French River help please

[pikeguy]

i would suggest taking a guide for a day and learn some spots. If you want pickerel i would suggest hitting the five fingers i have always done well when i went there. always watch the waters for bait fish close to the rocks chances are the'rs pike about the area.

fished there quite often and done well.

 

good luck on your trip

[OhioFisherman]

Be careful! giving Americans beer is like giving indians whiskey!

[brianz]

had a great trip!

pike fishing was off for us, but ew did make a lot of casts looking for some nice pike. we ahd a few but nothing larger than 30".

walleye fishing was pretty good.

my buddy and I managed 98 walleye for 6 nights of fishing. the first 3 nights we didnt even pull the all nighters and took a break/nap between midnight and 3am.

they were all caught in a 150 meter diameter area.

dusk they ate jig/minnow pretty well. in dark and pre dawn we could get them on rapalas stick, shad raps, x raps, rebel fast tracks, red fins, and jigs jigs jigs!! my buddy had a 31" 10.5# (boga grip) on a 4" sassy shad on 1/4 oz head.

i tied my personal best @30" 10.5#, it ate a black/gold f11.

we each had 4 fish over 9#'s up to 10#.

our best night was 21 fish landed. our average size was ~26" but our range was 22" - 28" most nights. split was pretty even between slot and large keepers. we only had 3 small keepers (<15.7").

we kept 3 walleye during our stay. 2@ 26" and one 29".

 

i am having issues uploading pix from snapfish other wise i would have attached a few.

 

bigcreekdad, it was great meeting you and spending some time together, maybe next year we'll do it again!

[Squid]

Sweet good job on the numbers!!

[Rich Clemens]

I agree ... quite impressive on the numbers there. Congrats.

 

I tried to meet up with BCD as well when we were up there in September. Bad thing is, we just (I mean just) missed each other. I won't be at Wolseley this year - but hope to be next September.

Edited June 6, 2011 by Rich Clemens

[brianz]

gave up on snapfish, imageshack seems to work ok. just a few pix:

 

shore lunch. yum.

 

a double header off our dock. the larger one was a large slot around 25"

 

my bud with a decent one at dusk.

 

this one was just a bit bigger than our average, it was 8# on the boga and 28"

 

releasing a 9 pounder.

[F_ast]

What is the word on water depth? Is it up this year?

 

Last year was especially tough with water down close to 7ft by October.

[bigcreekdad]

Brian

 

These pics don't do justice to the ones I saw that you kept. You and Jeff are darn near pros at finding, and catching the big walleyes. It's funny how many times I've heard that the French is fished out. While it may not be what it was in the 40's and 50's, if you are knowledgable and persistent ( as were Brian and Jeff) you will see there are plenty of big fish left in the French.

 

I was concentrating on the fly rod with pike, smallmouth, and (someday) muskie. Unfortunately, the cold and wet spring, and the high water, really limited early weed growth, which is the key to my fly fishing up there. Oh well, I'll be back up second week of July with my son, and will keep flingin those streamers.