rating 2008 fishing was it a good year?

[Fisherjoe]

Personally, I had a great year. Caught my largest catfish (42# blue) and my first spoonbill ( 30#). Had several good night trips for cats on the Ohio and reconnected with a couple old friends that I had lost touch with over the years. Introduced my kids to juggin' for cats and they love it! Looking forward to next year. Only real downside was not much fishing time with my neighbor due to his health troubles this year. Hopefully, he will recover and we will be able to hit it again this spring. My 7 yr old is already begging to go fishing for sauger so I may have to bundle up and take him out. Happy Holidays to all and see you on the water!

Joe

[Boat Bums]

Hey Guys,

This is my first year for my own boat. My first year for really fishing the Ohio River. I have not fished for sometime. I lost my grand father and a person that gave my a love for fishin. This year I have made a list of new friends that is long most of them here at this forum. I look forward to each day we may spend together on the water or here in cyber world. I'm not a seinor member but lets try to blow 2008 out with one last fishing trip New years eve day on the Ohio river New albany ramp.

Thursday Dec 31 2008 1200 pm

That way we can get back soon enought too spend we family.

[DJD]

Well it's been a pretty fair year,had a good year for blue's, largest was 79 1\2#s and was over 80 till he blew about a 4# buffalo out, then 60,58, 57 ,two 52's and a couple 50's. several in the 40's. The flat bite was off for me biggest I would guess at only around 30#. Sauger were great early this year with a couple 25 and 26in. Stripes, hybrid and whites, were all pretty good and like Mark said there were day's we just flat wore'em out. Large mouth, I also cheated in a farm pond earlier this year ,biggest around 4-4.5#. I'm going to have to get Mark to take me to the Big C to get my smallie. As far as landing some new friends it was good to. got to meet alot of good people on this board. John,fisheater, Jason, bandit1,Doug Onemorecast, Don, DJD, Steve ,Grumman,Chris, bigcat,Mike, Ruger454,Jason, JD7 Mike ,boatbum...and a few others, All of which I enjoyed talking to as well as fishing with.Oh and there is still 23 days left in 2008, so Gone fishin boy's...Call me Mark, got to tell you what happen last week...Chuck

Chuck,
You got that river figured out...those are some impressive catches for sure.
I hope to get a huge cat one day from the Ohio River. I can't imagine a 70+ pound fish in that current. The 34# that John put me on was great! Maybe next year we can get one twice that size.

[riverrat12]

Chuck,
You got that river figured out...those are some impressive catches for sure.
I hope to get a huge cat one day from the Ohio River. I can't imagine a 70+ pound fish in that current. The 34# that John put me on was great! Maybe next year we can get one twice that size.

Don, come spring floods me , you ,John, and Mark, need to get after them. They will be thick come may and june. Before ya no it you'll be callin anything under 30# a sissy fish.. Or something like that....LOL.. Chuck

[dc chopper]

Pretty good, alot of good fish out of T_ville but still can't crack a 5 or better from Rough, maybe next year.....

[offdtop]

Overall yeah pretty good I mainly fish KY/Barkley and the Ohio at smithland pool. this year saw my bass fishing come early for some reason I was wacking them late February instead of late March and on rattle traps none the less. I caught my biggest sack ever in a tournament and spent alot of time with my 19yr old fishing and trying to keep him on the right road.

As the year closes out everything is good and I am expecting great fishing on the lakes this upcomming year due to the utterly obscene 12 to 14" fish I caught this year, there were days I caught 50+ fish in that range AWESOME!

Biggest L/M 5.5
Biggest S/M 4.75 (new personal best)

[RICHYD4U]

2008 will go down as an OK year for me. School and work kept me busy, but I did still make some time for being on the water. Broke a couple of personal records on some species this year:

Walleye- 8.1 lbs
Rainbow trout- 6.8 lbs
Hybrid- 9.3 lbs
Crappie- 3.6 lbs
Shellcracker- 3.1 lbs

Overall, a descent year. Didn't catch the largemouth I wanted to this year. Never made it over the 5 lb mark even. Oh well, it leaves something to be desired for next year. I would really like to get into catching some stripers in '09. Listening to you all talk about everyday makes me want to try it bad. Sounds like fun. However, I am one of those "boat impaired" guys (no boat). Still a poor college student with a family to support. One day I'll get there! Until then, I'll just relish in you're all's glory! lol!

[Dave Stewart]

Here is my take on this past season here on Ky/Barkley:

Spring: The only normal thing we had this spring was in late Feb and first few days in March...the early prespawn Smallmouth bite was good. Then came the flood...lol. The flood in March and the unusual weather patterns affected the LM and SM bite for the remainder of the spring. The SM bite virtually shut down after the flood hit (not nearly as good in March as normal). The Largemouth bite was good all spring...but one had to versitile and know how all the water and weather conditions were affecting the shad. The fish moved in..the fish moved out..the fish moved in..the fish moved out.etc...lol. We had a LM spawn that was strung out all the way into the end of May. Overall, my observation of the spring LM bite is that it was good, but never as many fish concentrated in spawning areas at the same time...this was not a bad thing if you knew how to keep following the fish...but it frustrated may anglers that I talked to. Barkley was a mud hole for the most part in March so I concentrated more on Ky Lake this spring but did have some good days on Barkley in April and May.

Summer: The ledge bite was great this year on Ky Lake. I found it to be just fair on Barkley. Most of the ledge bite this year was dominated by slow moving techniqes (dragging jigs, Texas and C-rigs) but we did have some good crankbait and spinnerbait bite early on. Had a lot of good fish on ledges this summer..lots of short fish too...but many days with some big fish...had 7 fish over 7 lbs on the ledges this summer..that in my book is a good summer. The grass bite was good, especially down south toward Paris. Frog bite was awesome in June.

Fall: The fall bite was short lived for the most part. The water temps stayed up too long and it put the fish stuck in transition..the young shad made the transition first as normal...but the adult shad were stuck between deep and shallow and just as they started to move shallow, the artic fronts hit us and the water temps dropped like a rock (early this year). Had some really good days on numbers back shallow on the fall bite with topwaters and senkos fishing the young shad schools, lots of short fish and some good keepers but never really saw the schools of big fish back shallow because the adult shad schools were hanging out in the channels between the flats and mouths of the creeks. The main lake grass bed fishing early this fall was very good with topwaters and spinnerbaits and remained that way until the water dropped too low and pulled the shad off the flats. Overall, I would rate the fall fishing as good but not nearly as good or lasting as long as normal. Most of our fall (late October and November) was spent ripping spoons and lipless crankbaits under the big adult shad schools that were hanging out on the creek channels off the flats). The fall bite as it were, was over early this year.

I would say this past year was a good year..and a challenging year...looking forward to the coming year and hoping we will get the weather patterns more back in line with what we normally see here in early spring and late Oct and Nov.

By the way, I will doing my seminars at the West Ky Boat and Outdoor Show next month on spring bass fishing here on the big lake.

Also, I am teaching classes this winter here on how to eliminate water and find the bass....if you had problems following the bass this past spring with all the water level changes and unusual weather patterns...this class will cure that problem.