Fishing

Ictalurus punctatus

Also called Channel cat, blue channel, fiddler

Works by smell and touch rather than sight, which is why it keeps feeding in colored water that shuts every other fish down.

Where

The deep bends and under cover through the day, out on the shallow edges to feed after dark.

Bait

Anything that smells. Cut bait, chicken liver, a nightcrawler fished on the bottom.

When

After dark, and the first few hours of a rise while the water is coloring up.

Ictalurus furcatus

Also called Blue cat, blues

Bigger than the channel cat and it holds differently: out in the moving water rather than tucked under a bank.

Where

The main channel, in the deepest water you can reach with current going over it.

Bait

Fresh cut bait on the bottom, and bigger than feels reasonable.

When

Through the winter as well as the summer, which is what separates it from the channel cat.

Micropterus salmoides

Also called Largemouth, black bass, trout

The top predator in the creek, and the fish everybody is really after. It does not patrol open water, it waits against something.

Where

Where a bend, a deep hole, and a fallen tree meet. In the slack water beside cover, not out in the current.

Bait

A live crayfish or a creek minnow. A soft plastic worked slowly along the bottom.

When

The pre-spawn weeks in March, and the fall feed in October. First and last light through the summer.

Micropterus punctulatus

Also called Spot, Kentucky bass

The bass that suits a creek. It takes current better than a largemouth and turns up in water too small and too fast for one.

Where

The seam where fast water meets slow, over gravel bars and rock ledges. Usually within a rod length of the bank.

Bait

Smaller than you would throw at a largemouth. A live crayfish, or something small worked on the bottom.

When

All day through spring and fall. First light in July and August.

Ambloplites sp.

Also called Goggle eye, red eye

Short, deep, red eyed, and it fights above its weight. Which rock bass this creek holds has never been settled.

Where

Rocky runs and root wads in moving water, tight to the stone rather than out in the pool.

Bait

A small live bait or a tiny jig, worked slowly along the bottom.

When

Overcast days, and the low light at either end of one.

Lepomis macrochirus

Also called Bream, brim, sun perch

The fish nearly everybody here caught first. It beds in colonies from late spring right through summer, so a few yards of bank can hold dozens at once.

Where

Shallow bank, shade, and anything hanging over the water. On the beds all summer.

Bait

A cricket under a bobber on a cane pole, and nothing has improved on it. Red worms work.

When

Late spring through summer, and all day long while they are bedding.

Lepomis microlophus

Also called Shellcracker, red ear

Eats snails and crushes the shells, which is a food almost nothing else in the creek is competing for. Heavier than a bluegill and far less willing to come up for a bait.

Where

On the bottom over hard ground, and deeper than you would fish for bluegill.

Bait

Red worm on the bottom with no float, in about four feet of water.

When

Spring, and earlier in it than the bluegill. The shellcracker run is usually over before the bream run starts.

Lepomis megalotis

Also called Longear, red belly

The most colored fish in the creek and one of the smallest. Orange and blue with a long dark ear flap, and rarely bigger than a hand.

Where

Shallow gravel with a little current running over it. More current than a bluegill wants.

Bait

Anything small. Most of them are caught by somebody fishing for something else.

When

Summer. Look at it properly before you unhook it, because it is worth looking at.

Lepomis cyanellus

Also called Green perch, black perch

The toughest sunfish here. Bigger mouthed than a bluegill and stubborn about water that has gone too warm, too still, and too low for anything else.

Where

Cut banks, small feeder branches, and the pools that have shrunk to almost nothing by August.

Bait

Small hook tight to the bank. It will also take a lure meant for a bass and sometimes hold on to it.

When

The hot low weeks when nothing else is cooperating. That is the whole point of this fish.

Lepomis gibbosus

Also called Punkinseed, sunny

Small, round, and covered in orange spotting, with a red dot at the back of the ear flap that a bluegill does not have.

Where

Quiet weedy edges rather than current. The opposite water from a longear.

Bait

Worm under a float, kept moving along the edge rather than left sitting.

When

Spring and early summer. Scarce enough here that one coming up is worth a second look.

Lepisosteus sp.

Also called Garfish, needle nose

Long, armored, and unmistakable. It hangs just under the surface of slow water and holds so still that it reads as a sunken branch until it moves.

Where

The long flat pools, near the top of the water, in the low light at either end of a hot day.

Bait

This is a fish to watch rather than a fish to catch. The mouth is bone and needle teeth and it does not take a hook the way anything else does.

When

High summer. It gulps air at the surface, so it is still there in warm low water that has driven everything else deep.

Semotilus atromaculatus

Also called Chub, horny head

The fish most people here caught first without ever learning its name. Stout, striped, and willing to take almost anything.

Where

Riffles and the heads of pools, in the smallest water that holds fish at all.

Bait

A bare hook and a scrap of worm. Nothing else is needed and nothing else is better.

When

All year. A creek that holds chub is a creek that holds food, which is most of what a bass is looking for.

Cyprinella and Notropis

Also called Minnows, shiner minnows

The silver minnows that flash in a shallow run when the light catches them. Several species, not easily separated in a bucket, and the middle of the whole food web here.

Where

Open shallow runs in the light. Stand still on a bright day and watch the bottom.

Bait

Not a target. What may be caught and used as bait is set by the state and it changes, so read the current rules first.

When

All year, and at their best in spring, when the males of some of them turn blue, gold, or orange.