Curious since whenever I'm there I never see anyone else. Fished tonight from 8 till dark on the side closest to library. I got 20 bluegills, all over 9 inches ( 3 were 11 inches) and one nice 12 in rock bass. All on powerbait or nightcrawlers 9 ft under a slip bobber. There are so many huge bluegill, but they can be hard to find and are usually in deep water. Lots of bass too, but they are hard to get. When I bass fish, I usually only manage 2 or 3.
Curious since whenever I'm there I never see anyone else. Fished tonight from 8 till dark on the side closest to library. I got 20 bluegills, all over 9 inches ( 3 were 11 inches) and one nice 12 in rock bass. All on powerbait or nightcrawlers 9 ft under a slip bobber. There are so many huge bluegill, but they can be hard to find and are usually in deep water. Lots of bass too, but they are hard to get. When I bass fish, I usually only manage 2 or 3.
Are those eyeball measurements or did you actually measure them? I've fished there several times, and found it near impossible to fish because of the lack of areas on the bank to fish and no boats allowed. I've not had any luck other than some small bass, and only a few of those.
Actual measurements from a ruler... I couldn't believe it either! It took quite a bit of walking to get to the cliffs I fished from. I didn't get anything but little bass either till a bass pro shops employee told me how to get the bluegills there.
I routinely fish the quarry (catch and release only). I suspect it is slowly being fished out.
There are some bass in there, as well as some bluegill and carp. Nothing of much size anymore. Every once in a while you'll catch something decent, but it's mostly smaller fish. I think the bass population is declining because there are so many bluegill being taken out of there in 5 gallon buckets.
The city is improving the access to the area, and in turn, removing much of the natural habitat. The east end used to have a spit of trees that went out into the water, but they cut them down to water level and let them sink to the bottom. They said it was improving the habitat for the fish by providing structure. However, I think that they removed important cover (shade) and food source (insect) locations near the bluegill spawning beds.
All I know is this - the fishing isn't nearly what is was when they opened the area up a couple of years ago.
My $0.02 worth.
Dan
I agree. All the younger gills (bass food) are what people take out of the shallow water where most people fish. Now most of the gills live well off the dropoff where few people fish, which is very deep water. They grow huge there, along with perch. They are very hard to reach without a boat, and now the bass have much less food to eat
Unfortunately, no boating allowed yet. I just went out for a half hour tonight. Got 5 nine In gills, 2 ten in. gills, and a tiny sunfish. All on worms 10 ft under slip bobber. Tried to get a pic of the gills next to a ruler but it was too dark. I started getting them at 9 pm after mayflys started hatching everywhere
Are you carefully releasing the big gills? It takes 8-10 years for a gill to reach 9-10" in Ohio. 11'ers are true giants and would be like filleting a 24" lm bass for a fish sandwich. the ideal size for keeping gills is 7-8". you get a decent fillet but don't needlessly kill trophy prime breeders. Large gills emit pheromones which inhibit the undersize males from maturing early. Once fish start spawning, growth slows considerably. If people would keep mid-sized fish only the population would flourish. Excess harvest of larger sunfish leads to stunting and of course the fishing quality drops. Keeping a 5 gallon bucket of 9"+ gills borders on the criminal IMO.
Does anyone fish the big whitehouse quarry?
Does anyone fish the big whitehouse quarry?
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