Quote Originally Posted by engineer View Post
i have been fishing the licking river since i was a young boy and i have never had such bad luck fishing as i do now.and every body i know that fishes it says the same thing.before a person could go and catch several 12to 16 inch smallmouths and 10 or 12 nice redeyes in a several hour wading trip and now i struggle to catch a single bass.can anybody tell me whats going on???? I fish the licking from ruddles mill to cyhnthiana.
i am an avid smallmouth angler and have fished alot of the licking river as well as stoner and hinkston creeks and i have to agree with you that over the years these fisheries have become less and less productive. I remember the days not longer than five years ago where you could catch countless numbers of quality smallmouth, largemouth, redeye and numberous other species of fish on a good day. I prefer wading or canoeing areas that are not often fished and even these pools are becoming less productive.
One of my favorite stretches of water that is only accessible by alot of wading and access through private property, or a good 7 mile canoe trip from the closest put in has declined. This was an area, believe it or not where i had caught and released several good smallmouth in the 20 inch range and had days of 60 plus fish. I thought that i had been blessed to have found such a good pool that offered me great fishing year after year. About 4 years ago i had come across two adult otters playing in that pool. I didn't think much of it at the time but in the past two years i haven't caught a keeper or multiple fish the times i have been. In fact i have given up on the spot all together. I don't know if it has anything to do with the otters in that pool of the creek but i had discussed with a conservation officer earlier this year about it and he said that the otters definately could have deplenished that whole stretch of good fish.

I trust in the fact that the kdf&w knows what they are doing and will make good decisions regarding the otter situation on our smaller waterways.

I believe we should definately take a closer look into what other problems that could be causing the decline in these fisheries. There could be water quality issues as well as numerous other problems that could be affecting things. I would also really like to see a slot limit applied to smaller waterways such as some sections of the licking river, stoner and hinkston creeks simular to what is used on elkhorn creek.