# South Fork Licking River



## Buckeyefisher7 (Mar 1, 2011)

Spent a couple hours at the river near Hoback Park in Heath. Only managed to pull in one White Bass. Anyone else fish this river often?


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## 1basshunter (Mar 27, 2011)

Buckeyefisher7 said:


> Spent a couple hours at the river near Hoback Park in Heath. Only managed to pull in one White Bass. Anyone else fish this river often?


I have and do for many of years it’s a great place to wet a line


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## Snookhunter52 (Apr 1, 2019)

I didn't think there were any white bass in the south fork or buckeye. But then again it's pretty hard to figure out if it's a wiper or a white bass.


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## Buckeyefisher7 (Mar 1, 2011)

Went back today for a few hours and landed a 17 inch saugeye! Used the same swimbait as the last time.


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## Dovans (Nov 15, 2011)

Heres an interesting tidbit..
Few weeks ago there was a major flood. The hatchery outside of heath lost all of their ponds to the flood plus some stuff that was on the inside. It all went into the South Fork Licking River?


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## snuff1 (May 26, 2015)

Dovans said:


> Heres an interesting tidbit..
> Few weeks ago there was a major flood. The hatchery outside of heath lost all of their ponds to the flood plus some stuff that was on the inside. It all went into the South Fork Licking River?


bf7. There are all kinds of fish in there. Saugeye, wipers, smallies,kittys, rockys,gills, carpies, and more. Wade and u shall find.


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## Dovans (Nov 15, 2011)

Thinking in couple years Dillon going to one heck of a lake to fish..


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## 1basshunter (Mar 27, 2011)

Dovans said:


> Thinking in couple years Dillon going to one heck of a lake to fish..


It is now


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## Snookhunter52 (Apr 1, 2019)

It seemed like it was a better lake when I was in college. In may I could catch crappie all day long. Wipers and bass were pretty common too. Unfortunately, I think with all the rain a lot of the predator fish were flushed out the spillway has caused the shad to bloom out of control. This past 5 years, fishing over there has been tough. If you look at the fish surveys dillon has the highest fish biomasses but also the highest percentages of shad in the state. That's why they tried stocking wipers and blues to combat the shad problem. Shad don't compete for food but compete for other limiting resources such as DO. Exploding shad populations also cause a negative feedback loop because they deplete lakes of zooplankton. These zooplankton keep algae in check. This causes there to be a higher risk of algal blooms and causes more problems with low DO.


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## Snookhunter52 (Apr 1, 2019)

There's been a cool revolution in aquatic ecology where apex predators are now being considered keystone species.


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