Anyone fishing...........

[GeoFisher]

With this cold weather, I'm wondering what is happening around the state.

is anyone fishing Patoka.

How about hardy, or hoosier nat.

I'm headed to KY lake thanksgiving, but I'm thinking about trying Patoka next weekend. I just don't know if it is worth the trip or not.

Later,

Geo

[AllBoutBass]

fishing Ohio River still catching smallies

[toomanycasts]

fishing Ohio River still catching smallies

Good looking river smallie. Be a better pic without that god awful hat though. Ha ha

[toomanycasts]

Yep. Fish the river year round, As long as it's not frozen or out of its banks. Hopefully sauger will be firing up soon. River looked good at the fossil beds last night. Hope it stays that way.

[toomanycasts]

Spots still biting on the Ohio. Caught a couple yesterday that bumped 3 lbs.

[Moveon]

Spots still biting on the Ohio. Caught a couple yesterday that bumped 3 lbs.

Does anyone know if Bluegrass is closed to fishing now due to the opening of the second season of Waterfowl hunting out there on all those pits? I might need to get me a small duck hunting boat /kayak and take up waterfowl hunting again. All I need is a boat with some camo netting and a few duck decoys. I have everything else needed to get back into hunting ducks and geese. I even have a small propane heater for the boat now. I have one of those big Mr. Buddies that I bought last winter in case the power goes out again.

I have not fished the Ohio River and some times wish I had. I'm not comfortable with my little 15'10" aluminum boat out on the Ohio River. The last time I had my boat on the Ohio River was during the Fourth of July Fireworks by Downtown Evansville, IN and I almost got swamped by all the bigger boats that were heading back to Newburgh's Public Launch ramp at the same time I did. That scared the hell out of me and I'm normally pretty comfortable in my boat even on the River. But that left me sort of shaken. The waves were coming at me from two different directions and in the dark I could not see which way to steer to avoid them. My boat is pretty narrow and it was rocking back and forth so violently in the waves that I feared for my boat flipping over. I was listing to port and then back to starboard and was almost thrown overboard. My wife was scared and that got me rattled as well. That was the last time we took my boat out on the Ohio River. I've been out on the Ohio in larger pleasure boats and a few rescue boats over the last 30 or so years and never had that type of experience. Even the one time I went out with the local Civil Defense guys during Jan to rescue some people that lived on the bottoms in Union township and got stranded by the floodwaters. The River was way up and it was cold and very windy that day but the boat I was in was much bigger and safer. I just got a little chilly that day and wondered what the hell we were doing out on the Ohio River when it was flooded and so cold. Turns out later we found out that the two people we rescued were only interested in a boat ride so that they could go buy some more beer and then get another sucker boat driver to take them back to their house which was surrounded by flood waters but still above the water. Lucky for them the River was falling and they didn't need us again. I would have refused to go get them a second time. Maybe some of my other rescue buddies would have gone out for a second time to get them to safety but I sort of doubt that too. We were all pretty peeved at risking our lives for some no good river rats who just wanted to get drunk.

So I'm a little reluctant to go back out on the river with my small boat. I stick to the small lakes and ponds that IDNR has concrete boat ramps on. I have access to three of these lakes near my house and they are 195, 210 and 95 acres in size each. So that gives me a lot of good water. And the IDNR built a new concrete boat ramp as another of the smaller pits that's about 40 acres in size if that big. But it's got the best water quality of all these pits and doesn't get flooded by the Ohio River Back waters or nearby creeks that link up to the Ohio River and allow trash fish to swim upstream and get into the bigger pits. All three of the bigger pits will some day get those blasted Asian Carp in them and ruin the fishing. At leas the three pits limited boat speeds to idle speed only. So those that break the rules and go too fast may just get slapped in the face with a big flying Asian Carp someday. I'm not sure if would be safe to boat in a lake filled with those big jumping Asian carp even if the boats only going at idle speed. They can still fly up out of the water and hit you in the head or face and do some damage. Some guys have told me that they have seen them in the waters but I've not seem them there myself. But I have no reason to not believe my friends who said that they have seen them in there.

