# Where are the Saugeye you ask??



## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

I was at the Pike Island dam the other day and there was several people fishing. I noticed two different guys who were catching SMALL saugeye. Each one had a stringer with at least 15 or more SMALL fish. Everytime they would put one on a stringer they looked over their shoulder to see if the law was there I guess. They were over the limit and those cigars were too small to get any meat off of them. If I would have had my cell phone I would have called the game warden. I just see too much of this.
I fish up and down the river from a boat a lot and when I run into other fishermen the most ask question lately has been "are you getting any saugeye" ? And "I wonder where they are" ?
Is it from over harvest of small fish?


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## acklac7 (May 31, 2004)

Never fished the Ohio for Sauger but from my experiance with Saugeye the smaller fish will feed first then once it gets colder the big-girls will move in for the kill.


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## Fish Assassin (Jan 30, 2010)

Give'em hell Carver!!! I think you had the same thoughts about the walleye last year didn't you!!!


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## multi species angler (Feb 20, 2006)

I'm ask this often and my response is this. It used to be that when you saw someone fishing the river they were fishing for catfish mostly. These days when you see people fishing these rivers most of them are after saugeye, walleye, and if fishing the Ohio River, sauger. ODOW used to stock saugeye directly into the Muskingum River. Well they don't do that anymore I believe after learning that some of these fish do reproduce with each other and or a sauger or walleye. Fearing that they may one day lose the true walleye or sauger strain they have stopped stocking the Muskingum River and several of the lakes that the saugeye get flushed out of quickly. Too many people keep every saugeye they catch regardless of the size. You can't take that many saugeye out of a system and expect the fishing to be as good as years past. Also there are more and more anglers fishing for saugeye and taking them home. You hear it often on here. The bite is on, time to fill the freezer.Why promote catch and release of black bass and think it's ok fill the freezers with some other species. I think it is a shame to see exceptional fish of any species killed to fill the freezer. All of the fish being taken out of the system to fill freezers won't be there to catch the next fishing trip. Yea Yea I know all about put and take and buying a license makes it legal but it doesn't make it ethical. Let the attacks begin. I just hope that the other anglers out there that are also repulsed by the meat hunters and glory seekers speak up also. And yes I do keep a very few fish compared to the numbers caught and an occasional fish for the wall. The rest of the exceptional fish are released to be caught again someday, regardless of what species it was. There you have part of your answer.


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## ohiou_98 (Mar 19, 2007)

I agree. What's real aggravating are the people who break the law. When the sauger bite is on, they'll hit the river and leave with a stringer of 30+ fish. The ones I've seen proudly display their illegal catch as they stroll past you on the river bank. It's like they think it's ok to take all these fish because "the bite is on". Well, this year its been unusually slow. I'm talking to strangers at the river every day, all of them scratching their head, wondering whats going on... I'm hoping the water is still not cold enough.


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## got me hooked (Apr 10, 2010)

I fish pike island prob 4 days a week and see the same thing. I caught a nice 17 inch walleye the other night and kept it because I hadn't had walleye in a long time, and never ate a fish out of the river either and watned to try it. Well I got home ( I only live 5 mintues away) and when it came to butchering time, I just couldn't do it. I rather see the fish live to fight another day so I took it back and released it. Walleye are pretty resilient. I do often wonder though if these guys no their limits. It's a good thing a game warden seldom goes down there cause a lot of guys would be seeking heavy fines.


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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

got me hooked said:


> I fish pike island prob 4 days a week and see the same thing. I caught a nice 17 inch walleye the other night and kept it because I hadn't had walleye in a long time, and never ate a fish out of the river either and watned to try it. Well I got home ( I only live 5 mintues away) and when it came to butchering time, I just couldn't do it. I rather see the fish live to fight another day so I took it back and released it. Walleye are pretty resilient. I do often wonder though if these guys no their limits. It's a good thing a game warden seldom goes down there cause a lot of guys would be seeking heavy fines.


The game warden will be there more often in the future. 
The game warden will be there more often in the future. 

This blatant disregard for the law from these poachers has to end. It just does not make sense to permit these law breaking meat hunters to ruin a fishery. Some fishermen handle every fish like it is a trophy and that is the way it should be. By the way the "poachers" are usually the same people who leave a trail of trash behind them. That pier is always littered and there is long pieces of line laying around that whole area in gobs, they can't even hit the trash can. Sportsmen my arse, someone should take their toys and send them home. If you see it report it, we are at blame also if we do not.


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## BuckeyeFishinNut (Feb 8, 2005)

I used to fish Pike Island regularly but I don't get down there nearly as much as I would like anymore due to school and work. I have called 1-800-poacher a few times and to my knowledge nothing ever happened. I called because of breaking bag limits mainly.

I have seen guys fish in the morning and take their limit then come back later in the afternoon and take their limit again. I have seen guys keep everything they catch (big or small) and be well over their bag limit. I call the ODNR and nothing happens, kinda frustrating. I don't care if people keep fish within the legal limits but if you're illegal I will attempt to call the warden. 

A guy I went to school with works for the ODNR in this district and he told me that with more people fishing for sauger/walleye in the late fall-early spring and increasing complaints that there is going to be a more pronounced presence from the game wardens checking bag limits and licenses at Pike Island. He said before there weren't enough people down there day in and day out to give it their time but with the increased popularity in the sauger/walleye fishery it has caught their attention. We will see if this is true but I personally would love to see it.

