# Sauger reports?



## Jrich21 (Jun 9, 2016)

Looking to try for some sauger in the east Liverpool area of the river on boat. Never targeted them before looking for some tips on baits to use and certain types of spots I should target. Thanks for the help in advance


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## jdl447 (May 16, 2018)

We used to catch em at the mouth of Yellow Creek on blade baits in the fall.
But that was was back in the 90's. Haven't been to the Ohio river in about 25 years. Good Luck.


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## youngunner (Jun 21, 2009)

Don't be afraid to fish larger baits for Sauger, I always did quite well fishing 4" mr twisters with a quite large bass minnows to tip the jig. Sauger considering their size have a unique disposition towards large profile baits even more so than their cousins the walleye or saugeye during different times of the year. If you go to the search bar there have been some recent discussions regarding a noticeable decline in Sauger catch rates in the last 5-10 years. When I was a teenager in the Marietta area it was not uncommon to catch 30 sauger in a day but it seems those days are just a Sauger fishermans dream now on the Ohio. A lot of folks speculate high water in the last few years have hurt Saugers spawning runs. I have always had the most success jigging very slowly for saugers. You want to stay tight to bottom in a lot of instances as Sauger will often lay completely flat on bottom and even flattening their head on the bottom of the river, often you will notice a high numbers of the Sauger you catch will be hooked on the underside of the mouth rather than inside the mouth. Tailwaters are the key but don't get sucked into only fishing the wash or close to the tailwater. These fish are often farther down river from a tailwater than you would expect but still relate heavily to tailwater areas.


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## PJF (Mar 25, 2009)

Shad raps shad pattern, flicker shad, jigging spoons, jigs and minnows. They like ambush points with current look for logs, rocks, bridge abutments, or other current breaks. Later in the fall they congregate at the intersections of creeks coming into the Main River. Sometimes they are shallower than a person would think. I catch them trolling with lures resembling what they are eating again shad or chrome and black, crayfish colors, etc. If you find them stay on them and observe what you are doing or where you are at...gravel bottom, sand bottom, riprap, mouths of creeks, humps, etc. And remember here today who knows tomorrow


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## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

Huskyhooker and I always had the best success between December-February at the creek mouths about 1/2 hour before dark on the Pike Island pool. We would use jig and twister and sometimes a minnow when we had them. It would be fast and furious for about 45 minutes and then they would be done. The crappier the weather, the better the bite.
They would push the bait up from the deeper water from the main river onto the shallow shoreline of the creek mouth and pig out each evening.
W fished the shoreline and not a boat.


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

Lewzer said:


> The crappier the weather, the better the bite.


A friend of mine always said "you have to be miserable to catch sauger"


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## multi species angler (Feb 20, 2006)

Myself, a friend and his dad caught and released 562 sauger, saugeye and walleye in 8 hrs ( 7am to 3pm ) at Willow Island Dam on the Ohio River. The weather was great that day. It was in the spring and many many years ago. We didn't count non target species one of which was a nice Musky brought to the side of the boat. I'll bet we easily caught 600 fish in that 8 hrs. And get this, I told another fishing friend about this trip and he wanted to go catch some. 4 days later we went and struggled to catch 5 sauger between the 2 of us. So they can be here today in great numbers and gone tomorrow.


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## PJF (Mar 25, 2009)

That was back in the day many years ago wouldn't dispute that. Now a great day would be a whole lot less than that. Some days catching one is a great day.


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