We just had a monsoon rain here in the Henderson/Evansville area and it looked like most of it traveled right up the Ohio River. The Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service also confirmed it with the latest river stage prediction.

Right now at Cannelton Dam the stage below the dam was 11.3′ and rising 1′ overnight to 12.3′ and will be steady for the remainder of the week. At Newburgh Dam the observation was 12.7′ with a substantial rise to 14.5′ by Tues 7-14 and then fall slowly to 13′ by 7-19. J.T. Myers (Uniontown) Dam was observed below the dam 13.32′ and rising to 15′ by Tues 7/14 and then will fall slowly to 13.2′ by 7/19. They have just been running 3-4 gates on every dam mentioned but you can expect to see with the rising river all of the gates to have flow for a couple of days. I expect to see them shutting back the gates starting Wed 7/15.

Catfish – Saturday was a zoo out on the Ohio River for fishing. I think just about everyone with a boat had it on the water fishing until the rain and lightning put a halt to it. My clients and I waited out the lightning storm then went back out and had a pretty productive day. 13 Blue Cats, 2 Channel Cats and an 8 lb Striper were caught drifting on cut bait. One gentleman even caught his personal best, a 23 pound Blue. They had to turn loose several fish over 10 lbs because Camo Fish Guide Service practices CPR – Catch Photograph and Release of all Blue Cats and Flatheads over 10 lbs.

Stripers – I spoke to several anglers Striper fishing and they claimed the bite was not that great. With so many boats running in and out of the gates near the dam the bait fish are usually ran off therefore the Stripers follow. If anglers would stay back a little further and practice casting up to them instead of running over top of them, more fish would be caught (in a dream world). It is also a whole lot safer to stay behind the 150′ sign. I pick my days to pursue Stripers and Catfish near a dam because of overcrowding.

Keep Fishin !

This Ohio River fishing report has been provided by Captain Paul Willett of Camo Fish Guide Service. Check out http://camofishguideservice.com to learn more about chartering an Ohio River guided fishing trip.