Barren river walleye

Thanks BiggerBear I am going to give this a try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by probucktails

I don't take a boat up to lock 5 at all, the boat ramp parking lot is notorious for people stealing, cutting off catylitic converters, batteries etc, lock 5 looks too dangerous in a boat, there is steel tangled up in the rocks at lock 5, always been afraid of punching a hole in my boat.

That ramp seems like it is always mudded up real bad too. I've never put in there but it looks like you wouldn't be able to take a very big boat upstream to the L&D on account of it being pretty shallow.

Last spring, My friend and I were standing at the riverview boat ramp muskie fishing while a guy backed in his 18' Nitro fish and ski, unloaded and took off up river wide open, an hour and a half later he came back loaded up and went on his way, said he didn't catch anything. I was suprised to see his boat back in one piece, he's got a whole lot more brass than I do lol plus he looked and talked like he'd been smokin on something a lot stronger than a marlboro lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by dncncwboy61

The preferred method of fishing for sauger and walleyes here on the Cumberland river system is (the most common, but not the only method) using a hair jig with either a minnow or plastic trailer. Using whatever weight it takes to maintain contact with the bottom, (in heavy flows that can be anywhere up to a 2 oz jig) lift the jig off bottom 6-12 inches, then lower it back to the bottom. Repeat.....a jillion times. I have better luck with a lift up, and slow descent, touch bottom, lift up and hold three to four inches for a count of ten, then repeat. Some days we'll catch a limit of ten or twenty. Other days we'll be lucky to catch dinner. It can definitely be a tough sport, fishing for walleye and sauger. Sauger will normally be in heavier flows and deeper than walleyes. Sauger will definitely hug the bottom. If you are a foot off bottom, you're not too likely to get bit by saugers. There you'll catch your white bass, bluegills and spotted bass. Walleyes will typically hold shallower than sauger.

I was fishing a dropoff into the river in a creek mouth last week and I had caught a couple of sauger in 34 ft of water. While fishing down the dropoff in about 20 ft, I hooked into a nice 6.04 lb walleye( the one pictured). Attachment 113550 It seems they were holding on the edge of the drop jut out of the current whereas the sauger were holding dead on the bottom at the edge of the dropoff. Fishing around creek mouths seems to be a good place to start looking. In February they'll move into shallower water to spawn, then they'll go into a two week recuperative funk and they'll be hard to catch.

Good luck in your search!

Thank you sir for this information. Ive been trying to get info on creek mouth fishing in my area. We are having some issues with our local dam not letting us near the good fishing so Ive been wanting to try the creek mouths for the sauger..... So you say fish right where the creek channel starts to come up onto the ledge????? and how far up in the creek mouth will you go to try this. I always just figured just right where the creek mouth and river meet up. Any info on that would be appreciated.

How about when the river comes up and is rippin???? fish just up into creek where there is no current????