# East Fork



## zaqxsw (Jul 19, 2009)

It seems this is the forgotten lake down here. Although born and raised in Ohio, I've only lived down here in SW Ohio for three years.

My first time on East Fork. A *20"* & 14" bass, a half a dozen crappie over 10", and a nice channel catfish all from trolling flicker shads because I didn't know enough to do anything else. Not bad in my book for a first outing.

I was the only boat I saw until 4P. After fishing Cowan and CC for a couple of years, with all of the pressure, what's up with East Fork that I don't know about? I shouldn't eat these fish??? : P


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

It's not forgotten, plenty of people fish it but it can be fickle. Was that you today I saw fishing in the Tracker. I was out there on the main lake in a white Tracker Pro-V 17 with my grand daughter. We only caught a handful of small crappie.


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## zaqxsw (Jul 19, 2009)

crappiedude said:


> Was that you today I saw fishing in the Tracker.


Nope, we were in my buddies "Crappie Jon" boat trying to stay out of the wind. I also own a blue deep-V Tracker that we use on CC.


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

I guess you were the guys I talked to when you launched who normally fish Cowan and CC.


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## zaqxsw (Jul 19, 2009)

Yep, that was us! A happy grand daughter!!!


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## garhtr (Jan 12, 2009)

A Wednesday when storms are in the forecast is probably the best time to fish there  I normally avoid it on the W/E. ( rarely fish there anymore )
I do miss the hybrid action and we caught a lot of them at times. Anyone see any Big Giant Schools of Hybrids "killing" it on Top ? ?  Might tempt me !
Good luck and good fishing !


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

zaqxsw said:


> A happy grand daughter


She's' happy because she's been getting spoiled rotten. Her brother & sister are off to camp and she's got everyone's attention for the whole week and she gets whatever she wants.
She's a fun kid to hang around with.
We were supposed to take the boat out but we were waiting to see what the weather was going to do so we fished on the dock for an hour.








I showed her my talents as a master angler, but she wasn't buying it.
She had to show me up.
View attachment 266279

She decided at lunch we should go get grandma and go out to a restaurant and if the weather held we'd take the boat out for a few hours in the afternoon. We didn't make it out until 3:00 and got to fish until 5:30. We caught a few and then headed in for dinner. It was a fun day.

About those stripers... I haven't seen any decent fish blowing up on shad schools in quite a few years. I've seen small stripers chasing shad earlier this year but nothing over 10" or so.


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## BMustang (Jul 27, 2004)

East Fork falls victim to serious algae bloom annually around this time of the year.

It may be spared the June fate this year because of the steady rains that we have incurred.


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## thedudeabides (Apr 13, 2009)

Decent smallmouth fishing in its tailwater


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## G-Patt (Sep 3, 2013)

zaqxsw said:


> It seems this is the forgotten lake down here. Although born and raised in Ohio, I've only lived down here in SW Ohio for three years.
> 
> My first time on East Fork. A *20"* & 14" bass, a half a dozen crappie over 10", and a nice channel catfish all from trolling flicker shads because I didn't know enough to do anything else. Not bad in my book for a first outing.
> 
> ...


Congrats on the nice bass and crappie! That lake is touch and go with the algae bloom every summer, but I was out there about a week ago and very surprised that it hasn't happened yet. I generally go for catfish using the pool noodle method and am very successful at it. I caught three eaters last weekend in less than an hour and fried one up. Very delicious! I know many fishermen on this forum eat the crappie and have no complaints.


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## Tom 513 (Nov 26, 2012)

I was told my a East fork regular that there was another big fish kill at EF, can anyone confirm? Crappiedude?

Sent from my SM-J727V using Tapatalk


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

I haven't been there since Friday but I haven't seen anything. If I get by there and hear anything I'll post something. Normally a fish kills happen at the end of summer/early fall once the water starts to cool and causes the turn over to push the less oxygenated water to the surface.
In 2015 it was late Sept or early Oct.


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

Drove by the lake a few times and at different ramps and even talked to half a dozen guys in the know, as far as I can tell there hasn't been any kind of fish kill.
As far as the algae, I did see a very small bloom a few weeks back but really not too much compare to the last few years.


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## Tom 513 (Nov 26, 2012)

crappiedude said:


> Drove by the lake a few times and at different ramps and even talked to have a dozen guys in the know, as far as I can tell there hasn't been any kind of fish kill.
> As far as the algae, I did see a very small bloom a few weeks back but really not too much compare to the last few years.


For what its worth the guy who told me about the fish kill, has fished EF his entire life, lives close by and only fishes there, who knows?


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## crappiedude (Mar 12, 2006)

So it sounds to me like he must be on to some fish and he wants to keep you at bay. (LOL)

FWIW I live one street away from the lake and at times I will fish there EF 5/6 times a week.
I travel around a bit to other lakes partly for the challenge and partly because of size. I like Cowan because NO JET SKI's to listen too.
EF has a bunch of fish but they tend to run smaller.

More seriously I've see fish kills happen on one section of a lake, while on another section nothing happens. Could very well be something going on but my guess would be, it's not lake wide.


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## G-Patt (Sep 3, 2013)

I was fishing there back on 7/26 and didn't see anything unusual or abnormal. I didn't see any floating fish. No algae bloom either.


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## fourrobert13 (Aug 1, 2018)

Me and my son were there in 7/30 fishing around the corner from the beach. I didn't see anything. Water was quite clear where we were at.


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