I stopped fishing this past summer. Not sure why. I just didn't feel like getting the boat cleaned up and ready to fish. I was busying doing my other hobbies this past summer. I just didn't have any desire to go fishing this summer.

I've often wondered what it would be like to fish for sauger on the River below the Newburgh, IN Dam. The city has a boat launch in Downtown Newburgh where the old **** used to be. But it's not the best ramp in the world and they charge 5 or 10 dollars to launch there. I don't feel like paying to launch at a ramp where the city does not clean the river mud off the concrete when the River floods and then goes back down. They just push the mud up in big piles and the concrete is not washed off like the City of Evansville, IN does for their launch ramp in Downtown Evansville. I think that they use fire trucks to help clean the river mud off the concrete parking areas at Evansville's Dress Plaza area. Newburgh's ramp is Filthily dirty and who knows what's contained in that left over dried up dusty river mud that cakes the concrete parking area. I don't even like driving my truck over that dirty concrete. The dirt is 1/2" thick even after they shove it off the concrete with heavy equipment. They probably use a small tractor with a blade on the front of something like that. But they leave a lot of dirt behind and the concrete is covered in caked on River mud even after they try to scrape it off. And they leave the piles of mud sitting along the edge of the parking lot where it's blown around by the winds after the mud dries. Nasty stuff and not very pretty to look at.

So the good news is that now the river is clean enough to support a population of Small Mouth and Spotted Bass as well as Sauger and Largemouth bass. Not sure if they are clean enough to eat as I would not want to test them as a food item. I'd practice catch and release if I fished on the River. But I must admit that I might be tempted to eat one or two walleyes or sauger if I did catch some in the 2 lb. range.

[toomanycasts]

Just fry em up. River is cleaner than u think. If it wasn't, it wouldn't such a good fishery.

[Moveon]

Just fry em up. River is cleaner than u think. If it wasn't, it wouldn't such a good fishery.

I can't eat fried fish or anything fried anymore. I use to eat fried crappie a lot but all my fish is baked these days.

I do agree that the River is cleaner in some aspects. We do treat the waste water some of the time these days as compared to 50 years ago before the USEPA was formed. But there are still things that get dumped into the River that are harmful to humans if you get too much of these chemicals inside your body. That's why the state has fish consumption advisories based on testing of the various fish for certain contaminates.

[toomanycasts]

Honestly I throw em back most of the time even if I have a limit. I don't want to bother cleaning them and I usually fish daylight till dark. So it's nap thirty when I get home. I just lime catching em mostly. Not opposed to eating em though.

[toomanycasts]

Talking mostly about crappie. That's what I fish for mostly in the cold months. River is a good crappie pond.

[toomanycasts]

From a couple days ago

[Moveon]

From a couple days ago

I love to catch crappie. It's fun and it can be challenging if you are trying to catch a limit of big slabs. I admit that it's slower paced that bass fishing and the bass actually are more fun to catch as they fight harder. But how many time do you catch 25 bass in one spot? And I can actually help the ecosystem by removing some crappie from my home lake. Crappie can reproduce very fast and each female lays thousands of eggs. So removing a few of the fish (especially some of the little ones) helps the fish that remain. There is more food for them and it helps the one's left grow faster in the smaller lake that I fish. At least that's the plan of the Southern IN fisheries biologist that regulates my home district.

Now most anyone can easily catch some crappie in the spring when they are spawning and it the shallows. Shoreline fisherman catch a lot of crappie during the spawn in Early and Mid April in my latitude. Crappie live in the south and the north as well as the east and west of the USA.

And they are very good eating if you clean them right and deep fry them up and put some lemon juice, salt and pepper and some good fish fry batter on them. I love small crappie fillets between two pieces of bread and with a little Mayo on the bread. Ad a little Cyan Pepper into the fix mix and they are umm umm good.