# Hoover saugeye and Crappie



## mashunter18 (Jun 23, 2005)

Fished Hoover Thursday morning caught two little baby saugeye 8" and actually caught two keepers 16 to 18 inch I released them.

Took my 2 young nephews out Saturday fished from noon to seven. Trolling cranks figured I could keep them busy with the Crappie and white bass. Caught lots of Crappie off the points and flats with some white bass mixed in. We also caught six or seven 10" saugeye. They were bigger than the two dinks I caught Thursday. Hopefully this is a good sign for a few years from now for Hoover Saugeye.


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## Duck391 (Oct 2, 2011)

Wow! That makes me super happy. I have put a good amount of mornings eye fishing on Hoover this season and have only caught 1 short, I was getting nervous none of the fry were surviving. Don't get me wrong, I love catching larger ones, but I was just thinking there was no way I was that lucky this year, but maybe so.


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## Hoover 4 Me (Jul 30, 2013)

Yeah, keeper saugeye have been few and far between at Hoover this year. It even caught the Division of Wildlife's attention and they have been looking into it. Catching smaller fish is a good sign. Thanks for the report.


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## Duck391 (Oct 2, 2011)

Hoover 4 Me said:


> Yeah, keeper saugeye have been few and far between at Hoover this year. It even caught the Division of Wildlife's attention and they have been looking into it. Catching smaller fish is a good sign. Thanks for the report.



Whoops I made it sound like I only caught 1 short eye, I meant only 1 short compared to probably around 30 keepers. But ya still had a few days with blanks so the numbers maybe numbers are low overall? I was just concerned about not seeing smaller fish for future years. Seems like you always run into a few drinks at alum.


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## mashunter18 (Jun 23, 2005)

Yeah I just got my boat at the end of June. Spent a good month at Hoover lots of mornings of zero. Never more then one keeper. Switched to Alum much better for keepers, but lots of shorts. But would catch some keepers every time.

Duck your about the most successful I've heard from Hoover this year. Talk to a few guys at the ramp and everybody said none, and told me they gave up on Saugeye at Hoover. I talked to one guy said he fished the mid Ohio saugeye trail showed me a stringer of white bass and Crappie and said you see what I'm bringing home. He told me to try my luck at alum and that's when I switched over to focusing on alum.

I finally got skunked at alum last weekend seems like the fish are moving from where I was catching them in the summer. I'm definitely still new to Saugeye fishing. I hope Hoover bounces back I bought a boat with a 9.9 so I could get on Hoover.


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## stelgofish1 (Sep 25, 2014)

From Jim Horan's Hoover report:

9/6/17 - From - Ethan Simmons , Div. Of Wildlife - “We’ve had three years in a row of extremely poor saugeye stocking survival at Hoover. The traditional fingerling stockings in 2014 and 2016 as well as the experimental fry stocking in 2015 all produced very few adult fish. We can’t say for sure what has caused this, but predation from other fish and lack of an adequate food source soon after stocking are two factors that have been shown to influence stocking success. One thing we’re pretty confident in is it’s not the blue cats eating the saugeye. There are simply too many shad, sunfish, and crappie for blue cats to eat rather than honing in on the small population of stocked saugeye.


We’ve conducted 10 gill net surveys since 2003 for adult saugeye at Hoover and 97% of the fish we caught were 3 years and younger. The average length of an age 3 fish is 21.5”. Of the small amount of age 4 fish we’ve captured the average size is 24”. Since we rarely see fish older than age 3 and we’ve had 3 bad year classes in a row, Hoover has very few saugeye left in the population. This helps explain the lack of reports you’ve received in the Hoover fishing report. We understand that Hoover is a central Ohio gem and no one is more disappointed with the lack of saugeye than us. This year we requested double the amount of saugeye fingerlings to be stocked in the hopes of increasing the odds of a successful year class, and we’ll request double next year. More stocked fish doesn’t necessarily mean more adult fish, but this is one lever we can pull quickly to try to influence the population. In fact this spring we ended up with even more stocked for a total of 260 fingerlings/acre (compared to 100/acre). Fingers crossed we see a huge year class this October when we sample. Whatever the outcome of this year’s stocking, know that we are always working hard to understand and improve this important fishery at Hoover.


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## Fishingisfun (Jul 19, 2012)

I going to put this out there as a possibility that bird predation may be a problem. Comerants have been spotted in numbers at Hoover. They nest and their waste kills trees and they eat lot of smaller fish for meals. I will base this guess on the lack of smaller Walleye Rice Lake Canada experienced a number of years back. The fishing had changed to mature Walleye being caught frequently with little or no smaller fish showing up in catch surveys. They realized they had a serious problem if no smaller fish to mature and fill in the population of trophy fish for the next years. The story was after scratching this heads and making all types of guesses and tests for possible causes a suggestion was made to check the Commerants to see what they fed on. The birds had their guts packed with Walleye and Perch fingerlings. The answer at Rice for the lack of smaller fish was the amount of feeding birds on the lake. The answer was to control the Commerant population or lose a valuable fishery tourist destination.


