Perhaps the greatest impediment to enjoyment of the blood sports is access to good places to pursue them.
For a site to be “good” it must be more than accessible and appropriate. It should also offer the chance to take game or fish.
The accessibility issue is most notorious for hunters. The burgeoning of quality deer and to a lesser extent turkey hunting has put a premium and often a price tag on land to hunt, attracting well-heeled people to buy or often lease up hunting land and render it inaccessible to local sportsmen and women who have traditionally used it. And though deer and turkey hunting are the primary motive for this trend, it also squelches small game hunting as well.
The same access issue can and often does apply to fishing because the bulk of land adjacent to our streams—creeks and rivers—is private property of someone, whether individuals or corporate entities. The water that flows through and over the private land is public water, but frequently the only non-trespass access to such waters and the publicly owned fish that live in them is by boat, and short of convenient public launch ramps, even finding a place to put in a boat can be problematic.
I recently sampled three places in this area that are open to public angling. There were no exciting fish stories from these ventures, but we must be fair and consider the lateness of the season before putting a negative stamp on them.
First there is the Maysville-Mason County Recreational Park Lake. This is a well-known place that last year became a FINs—Fishing in Neighborhoods—lake in a program that the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife sponsors with special fish stockings. So far they have stocked channel catfish and rainbow trout, beginning fall of 2014 with the trout and most recently with 2000 rainbows on November 18. Those who have fished for them agree that these hatchery-raised fish are not pushovers and that their bite has not been as good this fall as it was in 2014.
This lake has been stocked with largemouth bass and bluegill, I assume since its inception, and by reputation holds some good-sized bucketmouths. A friend of ours caught a good keeper just this past week—the minimum for a keeper is 15” from FINs lakes—on of all things a raisin, which she was using as trout bait because I had passed along this suggestion I had gotten from someone else.
The Ohio River is our most valuable public fishing water but even it suffers from the handicap of private property rights that restrict access. Individuals or corporate entities own most of the shoreline and the railroad that runs between the river and most everywhere else is also private, and even crossing it is a trespass. Changes in my lifetime have denied me access to my favorite fishing place, the mouth of Cabin Creek, except with an extraordinarily difficult round trip of over two miles, a venture so fraught with potential hazards that I have not undertaken it in several years. Having even this difficult option is a privilege I am one of the few to possess.
The solution to river access is a river-worthy watercraft, which is a considerable investment in money and trouble, the trouble being a real negative to one such as yours truly, who has a long and documented aversion for everything that has an engine or that qualifies as a mechanical contraption other than firearms or baitcasting reels. There are plenty of public launch points, some for a small fee and others free.
Public bank fishing access to the river is again available at the Captain Anthony Meldahl Dam near Foster, where a new fishing pier as well as wheelchair-accessible terraced concrete pathways to bank fishing areas have recently opened. I made a scouting trip there on Thanksgiving Day.
Several persons were taking advantage of the holiday but only one foursome was on the pier. Most were bank fishing from the rip-rap area cornering against the dam wall. The bite there was slow. This area is my first pick of places to fish at the dam. West of the pier there is a long flat shoal or sandbar but the shallow water lead was too long for the sort of tackle I normally use and seemed best suited for long casts with heavy rods, weights and live bait.
The pier would be my last pick of a fishing site there. In order to accommodate high water conditions, it is several feet above the water and this presents a serious challenge to landing large fish. I have never seen a landing net with a handle long enough to reach the water and a lone angler would be up against the odds of lifting a good-sized fish up such a vertical reach. It is a place best suited to party fishing and heavy tackle and I can’t get very excited about a place where I cannot manage any situation on my own. The height makes live bait or jigs about the only options, as the rail is too high to run crank or spinner baits properly. In fairness, this pier was designed for safety first at the expense of practical angling, and this is understandable, as they last thing anyone wants to do is drag for bodies.
There were a few boat anglers fishing below the dam and from what I hear, the sauger bite there has been good. As usual, circumstances favor the boaters and bank fishermen must settle for the scraps.
The final public fishing site is my personal favorite. The Mason County Landfill property has impoundments and both offer angling opportunity. One is only pond size and its fishing quality is unknown, but the 10-acre lake, the stocking history of which is elusive, definitely contains largemouth bass. Bob DeVoe, former landfill manager, informed me that they put submerged structure in the lake when it was built to make a good fish environment.
All one must do is stop at the office and advise the person on duty that you are coming to fish. This restricts access to during county work hours, which is an advantage to us ORF’s—Old Retired Fellows (some may use descriptions less polite)—but that’s a perk for the aches and pains and of being short timers.
The large lake’s east bank is very easy to fish from the bank or the dock but the west side has brush right up to water’s edge. A small boat remedies this and they do allow boats. The stocking history is elusive, but this lovely “puddle” does hold largemouth bass. On my visit there I caught five, only one of which was a legal keeper. The fish were of vivid coloration and healthy body proportions, so there is almost certainly a forage species such as bluegill available. I did not see any bluegill in the shallows and I did not attempt to verify their presence by fishing for them. Statewide regulations of six bass 12 inches or longer per day apply, but if people exercise this in such a small water public venue, it will soon be fished-out and will become a place to wet lures but rarely catch anything worthwhile. It is my strong recommendation that county authorities implement a “Catch-and-Release” only policy for bass. No good bass fisherman should object to this.
Fishing in private ponds or in public waters adjacent to private land by permission or by boat is always the ideal, but these venues give opportunity to the shore-bound angler dependent on free and open access.
