Les Frankland, Region V Fisheries Biologist for IDNR is the expert on the Ohio and the Wabash River. His recommendation is Smithland Pool for catfish. Fishing is available in the other two pools and the open water at the lower end where the river joins the Mississippi at Fort Defiance.
Smithland is the largest pool running some 72 miles from Uniontown, KY down to the dam. It contains some 27,000 acres of water plus small embayment that hold fish. An embayment is a small tributary impounded when they built the dam.
Frankland reports that the main channel of the river is probably too big to do much drifting. Anglers will put in and seek out areas around the grain elevators as well as any structure habitat areas such as brush piles and fallen trees. Two good locations are at Mound City and Old Shawneetown. Atwood reports that any place where grain is loaded attracts fish to the spilled grain.
Anglers anchor out of the channel along the edge in the shallows. Those fishing below the dams will drift fish with cut shad.
The blue catfish anglers like cut bait using skipjack or shad as they fish at Smithland off the rock pile. Flathead and channel anglers tend to prefer live bait and find fish the entire river anyplace where there are trees or brush in the water.
The river level can vary from 9 feet to 90 feet in depth. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls the water level for navigational and flood control purposes. Information about the water flow and depth is available on their website at http://www.CorpsLakes.us.
Continue reading this article at this LINK…..
—–
Join ODU Magazine on Facebook here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter fishing site here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter hunting site here at this LINK…..
.