Going to try doing some cat fishing this weekend.
(BLUES) NOT GOING UP RIVER?
have not done much fishing for them taking my dad
any info would be great.
Thanks in advance

Mike

you won't get much info on cats this week with the showdown going on saturday.

CK, I have been mostly in the rivers last 2 weeks so I can't say too much about the lake. Last night just before dark, I met some guys taking out at bluestone with several nice blues (looked like high teens to mid twenties) in the cooler. Another guy reported here that the smaller blues and channels were biting well around the RR bridges foo cutbait & shrimp (depending on what your Dad likes). Looking at the temps its most likely that the blue spawn is winding up so fish will be more transient (moving off spawn back to home) or worse for you, they'll stil be finishing up the deed in which case they don't have eating on the mind. With this in mind, I recommend you do what you might usually do for blues but shift your strategy "two clicks" toward covering the "fish hiways" more to take advantage of the higher number of transients since a high number of them will be "headed home". Hey, good luck, we worked for many visits to get my Dad his expert angler patch for blues and to all of our surprise he was way more proud of it than any of us thought he would be...jfo

Thanks jfo, my dad is sick and I dont think he has many more fishing trips left. So we have been going every chance we get between his treatments.
Mike

caught a few blues on the humps tween buffalo an irish cr last sun. trollin for whitebass. seen some fishermen 'noodlin' over the channel and doin real good. caught them 12-14 ft deep. luck to y'all!

CK,
I did a good set last night at painted rock and found a right many midsized blues taking medium (6-8 inch) shad both off the bottom and suspended a foot off the bottom. Painted rock is on the Buffalo side upstream from Buffalo ramp and diagonally across the spli flat from Staunton view ramp...you can see the ramp from painted rock. For the blues, anchor up around 100ft straight out from the rock...good luck...jfo

And here I thought I had the whole lake to myself last night. I knew I should have been fishing for anything besides stripers. Glad to hear you had a good trip, all I got was a sore throat.

jfo,Do you really think the blues are coming out of the rivers headed back down to the lake?Me and my buddies have been fishing the Dan pretty hard and only fish we have caught are small blues,about 12 to 14 lbs.None of us have latched onto any big 30 0r 40 blues like we have in the past years.Its been kinda cold up here around Milton.What temps do the water have to be for them to spawn?With having to fish up here for so long,I,m thinking they just ain,t here good yet.

The water flow would be the most logical reason. High water conditions have been limited this year. The water flow has as much if not more to do with the blues being in the river as the spawn does. Also the temperature changes this year will spread the spawn out.

DannyB, my experience this year is same as yours. I do think things are really strung out this year and I do think some of the blues are are coming back home already. I just cannot say what the next 30 days will bring in the Dan, I just dunno...the water's so warm up there. My best fishing is from bouy 24 to 5 miles up, I've not done well above that...jfo

I have been fishing gaston this year and have seen the same thing. No big cats in the river. The biggest fish that we've caught this is 13lb. We were down last weekend on my buds boat and his fish finder said 58deg. with the water running.

Thanks guys for the info.

Went Friday night. Didn't catch anything. Fished between the bridge up to Bluestone. Found plenty of shad flipping in that first cove to the left when you enter Bluestone. But other than that, it was cold and windy and kind of choppy around the bridges. Will have to try again some time soon.

tHANKS FOR THE INFO EVERYONE, my pop was sick and was unable to go, I went got down there saturday night about 9pm and fish to 3am lights around bridge cought a good mess of crappie and white perch. Did not try to catfish alot of boats down that way and didnt wont
get in the way of the ctfish fling going on.
I did catch on blue weighing about 6lbs on light rod,
dont think anything could have been more fun unless seeing my pop catch it.
thanks everone.

Mike

Fresh bait(Shad)off the points on main lake,find some humps and fish them,better at night but days will work.

I fished Sunday during the day the same as I did the previouse weekend and had a hard time finding them. Last Sunday the mouth of Blue Stone was hot for meidum sized blues, but this Sunday the only place we found steady action was way up blue stone. I fished almost to the rivers to the bridges and the action was slow. The back of blue stone put a cat in the boat about every half hour.

Country boy - what size blues were you landing? And what were you using for bait?

I was at the mouth of Bluestone Friday night and down by the bridges and got skunked. I guess I should have travelled into Bluestone some. That first little cove to the left inside Bluestone was loaded with shad Friday night.