# Blue Catfish



## buckeyes012001 (Apr 28, 2010)

Has anyone caught any Blue Catfish at Dillon yet? I read that the ODNR stocked it last fall with 13,000 fish.


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## husky hooker (Apr 6, 2004)

dillon is in sw side


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## dre (Aug 14, 2009)

Dillion is near Zanesville which is considered SE side..


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## bttmline (Apr 7, 2004)

Yes they did stock Blue Cats in there but shortly after they had a major flood and are afraid they lost at least half of the stocked fish. But that only means that they are now in the Muskingum River


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## jason454ci (Dec 27, 2005)

Wow it's hard to believe that living here in Zanesville I missed the major flood they had. 

They will end up in the Licking and Muskingum Rivers. This has nothing to do with flooding though. In all the years that the lake has been there it has never got to the point that any water has went over the dam. The closest it has ever been was in January of 2005 when it was just about 2 feet from going over.

Anything stocked into the lake makes its way through the spillway. There was 13,124 Blue cats stocked into Dillon last fall. There were between 10 and 12 inches when they were stocked. 2,355 fish were tagged for studies.


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## norseangler (Jan 8, 2009)

Some of the fish were also fitted with transmitters. The biologist heading the blue cat project told me that the last check of location before things froze up showed the fish had collected near one end of the dam. Frankly, they don't know yet if any significant number went through the dam.


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## bttmline (Apr 7, 2004)

I did not say they swam and swam on over the dam, The fish biologist told be because of excessive amout of water throygh the spillway. And because of the lake is why you might of missed the major flood behind the dam. Ist is for flood control. I was just reporting what was told to me by THE STATE FISH BIOLOGIST. but hell what would he know.


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## RushCreekAngler (Jan 19, 2011)

This video is on the DNR's lake map page for Dillon:


http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/enewspages/bluecatfishreleasevideo/tabid/23092/Default.aspx


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## husky hooker (Apr 6, 2004)

my bad,thought it was.


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## Joey209 (Oct 17, 2007)

Caught this Blue outta the Muskingum near Zanesville in July. So there may akready be a small population of em in the river


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## jason454ci (Dec 27, 2005)

bttmline said:


> I did not say they swam and swam on over the dam, The fish biologist told be because of excessive amout of water throygh the spillway. And because of the lake is why you might of missed the major flood behind the dam. Ist is for flood control. I was just reporting what was told to me by THE STATE FISH BIOLOGIST. but hell what would he know.


Still seems funny to me seeing how the highest lake levels all winter and last fall have just happened in the last 3 days or so. They are hardly what I would call major flooding. But then again I guess I'm not a fish biologist either. I'm just going off of what the Corp. of Engineers gauges say, guess they must be wrong.


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## Joey209 (Oct 17, 2007)

LOL. All the stocked bluecats got pushed out of dillon by a flood thru a 6ft x 6 ft hole?


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## puterdude (Jan 27, 2006)

Look guys what bttmline says could very well be true and is certainly within reason.Dillon is a flood control lake,they darn near empty it every fall & over the winter,so it makes sense a lot of the fish would go out the spillway.Fishing & pleasure is low on the care list of the army corp of engineers.Flood Control first and foremost.They don't care what ODNR puts in there and if it stays.I can't think of another lake that gets drawn down as much as Dillon.I think we all would be amazed at the total of fish that gets washed out Dillon each year.It keeps The Musk well stocked for sure.


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## jason454ci (Dec 27, 2005)

Ok you all win. All the fish in Dillon get washed out every winter due to these incredible floods and tremendous draw downs. Then every spring the state has to re stock it. 

How hard is it to do a little research on a topic before posting? Dillon gets drawn down 3 feet for winter every year. That is far from being empty. Yes fish do end up in the rivers below but I'm sure this happens all year round.