Jake


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## TPfisher (Aug 31, 2009)

This blatant disregard for the laws pisses me off to no end as well. I havent fished the Ohio for Sauger since 08 but I remember seeing people filling their livewells with tiny fish and it really grinded my gears. I got a little bit of a smile out of it one time though when there were two game wardens at the ramps. One was on the Ohio side and another on the KY side and quite a few people got their licenses taken away and one got arrested. My buddy and I weeded through all the cigars and actually wound up taking up home 4 fish that were all at least 14" and letting another probably 10 more of that size go because we didn't see the need to keep anymore. It took us all day and a LOT of throwing fish back, but to me that is the part of the point of fishing. I see absolutely no point in keeping a bunch of 7-10" sauger that will give you virtually no meat anyway and killing a great natural resource in the process. 

I should mention that a couple of these iddiots that got in trouble didn't even have licenses, which pisses me off even more but that is a whole other issue that I could write a friggin thesis on.


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## Recondo37 (Jan 11, 2008)

I agree, I haven't kept one out of the river. I keep telling myself I will this year, but don't know why I don't. I ate so much fish out of Lake Erie in the mid to late 70s, the river would be nothing. My best was a 17inch Sauger in 07 from the PI Dam. Haven't come close since. thinking of hitting it before work in the AM..Don't know if I'm psyched enough for the 30 degree by the water at 4:30 yet. ya'll be good/good fish'n.


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## ohiogary (Dec 14, 2006)

I was fishing pike island last week down by steel beam and there were three guys fishing, one guy had two poles secured to the beam and one in his hand, I cannot say for sure how many fish he had,but it was definely way over his limit, no matter what the size was....it went in the basket....another different guy fishing had a stringer with atleast 20 saugeyes, same thing what ever he caught went on the stringer, whether it was a cigar or not.


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## triton189 (Nov 6, 2009)

multi species angler said:


> I'm ask this often and my response is this. It used to be that when you saw someone fishing the river they were fishing for catfish mostly. These days when you see people fishing these rivers most of them are after saugeye, walleye, and if fishing the Ohio River, sauger. ODOW used to stock saugeye directly into the Muskingum River. Well they don't do that anymore I believe after learning that some of these fish do reproduce with each other and or a sauger or walleye. Fearing that they may one day lose the true walleye or sauger strain they have stopped stocking the Muskingum River and several of the lakes that the saugeye get flushed out of quickly. Too many people keep every saugeye they catch regardless of the size. You can't take that many saugeye out of a system and expect the fishing to be as good as years past. Also there are more and more anglers fishing for saugeye and taking them home. You hear it often on here. The bite is on, time to fill the freezer.Why promote catch and release of black bass and think it's ok fill the freezers with some other species. I think it is a shame to see exceptional fish of any species killed to fill the freezer. All of the fish being taken out of the system to fill freezers won't be there to catch the next fishing trip. Yea Yea I know all about put and take and buying a license makes it legal but it doesn't make it ethical. Let the attacks begin. I just hope that the other anglers out there that are also repulsed by the meat hunters and glory seekers speak up also. And yes I do keep a very few fish compared to the numbers caught and an occasional fish for the wall. The rest of the exceptional fish are released to be caught again someday, regardless of what species it was. There you have part of your answer.


We have the same problem up here on Indian Lake. Almost everyone keeps every Saugeye they catch. I have scene people catch some that appear to be around 7 to 8 inches long and they put them in the box. Also, I have asked people how they are doing while fishing. Many times I get this response. " I limited out early this morning. However, I will be back tonight because they are on fire early and later in the day. 

Indian Lake has been "pounded" the last few years as the word has gotton out that IL is the Saugeye capital of Ohio. The knowledge on where and how to catch them has also gotton out. I beleive the size limit will help next year but I am affraid it is going to take some time to get it back to where it used to be.


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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

I really got after the game warden from this area about this. I told him I was tired of the promises to stop the poaching and it is out of hand because he is not there often enough. He said there will be a concerted effort this season with additional game officers to put a halt to this. I let him know that I expect to see it and whenever I see this going on his phone will be ringing.
We need to bring back the campaign to stop poaching.


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## BASSunlimited (May 7, 2008)

People who usually keeps a lot of fish like that just take the fish and sale them. If not that, they will take all the fish home to show off to their friends and throw it in the freezer then when the next season comes along they throw trash bags of fish away from previous season and repeat. To be honest who is going to eat all those fish every single day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.


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## dacrawdaddy (Aug 31, 2008)

Litterbugs and poachers truely SUCK!!!!!!! I hope they all get busted.


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## husky hooker (Apr 6, 2004)

wish there were more of us members down there.... would make a difference the small cigars are sauger not saugeye. maybe one once in a while. small walleye could be too.husky jr go two sauger over 17" wednsday down there,him and a buddy got 20 sauger, nice white bass, one crappie and a smallie. lots of fish released. i was amazed at the size of saugers they brought home.


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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

Husky you could be right those could very well be sauger, I was not close enough to determine exactly what they were, but close enough to get a rough count and see that they were very small fish. I have seen the same thing done with white bass.


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## clown_4_life (Feb 4, 2007)

I say throw them back, into a lake of crisco! 

I'm against anyone keeping over their limit, but see nothing wrong with keeping fish for the freezer, long as it's within the law. I love to eat fish and do it on a regular basis. Whether it's sauger, walleye, crappie, bass, whatever it is, if someone wants to keep some to eat more power to them. Everybody is different.


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## Carver (Jan 20, 2010)

clown_4_life said:


> Everybody is different.


You got that right!!


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## Mushijobah (May 4, 2004)

You guys might have better luck with the Sherrif's office. Per usual, ODNR is spread too thin to make a dent in poaching activities. A Sheriff who enjoys the outdoors or enjoys writing tickets (  ) will write wildlife related summons.


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