Time for big Ohio blues: Catfish like these are by no means out of the question right now in Ohio
May 28, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
It’s time for big blue catfish on the Ohio River.
Mike Marchand has the evidence.
Mike, his brother-in-law, Ronnie Ramsey and a couple of cousins were fishing on the Ohio River near Stephensport in the Cannelton pool. Other than a couple of nibbles, the fish weren’t interested in feeding.
Suddenly, something hit his line. And Mike’s fishing line isn’t your ordinary 10-pound test stuff. He uses 65-pound test on a big Penn reel and an Ugly Stick Rod.
A week before when he was fishing in the same spot something big twice broke the heavy test line.
It was about 1:30 a.m. when Mike realized he had a fish on, and it didn’t take long to determine it was a dandy. “It took 20 to 25 minutes to land it. It might have been longer,” explained Mike. “Next, we had to get it up a 10 to 12-foot bank.”
Marchand said he didn’t have scales that would weigh the fish. “The scales I had only went to 55 pounds and it pegged it, so I took the fish home and put it in my pond until I could get another scale the next morning. When I weighed it, it went exactly 75 pounds.”
After Marchand weighed the fish, he drove it back to his hole and released it. “Who knows, maybe one of us will catch it again some day,” he said, smiling.
He caught the fish on a live bluegill. He fished the next night, but didn’t catch a fish.
Marchand says blue cats are seasonal, biting best in spring and fall. “This is about the time for them to be hitting,” he said. “They should be starting now.”
The Ohio River is known for its huge blue cats.
The Kentucky and Indiana state record blue catfish was caught in 1999 below the Cannelton dam by the late Bruce Medkiff of Owensboro. The monster weighed 104 pounds; it also was released back to the river after being officially weighed.
By Phil Junker
![[Digg]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Feed Me Links]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/feedmelinks.png)
![[Google]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[Twitter]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Email]](http://kentuckyfishing.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
State publishes Kentucky’s Boating and Fishing Access Sites
February 22, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
For my first wedding anniversary – the Paper Anniversary – I ran out and bought my wife flowers and a gift and spent a pretty good amount hoping to impress her.
She took a trip over to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife offices.She was happy about my gift. I was near tears at the thoughtfulness of hers.
Book excerpt: Seeking out catfish in the dead of night
Excerpted with permission from Catfishing in the South (Outdoor Tennessee Series)
Staring at fluorescent rod tips, made to glow by a black-light beam, two anglers sit waiting for things that go bump in the night. They talk about everything and nothing as they anticipate one of the glow-in-the-dark tips surging suddenly toward the water’s dark surface. They’re fishing after hours because they have found that the night bite is better once summer sets in.
All of the South’s popular catfish species are at least somewhat nocturnal, with flatheads being more tuned into the nightime hours than their cousins. Through the summer, even more so than the rest of the year, most cats feed more actively through the night than during the day.
In addition to the better bite that tends to occur beneath starry skies, the setting of the sun sends the daily barrage of pleasure boaters home, which makes catfishing far more enjoyable. As importantly, summer nights feel far more pleasant than summer days throughout the South. Even when dog-day cats will bite, the mid-afternoon sun sometimes can be almost enbearable on the open water.
Ohio River Cats
August 22, 2008 by admin · Comments Off
Armed with stout conventional tackle and baited up with one-pound gizzard shad, Bruce Midkiff obviously had big cats in mind. An Ohio River cat fanatic who has since passed away, Midkiff found exactly what he was looking for that day in 1999. Fishing alone, he managed to land a 104-pound blue catfish, which stands as the state-record blue for Kentucky and Indiana.
Midkiff lived in Owensboro, so he did the bulk of his catfishing in the nearby Cannelton and Newberg lock-and-dam tailwaters and the Cannelton pool of the river. That said, great catfishing spots are spread along the entire Kentucky portion of the Ohio River, which extends more than 700 miles and forms the state’s entire northern border Most blue catfish are caught down- stream of Cincinnati, with the highest densities through the lower reaches of the river. Channels and flatheads abound throughout the river.
Blue catfish study underway on Taylorsville
August 20, 2008 by admin · Comments Off
Researchers tagged about 1,000 blue catfish in Taylorsville Lake over two weeks in July in an effort to better gauge the impact of angling on this species.
“We’re trying to figure out how many blue catfish are being caught, the size of the fish being caught, how many are being kept and what the anglers are using to catch them,” said Fisheries Biologist Chris Hickey, a researcher who is heading the project for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
Fish tagging began July 8. Each catfish will receive a bright yellow tag placed on its back. Tagged fish will range in size from 10 inches to 30 inches or more.
Each tag will contain the department’s toll-free telephone number, 1-800-858-1549, and research numbers. Anglers should retain tags when they clean their catch, then call the telephone number with information about their fish. Anglers who do not keep their tagged catfish should clip the tag and call in the numbers. The tagging study will continue for at least a year.
Taylorsville Lake is a 3,050-acre reservoir located in Spencer, Anderson and Nelson counties. It has received stockings of blue catfish since 2002.
—Kentucky Department for Fish & Wildlife Resources
Going vertical for ledge cats
August 1, 2008 by admin · Comments Off
By Steve Vantreese
Lighten up and get down, but don’t expect to chill out.
Kuttawa, Ky., fishing guide Malcolm Lane isn’t offering philosophy of grooving when he advocates going lighter. He means tackle and line. And down means contact with the bottom. Any chilling, meanwhile, seems unlikely when it comes to one of his favorite endeavors — mid-sumer catfish pursuit on the big waters of Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake.
Lane, who operates on the big western Kentucky waters as Hook, Line and Sinker guide service, is a 40-year pro fish finagler who more and more nowadays looks to the whiskered species for amusing visiting anglers. On the giant, canal-linked reservoirs, the headliners traditionally have been black bass and crappie, with a special summer consideration for the swarms of white bass that are popular with masses of locals and visitors alike.