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## bttmline (Apr 7, 2004)

FYI, I had just spoke to the district 1 biologist 3 days before the post. Speaking of investigating, I run the Eastern Buckeye Crappie Club and speak to ODNR and the Biologists and members of the Muskingum Watershed District personel on almost a monthly basis. They have invited me to go on electro-shock surveys. I am proud to say I feel my input helped in the 9 inch size and 30 fish creels now in effect on Crappie. So study this.


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## BottomBouncer (Jan 20, 2005)

Joey209 said:


> Caught this Blue outta the Muskingum near Zanesville in July. So there may akready be a small population of em in the river


How can you tell it's a blue?

*not being a smartass*


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## Joey209 (Oct 17, 2007)

BottomBouncer said:


> How can you tell it's a blue?
> 
> *not being a smartass*


Its a blue . trust me
It has all the characteristics of a blue. I counted 34 rays on the anal fin(channel cats have 29 or less)
and it had the typical tall body of a blue. If you hold a blue up with a channel you can see alot of differences


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## bttmline (Apr 7, 2004)

I wasn't sure in the first photo but will have to agree it is a blue, great catch.


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## smoothkip25 (Nov 17, 2008)

Nice Blue Joe. Id like to run into one of them this year.


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

Joey209 said:


> LOL. All the stocked bluecats got pushed out of dillon by a flood thru a 6ft x 6 ft hole?


I am not questioning your story here . i am just trying to understand this. Where would this 6x6 foot hole be? Is there a breach in the dam at higher flows? I guess I am just a bit confused on why this would have taken the biologists by surprise unless this is some newly found hole.  What does this mean to the future of the stocking of the blues? Will that put an end to the attempt to stock Dillon? I was looking forward to giving them a try in a couple of years once they got the numbers and size established.


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## Joey209 (Oct 17, 2007)

bkr43050 said:


> I am not questioning your story here . i am just trying to understand this. Where would this 6x6 foot hole be? Is there a breach in the dam at higher flows? I guess I am just a bit confused on why this would have taken the biologists by surprise unless this is some newly found hole.  What does this mean to the future of the stocking of the blues? Will that put an end to the attempt to stock Dillon? I was looking forward to giving them a try in a couple of years once they got the numbers and size established.


The dam at dillon is like 100 feet above the water line. the 6x6 hole is at the bottom and other side of the dam and when they let water out of dillon this is where they would do it. On the other side of the spillway is the hole to the licking river and then the muskingum. A lot of fish go thru the spillway but I highly doubt all or most of the bluecats will. Blue cats like moving up stream. I wouldnt be suprised if we started catchin some blues in Newark


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## Joey209 (Oct 17, 2007)

this is the south end of dillon. The upper left hand of the pic would be where overflow would come out into the licking river(thru a 6x6 hole) This is where a lot of people go to catch shad. In the spring thru fall the shad are as thick as anyone could ever imagine. On good days you can throw your cast net off the highwall and you can get 10-15 lbs of shad in 1 throw


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## M.Magis (Apr 5, 2004)

To add to that, yes, everyone involved from the get-go knew that this was a flood control lake. And just like any other flood control lake the gates are opened up as needed. The odds of losing half the stocked fish from high water would be the same as loosing half of any other species in the lake, zero. Some will go over, no doubt. Apparently they aren&#8217;t concerned, as there are lakes that would rarely allow them to escape (Salt Fork) that they didn&#8217;t choose. Also as mentioned, there&#8217;s barely even been high water since the blues were stocked, much less a flood. Maybe the biologist was worried that they MIGHT loose fish, in the future? I don&#8217;t know, but there certainly hasn&#8217;t been any flooding recently.


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## bkr43050 (Apr 5, 2004)

I didn't realize that you were talking about just the normal outflow channel. This obviously would have been part of the thought process by the biologists. With any stocked fish there is always a risk of some going through the dam. I was reading the earlier posts with the impression that there may have been an unexpected high number lost to the river. On second glance it seems that there may be nothing unexpected happening with them at this point. With the transmitters the biologists should have a pretty decent feel for how this progresses. If anyone sees any updates as this goes along pertaining to the tracking studies it would be interesting to read. I am sure I not the only one thinking that though.


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