Fishing Tips Digest

Blue catfish are native to the Ohio River and grow quickly and to huge sizes. This is a very popular game fish, as are all catfish. Not as many of us like to eat them and there is a lot of catch and release but I’ve talked to plenty of anglers who swear they are good eatin’.

If you live in or near Ohio, here is a good article that discusses some new releases of blue catfish that are being planned in the Ohio River area. http://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2011/08/columbus_reservoir_bags_trophy.html

They will be releasing them first in the Hoover Resevoir when the waters begin to cool. If you fish there you may see me and my grandson.

There are more releases of catfish being planned but the blue cats will only be released in those reservoirs in the Ohio River watershed. They do stock channel catfish in our area and I’m sure other areas, so it’s a good idea to keep up with the fishing news to see when they are being released in an arena near you.

If you use night crawlers as bait when fishing for bass, and you want them to be fat and healthy;  the night before you go fishing put them in a flat container that is lined with wet newspaper.

Place the container in the refrigerator until morning. You will be a happy fisherman the next morning when you see these worms. Don’t eat them though. They are for the fish.

Next to bass fishing I probably enjoy crappie fishing best. Some of the fishing techniques are similar and I’ve caught my share of crappie while bass fishing.

As a rule a lighter line works best and you don’t want to jerk the pole to set the hook as a crappie’s mouth is thin and you will just rip out the hook. However, I use a baitcaster to fish with and a 12 lb line and it doesn’t stop me from pulling in the crappie. When I find them though, I have my grandson fish that area as his line is lighter and he seems to have a lighter touch than I do.

White crappie are very similar in appearance to the black crappie. White crappie have 5-10 vertical bars rather than randomly scattered spots like the black crappie. The dorsal fin of a white crappie starts further back on the body than that of a black crappie. White crappie are also slightly more elongate than black crappie.

Black crappie have deeper bodies than the white crappie. Their head, back, and sides are mottled with dusky or black blotches. These blotches do not form vertical bars as on white crappie. The most reliable characteristic  is that black crappie have seven or eight dorsal spines compared to the five or six of a white crappie. The dorsal fin is also set further forward on the body of a black crappie than it is on a white crappie.

Fishing for crappie means having a good idea where you might find them. Crappie, just like bass, are structure-oriented fish and look for cover such as drop-offs,  ridges, points and channel ledges during the summer, fall and winter months.

In particular stumps. A smaller stump may hold more crappie but a larger stump tens to have larger ones. I prefer fishing for crappie around these stumps and have never had much luck in the brush piles. That doesn’t mean you won’t, however.

The white crappies tend to prefer warmer water and aren’t particular as to whether the water is clear or moving. The black crappie are usually found more often in cooler, slower moving waters  such as large lakes and wide, slow rivers.

The white crappie seems to prefer small fish or minnows or shad while the black crappie have been shown to feed on mostly insects in the spring and minnows and such the rest of the year.

While fishing for crappie, my grandson and I saw this huge turtle in the water. We both started casting toward it.

I was using a spinnerbait and got my 2nd cast about 2 feet past the turtle, which was about 100′ away.

I reeled in and it went over him, but placed my next cast in the same spot. I actually snagged him while I was reeling in. I was using my baitcaster rod with a 12 pound test line.

It took awhile to reel him in. He didn’t put up a fight but it was so heavy I could only bring it in a little at a time. He measured 30″ without his head fully extended. It was a soft shell snapping turtle. We were fishing off a dock so had to use a large net another fisherman had. He helped bring him onto the dock.

He looked ancient. My grandson was thrilled with the catch. I released him back into the water.

Here is a picture showing how the spinnerbait snagged him.

Spinnerbait is starting to become more popular with fishermen. The cost is much less than most lures and, and this is the biggie, they work.

I have a large selection of them so I can fish different colors and see what’s working.

A spinnerbait is a good lure for fishing in and around almost any cover such as boat docks, grassy areas, lily pads, branches or stumps in the water, etc. . A spinnerbait is mostly fished on a standard cast-and-retrieve in shallow water or at an intermediate depth but can also be fished deep.

Fishing for bass is when this spinnerbait mostly comes into play, but you can certainly catch other fish as well. I pulled in 2 nice crappie on one trip and, just a couple days ago, actually snagged a turtle. I’ll put up pictures later but it was a 2 1/2′ softback turtle that looked prehistoric. My spinnerbait had a 4 hook prong on it and actually snagged it.