I'll start this conversation and ask the rest of you guys to keep everyone up to date, on your fishing activities. Let us know what you're catching and what the fish are hitting on and all. It's not like anyone is going to sneak into your own little "honey hole" and catch all of your fish. So, no pressure there. Maybe we can all catch more fish and have more fun while we're out.

June 10, 2022. Largemouth bass are hitting on minnows.

Big Donnie, Bill and I were out last week, more or less just to get out. We were fishing mainly for bream, using nightcrawlers. We'd caught a couple small bass too.

I caught one little bream, too small to keep and almost too big to use for bait. I'd guess it was about 4.5 inches long. That's too big.

I took it off the hook and rehooked it, I shoud have changed to a bigger hook

Long story short, I flipped it out there, still had a bobber on the line. Something hit it, took my bobber under and was running hard. I gave it probalby 30 or 40 feet of line, pulled the slack out and went to set the hook and missed it.

The minnow was still alive, so flipped it back out. It wasn't there a minute before something nailed it again. I handed the pole to Bill and told it let it run, and he missed it. All together we had 3 bites on that one minnow. Didn't get any of them hooked.

I started fishing for bait, using the smallest hook that I could find. Changed hooks on another pole and Bill missed 2 more fish, using minnows. One of those freak things, now and then a hook will get twisted around and stick the minnow.

If the weather is decent, I'm going to go seine up a bucket of creek chubs and we'll try them again this week.

The week before last Bill and I did catch a nice mess of bream, fishing the same pond.

I've been catching a few catfish. Got a 6 lb blue and a four pound channel cat a couple days ago. Missed the spring fishing on account of Miz being laid up. -- Hal

Here a few from yesterday. Four pounds was the biggest.

Another mess. Five pound blue cat on the left. I don't get many blues.

I'm glad to hear that Miz is feeling better.

Hal, you've been catching some nice fish, just curious, are you fishing in a stream or a pond ?

Bill and I didn't go fishing last week, he said that it was too hot, and I didn't argue. The girl that works at the greenhouse said it went up to 117* in that thing. I'm pretty sure it has exhaust fans too.

That was last Thursday, Sunday morning I had 49* at daylight.

Talked to a guy the other evening he was getting ready to go nightfishing, in the river. Talked to him the next day, he said between the three of them fishing they caught 15. With one of them being almost 10 pounds.

They started out with worms, and then switched over to cut bait. They released all of them except the little one they used for bait.

Not many people keep fish out of the river anymore.

Fishing in a backwater off the Ohio.

Ok, I've never fished in the Ohio River. My WV license is good for the Ohio, but a 4 hour drive from where I live.

Reading the West Virginia fishing regulations, we have a "Fish consumption advisories".

For most of our fish they advise no more than 2 meals per month. There is a section about the Ohio River, they advise catfish over 18 inches: Do not eat.

Reasons being, mercury and PCB's.

Trout, there are no guidelines. Eat all you can catch. For anyone not familiar, our stocked trout are pretty much a "put and take" deal. Those trout are raised in the best spring water in this part of the state.

I've mentioned this before, but I'll tell you the story again. About 20 years ago I was out bass fishing. I was alone, just wade fishing using live minnows for bait. I caught a 3 pound bass and a 6 pound catfish. Fishing in the daytime and all, only 2 fish on the stringer. Anyway, I took the fish from the water and put them on ice, brought them home, weighed them and cleaned them up. Soaked the meat in salt water in the fridge overnight and Mom baked them in the oven the next evening.


I remember the fish looked perfect! We were eating, Mom didn't like either one. I asked Dad, what do you think of the fish? Dad said, well, the bass isn't too bad. I really didn't care for bass either.

So I figured if we can't eat the darn things, I'd just put them all back in the water. Not counting trout, those were the last 2 river fish that I've cleaned.

The mess of bream that Bill and I caught in the flood control dam, I thought they were very good.

How much meat do you get from a 10 pound catfish? Thanks.

Difficult question to answer! I'll guess that from a 10 pound catfish that you'd get around 3 pounds of edible meat.

Catfish have a big head. But it would depend on how it was cleaned.

A while back I mentioned the bucket full of fishguts and trimmings that Moe gave me. (I put that stuff out at my #1 camera.) Anyway, Moe filleted 16 sunfish/bream, and he left more meat on the carcass than he saved. Honestly some of the fish were borderline keepers.

The mess of sunfish that Bill and I caught the other week, Bill cleaned that batch. Bill scaled the fish, cut the heads, tails and fins off. gutted them of course. He rolled them in flour and fried them in butter, real slow.

Bill just lives down around the corner, so he brought me supper one evening. I asked him how he'd cooked them. But you could open the fish up, catch the top of it's spine and it'd come out pretty much intact. My opinion the fish skin was the best part.

I haven't scaled a fish in 40 years. Skin them all. Catfish you just pull the skin off. Scaled fish, I fillet then lay the skin side down and slide the fillet knife between the skin ang the meat. Throw away skin, scales and all.