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## slowtroller (Sep 28, 2011)

Get rid of the Water Turkeys and the fry will mature. They were never as thick as this spring and they do eat.


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

How come there are so many more comerants at Hoover then alum? 
Or any other local lakes for that matter? I can imagine them putting a hurting on a fish population. 
But at the same time. Most anyone that has fished Hoover any at all the last two years can attest to the ridiculously large crappie population right now. It is insane! A slow day is 4 hours to get 30 keepers. An most days it don't take near that.plus all the dinks mixed in. From the creek all the way to the dam. Shallow or deep they are absolutely packed in that lake right now. 
I know guys that got limits in water less then ten ft from 10-20 and from 20-30 ft. Last week all three say non stop action.
I'd say that might have something to do with it.


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## Hoover 4 Me (Jul 30, 2013)

Well, I honestly hate to be "that" guy but, I'd need to see a limit of keepers out of Hoover this year for myself before I believed it happened. I talk to a lot of guys that have been fishing that lake for a long time and it's always the same report. But, if you're actually getting good numbers of keepers, congrats. You're one of the few guys doing it. 

There are likely a few contributing factors. Hoover has had up and down years before but in my 20+ years of fishing there, it has never been this bad. The biggest change I can think of is they changed the stocking program. They went to alternating between fry and fingerlings each year. As soon as they stocked the fry the saugeye fishing took a huge dive. They upped the number of fish they stocked when it was the fry but it obviously doesn't take a very big fish to eat fry. I'm sure their survival numbers were very, very low.


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

Hoover 4 Me said:


> Well, I honestly hate to be "that" guy but, I'd need to see a limit of keepers out of Hoover this year for myself before I believed it happened. I talk to a lot of guys that have been fishing that lake for a long time and it's always the same report. But, if you're actually getting good numbers of keepers, congrats. You're one of the few guys doing it.
> 
> There are likely a few contributing factors. Hoover has had up and down years before but in my 20+ years of fishing there, it has never been this bad. The biggest change I can think of is they changed the stocking program. They went to alternating between fry and fingerlings each year. As soon as they stocked the fry the saugeye fishing took a huge dive. They upped the number of fish they stocked when it was the fry but it obviously doesn't take a very big fish to eat fry. I'm sure their survival numbers were very, very low.


Believe me,it has happened. Not alot or bye many that's for sure. But it's happened....

The limits I spoke of in my post where crappie though....


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## RiparianRanger (Nov 18, 2015)

Saugeyefisher said:


> How come there are so many more comerants at Hoover then alum?
> Or any other local lakes for that matter? I can imagine them putting a hurting on a fish population.
> But at the same time. Most anyone that has fished Hoover any at all the last two years can attest to the ridiculously large crappie population right now. It is insane! A slow day is 4 hours to get 30 keepers. An most days it don't take near that.plus all the dinks mixed in. From the creek all the way to the dam. Shallow or deep they are absolutely packed in that lake right now.
> I know guys that got limits in water less then ten ft from 10-20 and from 20-30 ft. Last week all three say non stop action.
> I'd say that might have something to do with it.


Could it be the slower pace and relatively lower boat traffic? Don't mistake this for advocating lifting the horse power restriction. I just spent Saturday at Alum, and I don't see how a bird could stand to spend a minute on that lake. Heck, I could hardly stand it as an angler

And I agree. Hoover is overrun with crappie


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## Duck391 (Oct 2, 2011)

Hoover 4 Me said:


> Well, I honestly hate to be "that" guy but, I'd need to see a limit of keepers out of Hoover this year for myself before I believed it happened. I talk to a lot of guys that have been fishing that lake for a long time and it's always the same report. But, if you're actually getting good numbers of keepers, congrats. You're one of the few guys doing it.
> 
> There are likely a few contributing factors. Hoover has had up and down years before but in my 20+ years of fishing there, it has never been this bad. The biggest change I can think of is they changed the stocking program. They went to alternating between fry and fingerlings each year. As soon as they stocked the fry the saugeye fishing took a huge dive. They upped the number of fish they stocked when it was the fry but it obviously doesn't take a very big fish to eat fry. I'm sure their survival numbers were very, very low.


