# What happened? Ideas?



## rpbmd (Oct 30, 2011)

used to fish the Racine pool and Belleville for saugers on regular basis with great fishing...Last two years have been dismal with few small saugers.....good water temp with excellent water color...have read posts with similar results........any one have any reasons as to why catching is so much worse.....did note that WV is planning on lower sauger daily limit to 6 fish starting next year......If they know anything no one is saying.


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## RiverWader (Apr 1, 2006)

IMO Bellville hasnt been the same since the barge was stuck in the lock


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## PJF (Mar 25, 2009)

IMHO...No knowledge other than 30 years of fishing the same spots on the Ohio river where I live. Numbers of sauger peaked 10+ years ago where I fish on the river. Numbers that we catch are drastically down the last 3 years. Don't know the factual reason for that. IMO high water and turbidity in the spring, lack of spawning success?? No or reduced stocking? Not sure but definetly on the down side of the cycle. 20 years ago I would have said maybe fishing pressure but almost none now. Hybrids are down some also where I but they are also nomads. On the good side Walleyes are thriving the last 5 years. Even enjoyed catching a bunch of white bass that were ready to spawn last week trolling.


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## riverKing (Jan 26, 2007)

My opinion is that it's just a natural down-cycle. Fish like sauger that don't live that long tend to have boom and bust Cycles and it's largely based on spawning success and Fry recruitment. As stated above I think the high water Springs that we have had may be negatively affecting the recruitment of young sauger. What will probably happen is in a few years maybe even this year we will have a really boom spawn next year we will all be catching a billion 7 inch sauger for two or three years after that it'll be great and hopefully there's another good spawn to keep that up. I also noticed that from around 2007 to 2011 The sauger fishing was off the hook. Probably due to really really good spawns. Hopefully it will be back in the next year or two


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## BuckeyeFishinNut (Feb 8, 2005)

IMO, it has a lot to do with water level. No real stability and when the water gets blown out at spawning time, the success rate of spawning will be low. In the area I fish, I have also seen a decrease in shad and shiners, i believe the same thing has affected them. I have noticed this year though an increase in the bait fish population. 

Fishing has been pretty poor below Pike Island the last few years. I have attributed it to water levels and that they rarely open the gate near the Ohio shore and always have the middle gate blown open. This causes a terrible back current and in my 30 years of fishing below Pike Island, this always means awful fishing, even when things were booming down there.


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## Pooka (Jan 30, 2012)

rpbmd said:


> used to fish the Racine pool and Belleville for saugers on regular basis with great fishing...Last two years have been dismal with few small saugers.....good water temp with excellent water color...have read posts with similar results........any one have any reasons as to why catching is so much worse.....did note that WV is planning on lower sauger daily limit to 6 fish starting next year......If they know anything no one is saying.


Same deal in the Greenup pool and tribs and no idea why.


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## Pooka (Jan 30, 2012)

I wonder if the Gar population has anything to do with it? Seems to me that Gar numbers are way up.


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## BuckeyeFishinNut (Feb 8, 2005)

Pooka said:


> I wonder if the Gar population has anything to do with it? Seems to me that Gar numbers are way up.


I was fishing an area yesterday, if I would have thrown a stick of dynamite in the water, would have killed thousands of them. They were all stacked in the mouth of a creek every where you looked. My experience with them, if they are around the other fish arent.


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## Pooka (Jan 30, 2012)

BuckeyeFishinNut said:


> I was fishing an area yesterday, if I would have thrown a stick of dynamite in the water, would have killed thousands of them. They were all stacked in the mouth of a creek every where you looked. My experience with them, if they are around the other fish arent.


Even night bank fishing for Cats, Gar move in and the Cat bite is over. 

In hindsight this is what I noticed,, Fishing on the Mighty O (and tribs) was picking up, Stripers, Cats, Sauger,... and right about that time shad were stocked and their numbers spiked,, shortly after Gar numbers began climbing and the fishing for others seemed to cool as did the Shad population. 

Is it just me, or is this the pattern others have seen?


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## Daveo76 (Apr 14, 2004)

Every year the birds shoot down and grab them right out of the water and you can actually see the saugers. I don't think that's the reason but it is amazing to watch them. Greenup dam


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## 9Left (Jun 23, 2012)

It's plain and simple… Human beings have completely overharvested ... there is no other explanation. We don't want to admit that we did it... but it happened. Fisherman can easily wipe out species .


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## BuckeyeFishinNut (Feb 8, 2005)

9Left said:


> It's plain and simple… Human beings have completely overharvested ... there is no other explanation. We don't want to admit that we did it... but it happened. Fisherman can easily wipe out species .


This is a possibility, but I think unlikely when we talk about certain species. Up until a few years ago I was catching 100+ white bass in a day in some spots I fish. The only thing that has changed is the water instability and the creek I used to fish has silted in due to the floods over the past few years. Poor spawns and changing habitat is more likely the culprit.

I used to slam sauger below Pike Island. Would throw a Thunderstick Jr. and catch them all day. They changed the flow pattern of the dam and they just don't pull up in there like they used to. I never see more than a few people fishing the dam at a time, I doubt overharvest has decimated the population. More likely is they have found some place else that is better suited in the river than below the dam.


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## Daveo76 (Apr 14, 2004)

Greenup dam Saturday. Look at that smile


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## PJF (Mar 25, 2009)

I think your White Bass ended up down river about 2 dams....ha ha.....


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## Pooka (Jan 30, 2012)

PJF said:


> I think your White Bass ended up down river about 2 dams....ha ha.....


That is a possibility. I recently read someplace that Catfish do scoot up and down river more than you would think, no reason the others might not as well. And with the high water of the last couple years the roller dams have been wide open several times, making that even easier.


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## riverKing (Jan 26, 2007)

Pooka said:


> I wonder if the Gar population has anything to do with it? Seems to me that Gar numbers are way up.


The gar numbers are up due to successful spawns, but they do not effect sportfish populations, ever.

I know lots of folks say gar chase fish out but there is no scientific evidence of that.

Habitat and conditions dictate fish numbers, gar, sauger, catfish ect all evolved together and are not going to hurt each other


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## Pooka (Jan 30, 2012)

riverKing said:


> The gar numbers are up due to successful spawns, but they do not effect sportfish populations, ever.
> 
> I know lots of folks say gar chase fish out but there is no scientific evidence of that.
> 
> Habitat and conditions dictate fish numbers, gar, sauger, catfish ect all evolved together and are not going to hurt each other


I am certainly not Bill Nye, maybe Gar moving in is a symptom of somethings else, but when the Gar start messing with my baits in numbers, I catch nothing else unless I move. I have also experienced the same at Santee Cooper. 

Explosion of predator numbers does effect other fish. I saw this with the Mud River here in WV. When the stocked Muskie got to a dangerous size, the good fishing for most others crashed. It is recovering now (years later) as the others have learned to live with the Muskie but their behavior has altered, they no longer "pile up" as they once did.

I have not seen any study,, maybe it is a coincidence, but the one seems to have followed the other in both cases.


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