CATFISHING THE OHIO AND WABASH RIVERS

 

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.

The main channel and island borders of the pool provide flatheads, channels and blue catfish action. Tailwaters below the dam also produce the same action.

Access to Smithland Pool is at Old Shawneetown, Cave in Rock, Tower Rock, Elizabethtown, Rosiclare, Golconda Marina, Golconda and Barren Creek on the Illinois side of the river. One can lock through the dam to fish the tailwaters.  Otherwise one has to use the boat ramps at Smithland, KY.

Frankland has spent a lifetime in and around the Wabash River. Growing up in the area, he fished it and later as a fisheries biologist for the IDNR, he has studied it.

The Wabash is one of the largest free flowing rivers east of the Mississippi River.  The Illinois portion is over 200 miles in length.  It starts about 15 miles below Terre Haute, IN near Darwin and ends at Wabash Island on the Ohio River.

You can find blues, channels and flathead catfish throughout the entire length. There is angling access virtually all along the river.  Some of the better known locations, according to Frankland, are around Darwin, along Vincennes, IN the stretch at Mt Carmel, the areas at New Harmony, IN and the area at the mouth of the Little Wabash near New Haven.  The stretch of river below Maunie and the mouth of the Wabash River above Old Shawneetown are good locations.

There are public boat ramps on the Illinois and Indiana sides of the river. Public ramps on the Illinois side are at Hutsonville, Westport, St. Francisville, Mt. Carmel, Grayville, Brown’s Pond near Maunie, and New Haven via the Little Wabash River.

There are no navigational channels or commercial fishing on the Wabash.  Water depth can be challenging to boaters.  Depths can range from 6 inches to 50 feet.  When the water is lower there are areas unpassable to boat traffic.