Head North out of Evansville on I-164 bypass. When you get to the Boonville New Harmony Rd exit get off there and head East for about 2 or 3 tenths of a mile. The Bluegrass Pit will be on your left (north) and Loon Pit will be on your right (South Side of the road). Bluegrass Pits launch ramp area has an information station there and they should have some maps of the entire area. These maps will show you the local roads and the other strip pits locations. Pick up a map and it will help you get familiar with the area.
Bluegrass is easier to fish as Loon has a lot of shallower waters to get though after you launch. There is another shallow gravel launch ramp and parking lot at the South end of LOON Pit. You can take the county line road south to Kansas Road, then go East on Kansas Road for a short distance and look for the gravel parking lot for LOON Pit on your left. (North). If you take a right on Euler road and head South you can drive along the West side of Otter Pit. Otter Pits concrete launch ramp will be on your left as you head South on Euler Road.
All three of these main pits are connected hydrologically via culverts that go under Kansas and Boonville New Harmony Roads. At times of flooding the entire area is under water and connected to Bluegrass Creek and then Pigeon Creek and then the Ohio River. So it's possible for fish in the Ohio river to swim up these two creek and enter any of these three big pits.
Bluegrass pit is about 180 ares. Loon pit is about 210 acres and Otter Pit is approx 90 acres in size. All three pits have very deep water which is typical of abandoned coal mine strip pits. But these pits also have some shelfs that hold fish.
You can find the crappie from 10ft deep to 25 ft deep depending on the conditions. Around dusk you can catch these crappie along the surface over deeper waters where the bottom drops off.
You can also catch crappie in the shallow weed beds on these pits. I have caught then in 7 ft of water in the late afternoons and early evening.
When I fished these pits I would fish the same area for hours at a time. And for a few hours I would catch nothing and then suddenly a school of crappie would come along and I would catch my limit. You have to hit the timing right at all my favorite spots. The fish like to roam around along the drop offs and are harder to catch when they suspend out from the drop offs over deeper water. But the best time to catch these crappie is when they come back into the ledges to feed in the evening.
I like to check my Solunar Tables and guess what? I seem to catch more fish when the solunar tables predicts good fishing. It's made a believer out of me over the last few years. My Garmin eTrex GPS has the solunar tables built into the computer. So I can easily check to see when the best times are for my area. So far it's been predicting good catches. And when I fish the same spot I don't always catch fish. Sometimes they are there and other times they are not there.
Like any lake if you don't know the lake you may not catch fish unless you get lucky and run into a spot at the right time.
I have fished these lakes frequently over the past 3 years and found a few spots that produce good fish. But I had to work at it for three long years before I found these spots. And I went to this one spot several times before I finally started to catch some good sized crappie. Last fall I caught a few that were all around 12" long and that's a good crappie for these lakes.
You might check out google earth and see a satellite view of the area to get your bearings before heading down.
Yes you can idle your engine. But it's Idle speed only. Water is up with all the rain.
If you are looking for Bass remember that the limit is 18" or greater and you are only allowed to keep one bass.
Muskie were put into Bluegrass and Loon Pits but I am not sure how they are growing. It's been two years now since they were stocked in these lakes.
There area lot of 8' crappie in these lakes. They like to school along the edges of the drop offs.
Be careful at the ramps as they can be slick this time of the years with algae.
The South ramp at Bluegrass Pit is concrete. There is a gravel launch area at the North end of Bluegrass Pit.
Originally Posted by Bragger
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