EF 9/18

[mbk]

My dad, myself, and my 12 year old nephew went to East Fork on Monday. We got there about noon and fished til about 6pm.

I hadn't been to East Fork since spring 2016 and wanted to try it again once this year. I fish in KY mostly so I didn't even buy an Ohio license this year. I bought a 1 day for this.

We started out with 4 dozen minnows, then I went back to Boar's Nest to get another 3 dozen more half way through. We were fishing with double-minnow rigs on some humps with brush near the main channel. The waypoints I marked a couple years back were still spot on in terms of fish. Fish were all in 14-20' foot of water about 7' down.

We caught probably 130 crappie during those 6 hours. Not a single other species, surprisingly. It was a lot of fun. Nephew caught a ton of fish.
Only downside is that out of all these fish, only 10 keepers. Mostly right around 10" and a few 11". There were some real small ones but nearly all of them were right around 8". It was still a lot of fun and great to get back to the lake. Water looked great. No algae at all. I think next year and the year after, the lake should hold a lot of quality fish. Fish were smaller but looked quite healthy.

mbk

[crappiemax]

Nice report mbk.
Results seem pretty typical for EF at about a 10 or 11 shorts to keeper ratio. I always have that same thought that next year it should be a great year and the ratio should be better when all those short fish grow a little. Some how the ratio seems to stay about the same though. One thing I will say is I do think the size has improved some since they raised the size limit so maybe one day.....

[ksnouf]

Nice report mbk.
Results seem pretty typical for EF at about a 10 or 11 shorts to keeper ratio. I always have that same thought that next year it should be a great year and the ratio should be better when all those short fish grow a little. Some how the ratio seems to stay about the same though. One thing I will say is I do think the size has improved some since they raised the size limit so maybe one day.....

I think its because its fished so much year around and when anyone gets a 9" they keep them that there are not many that get much bigger. I wish they put a 10" limit on them. Not much meat on a 9" anyways.

[mbk]

I think its because its fished so much year around and when anyone gets a 9" they keep them that there are not many that get much bigger. I wish they put a 10" limit on them. Not much meat on a 9" anyways.

Could be that is the case. I'm ok with them putting that rule into effect to try it. But I don't think it's the answer. The lake is ate up with small crappie. There's not much meat on them but I think maybe having less of them would help others grow. I never caught giants there, though the size average has gone down since the fish kill. I think that dispropotionally affected the bigger fish. But I could be wrong. The whole science of fish management is beyond me