.[/QUOTE]

Do you use a canoe for most of your fishing and do you sometimes mix it up between a canoe and a john boat? Only times i fish out of a john boat is when i am with someone who has one. Rest of the time i fish by myself in the canoe. Some of us will go in canoes but stay in a group just to see who can out-do the other and that makes for fun.
One of the best bass fishing spots ive come across with a canoe was traveling a couple miles up a ditch and seeing where beavers had built dam and clogged up a culvert. The other side of the culvert was a levee that was built around a old strip mine operation and the water was backed up and the place was full of bass crappie and bluegill. It was probably 20 feet wide 10 feet deep and as long as four or five football fields. One good things about a canoe is no matter how poor a place looks you never do know whats there until you start looking.