Cincinnati catfishing Bait Some of the baits I have used for used for CATFISHing here on the Ohio River are, chicken liver, minnows, shrimp, Spam, French Fries and more. Fresh chicken liver works better than frozen liver that has thawed out. It does get bites however, cats peck at it so by the time you pick up the rod they have cleaned the bait off the hook. My experience is the fish swallows the bait more often than getting hooked. The biggest drawback is keeping the bait on the hook when casting from the bank. Trying to get a long cast with chicken liver is very difficult. It seems like half the time the liver will just fly off the hook with any forceful cast. This is no problem if you are fishing from a boat, just flip it out and feed it line so the current can take it away from the boat for you.

Erie Steelhead Flies Steelhead feed heavily on schools of shad, smelt and other fish in the summer months. And when they first enter the river they have fish on their brains. Streamer patterns are the thing to start off with, when steelhead are first stacking up to make their run. Primary patterns used are the Woolly Bugger, Mickey Finn, Muddler Minnows and other streamer patterns. Dead drifted or swung they are deadly in the early months. Steelhead consume lots of eggs in their lifetime. Especially in the winter, when suckers move up the rivers to spawn. The most popular egg pattern is the Sucker Spawn, with the Crystal Meth a close second. Egg patterns are generally bounced along the bottom. And are a good choice all winter long into March.

A Different Kind Of Catch Catching Them The dark, jade water is balmy and warm. In my right hand is a high-powered spear gun. Its mechanism is set in beautifully worked teak. Around 5ft long, it is clumsy on land but once in the water it balances perfectly. A long sharpened spear is powered by thick rubber bands. The trigger of the gun will release a spear that could pin a grown man to the wall. As we alight to the side of a dun-colored reef with knobbled outcrops and fire coral, teeming with fish, the hunt for our supper begins. We are several miles from Key West in the Florida straits, diving from the Discoverer Ketty Lund, a wooden-hulled scientific research vessel on a trip around the Keys. Her captain is Eric Smith, a muscular, salt-encrusted sea skipper and diver with a boyish gap between his front teeth who has piloted his boat and marine scientists around the Atlantic for years. On the long trips down from places like Labrador, Canada, to his home in the Keys, he will jump over the side and go spear fishing for grouper, snapper and tuna to feed himself and his crew. As we descend deeper into the cool depths, he is showing me how to hunt under water.

No Ice Fishing, Skating This Winter
By Tatiana Zarnowski , Sentinel Reporter, September 20, 2006 People who like to ice fish on Laurel Lake will have to go elsewhere this year.
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