I haven't had a single day of a limit on Hoover. Best day was three this year. I will also say that my only fish all year came from the northern pool on one location. I tried all my spots in the middle and south pools and was skunked so I just went back up north. I also caught all my fish trolling this season, I can usually find some casting with joshy's and road runners but didn't get a single eye casting this summer, but didn't raise a huge flag only because I don't think I have enough experience casting for them yet, haven't quite figured it out just yet.


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## Fishingisfun (Jul 19, 2012)

I fished Hoover this morning 9/20 from daylight till noon. No,crappies caught, only three undersized blue gills. We saw several boats fishing just did not see any catching going on. One boat was trolling, several casting and some others were bobber fishing. Im guessing some were trying for crappie like I was. I worked hard at trying to catch fish so it was not for lack of effort by me. I used the baits I have caught fish on recently on other local waters. I talked with a friend Monday that fishes Hoover often and he had advised me to fish elsewhere. Sadly I didn't listen to his warning and narrowly avoided a skunk.


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## RiparianRanger (Nov 18, 2015)

Were you marking any? How about shad, see any of those on the graph?


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

Fishingisfun said:


> I fished Hoover this morning 9/20 from daylight till noon. No,crappies caught, only three undersized blue gills. We saw several boats fishing just did not see any catching going on. One boat was trolling, several casting and some others were bobber fishing. Im guessing some were trying for crappie like I was. I worked hard at trying to catch fish so it was not for lack of effort by me. I used the baits I have caught fish on recently on other local waters. I talked with a friend Monday that fishes Hoover often and he had advised me to fish elsewhere. Sadly I didn't listen to his warning and narrowly avoided a skunk.


I can assure you. Hoover is LOADED with crappie. The numbers are down right rediculous.


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

Saugeyefisher said:


> I can assure you. Hoover is LOADED with crappie. The numbers are down right rediculous.


An sorry not trying to sound smug or hate on your fishing skills either. It must have been an off day. 
I wouldn't hesitate going back. Each time I've gone this year I've used bass minnows. Look for crappie on graph,drop minnows just above them. Or dead on bottom. Usually not the case,but lately it seems the more aggressive ones are on bottom,rather then the suspended ones in the same school. And the last month the bites been best in 15-30 fow for us. But I know a couple guys getting them shallow. 
Good luck if you get back out. Oh yeah an if you don't get not in 10/15 min-move on to the next school....


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## foton (Nov 25, 2012)

Sheesh shouldn't be that complicated / difficult.


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## Fishingisfun (Jul 19, 2012)

Lol It stinks to be the guy who can't catch a fish when there all over. I have fished Hoover in the past and have done well. I tried my normal tactics and some others and didn't get a crappie. I tried a inline spinner, swim bait and jigs. I believed I marked crappie in 9' to 12' levels casting to the fish with no results. I let the swimbait down to the level where I saw the marks. I will give minnows on a jig head a try next time out. I'll let you know how the minnows work.
I did see large schools of minnow or shad swimming just under the surface sometimes something busted the school but I could not catch a good look to know what it was.


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## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

Fishingisfun said:


> Lol It stinks to be the guy who can't catch a fish when there all over. I have fished Hoover in the past and have done well. I tried my normal tactics and some others and didn't get a crappie. I tried a inline spinner, swim bait and jigs. I believed I marked crappie in 9' to 12' levels casting to the fishnwith no results. I let the swimbait down to the level when I saw the marks. I will give minnows on a jig head a try. I'll let you know how the minnows work.


Lol ya it stinks,I find myself being that guy to often....
Also don't over look smaller baits like the Bobby garlands babyshads vertical jigged an if the sun's out they tend to be deeper...
Next time before you go,pm me.


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## stanimals2 (Mar 20, 2011)

We fished it Saturday morning from 7am to noon, we were trolling the entire time and it was a slow morning for sure. Tried night crawler rigs flicker shads and minnows and never caught a single saugeye. We did hit a couple nice pockets of Crappie and kept 6 slabs and a perch for dinner. All were in 10-13 ft of water trolling a bare minnow on a hook with a split shot about 2 feet off the bottom at about .5 mph. We missed a bunch of them, the bite was so light you almost needed to keep the rods in your hand and out of the rod holder to hook them.


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## RiparianRanger (Nov 18, 2015)

What's the surface water temp? Fished another Ohio impoundment yesterday and the transducer read 82 by 3 PM. Talk about boiling.


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## skywayvett (Jan 13, 2010)

I got into the white bass today .got some nice ones 15 to 18 inchers .On a vibe ,follow the birds


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## stanimals2 (Mar 20, 2011)

RiparianRanger said:


> What's the surface water temp? Fished another Ohio impoundment yesterday and the transducer read 82 by 3 PM. Talk about boiling.


It was around 74-75 most areas of the lake


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