Thread: Ohio River Fish

The crappie fishing on Smithland Pool is starting to pick up this past few weeks. Here are some pics from the last couple of trips plus a bonus pic. The crappie were caught on emerald shiners with our corks set from 3-5 ft deep. The water temp was in the upper 50s and the creeks have good clarity at this time.

The first trip we only had 5 crappie and several bass. I have fished for a long time on this river and have never experienced a tougher crappie bite than we had on this trip. I know I hooked at least 7 or 8 big crappie that pulled off. It got so bad that we were letting the fish take the bait for as much as 20-30 seconds only to only have the fish pull off at the waters surface. I guess with the high pressure many of these fish had no intention of eating our minnows, they justwanted to kill them. Several times the cork would shake then slowly go out of site for about a foot, then the cork would just pop up to the surface. And the fish would never bite again. We tried jigs and could not even get a touch. The challege is what makes this sport rewarding though!

Trip # 2, I went by myself and was only able to fish about 4 hours due to having to work that afternoon. On this trip a cold front was aproaching and it was lightly raining. This is my favorite conditions to fish bar none and the wind was light. I ended up with 17 nice keeper crappie (caught bunches of small fish) and even had a 3.5 lb channel cat. Unlike the first trip, I do not believe I missed a single keeper fish this day. The barometric pressure definately makes a difference.



1st trip - 5 crappie and 8 bass (note: bass 2.5 lb+ were released)




2nd trip results - 17 crappie from 9.5 to 13 inches


Huck Jrs big fish this year 16 lb bluecat