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Blue Grass Pit, Loon Pit and Otter pit are my stomping grounds the last three years. This year I have not fished it so much as I hurt my back. Pulled a back muscle that's slowly healing. I can't easily launch and recover my boat right now. So I have not taken the boat out in the last month. If not for that I would be fishing today.
I still like to drive over to the BG pits and check out what people are catching. If you run into the DNR guy, Boyd, you may ask him what's being caught. He does the DRN fishing creel surveys for the district 7 Fish Biologist.
In the last month I have seen some nice fish caught at Otter Pit. A small informal bass tournament, four boats of friends from work, fished Otter Pit on a Sunday morning. The caught and released about 5 two lb bass and had one fish that weighted 6.2lb and was 23" long.
Last Weekend I talked to a guy that has a 4lb bass on his stringer along with another 2lb bass. He was catching them using live minnows.
To catch bass on these pits you have to go ultra light or use live baits.
I talked to another gentleman last Monday evening as he recovered his boat at Otter Pit. He said he caught about 5 or 6 bass from the grass. Find points where the grass goes out into the open water the farthest and fish them with weightless baits before sunset.
The fish are still there evidently but they are very smart fish. LOL These fish see a lot of baits thrown at them and many of the smaller bass have been caught and released a few times.
I don't go after bass anymore when fishing these pits. I specifically go after crappie. I have bass fished all my life. I have over 30 rods and reels and 4 huge double triple tray tackle boxes full of bass crank baits and other lures.
I have three other tackle boxes just for pan fishing. LOL In the last three years I have purchased 8 new rods and reels just for crappie fishing and I still need a few more 12 ft long crappie poles.
I got on this ultra light kick back in the late 1980's and have been using ultra light rods and reels ever since. I just think they work better in the clear water pits around here and they make the fishing fun.
I use electronic to study the bottom structure of these pits. Just wish I had a newer type depth finder that would store the GPS coordinates along with the depth data so that I could map these pits someday. I found free trial engineering software program that allows one to input the XYZ data and then draw either a 2D contour map or a 3D map. But it cost almost $2000.
That two with 3 zeros. A good depth finder that can hold enough data would cost about 800 bucks. Then you have to take the time to input and computer the maps. I do wish that someone would do this someday so that we can get some topo maps of these pits. In fact I would like to see this done for other IN lakes. Hovey Lake, Patoka Lake both could use better topo maps. We need someone like Pat Hahs (Kentucy Hydrografx) to do maps of IN lakes.
Here is a hint on where the bass were last week:
Water was up due to all the rain we had. Water flows from Blue Grass Pit under Boonville New Harmoy road and into Loon Pit. From the South end of LOON pit water flows under Kansas Road into Otter Pit. From the East side of Otter Pit water runs though a small narrow, shallow canal into the West part of Otter Pit. From there it runs under Euler Road out across a field to the west before it enters Blue Grass Creek. From there it runs into Pigeon Creek and then on down stream to the Ohio River next to Mulzer Sand and Gravel. This last spring we had big floods that flooded all of Otter Pit, Loon Pit and Bluegrass Pit with lots of new water. River fish may swim up the creeks into this flood water. The shallow canal was flowing water very fast last weekend. Small critters that live and feed among the submergent vegetation that grows in the canal were being washed out of the canal into the West part of Otter Pit. The water flow rate I would estimate was at least 3 to 4 mph. You could see the water moving fast as the submergent vegetation in the canal was being bent over 90 deg. And the water's surface was rippling. This water was mixing with the air to give it more dissolved oxygen. The bass were at the downstream end of this canal where the water emptied into the West part of Otter Pit. That is where the young man caught the 4lb bass and the two lb bass. The reason the fish were there that day is due to the heavy current pushing food into the West part of Otter Pit. At least that's my theory
If we all follow the DNR regulations and don't keep fish under 14" at Otter and under 18" at Loon and BG pit the bass fishery may be much better in the future. But it only takes a few people to destroy the fishery for everyone.
I also saw a guy catching 1.5lb bass at the boat ramp at Blue Grass Pit. I personally have caught more small bass at that boar ramp around dusk in the summertime that anywhere else.
I caught and released one 15" long bass just to the East of the Boat Ramp at Otter Pit.
I saw a guy fishing Otter Pit and catching bass after bass one day.
The fish are there guys but you have to fish early and late to catch them.
Now you may also catch them by trolling crank baits at around 10ft to 12ft down. There is a thermocline that sets up in these pits by late June. The fish are then trapped above this depth due to the lack of dissolved oxygen below the thermocline. Also the preferred water temp is above the thermocline maybe. Anyway that is where you will find bass suspended out in the open water away from the banks. I fish for crappie by slow trolling jigging poles at about 0.5 mph up to 2mph and find lots of crappie suspended at this depth in the hot summer months. I have caught a lot of short bass on minnows while crappie fishing. So I know that there are fish in these pits.
I have also seen people fishing and keeping short bass. One such guy got caught by Gorden Woods. I was driving down Boonville New Harmony Road from BG Pit south parking lot and heading over to bird dog pit when I saw Gorden Woods pulling in a guys stringer with a short bass on it. I could tell from the road that the bass was short. Later that day I ran into Gorden in the Loon Pit parking lot and asked him what was going on. He told me that he caught the guy fishing and with short bass on his stringer. He wrote the guy a ticket and the court costs and the fine would hopefully teach this guy a valuable lesson. You don't keep short fish!. The young man that caught the 4lb bass also had a short fish on his stringer. I told him that if Gorden Woods caught him with that fish on a stringer that he would get a ticket. The young man too his credit returned that short bass back to the water unharmed. At least the fish swam away ok. We all need to do the job of reminding those that would keep short bass that it's illegal to do so and why it's illegal. There are reasons for the DNR fishing regulations.
Regards,
Moose1am
