Has anyone on here ever catfished G Dam on the upper side? In the lake rite up against the locks? Or along the rip rap beside the locks or on the limestone rock bank on the lock side? I fished it years ago and could never get a bite. Fishing off the bank. Just wanted to hear some stories. Stories above or below the dam. Big ones? I fish below the dam off the bank but get hung up too much. Thanks

Not the info you are looking for but we caught several eating size cats around the feed mills on 227 Sat. All were caught on minnows while crappie fishing. There is some bank access in that area that might produce.

I have had lots of days when you can catch one Blue cat after another after another after another below the dam. Mostly in the spring and early summer.




Up in the turbine holes there are some better ones. The biggest one caught from my boat wasn't by me. It was caught by the IDOT in the first pic. It weighted 62. This is not it. I don't have a digital pic of it.



Best I remember this one was about 20. I have seen some real monsters caught from there though.

Plenty of Stripers there too.










[img]https://i.imgur.com/XPugvsC.jpg[/img]

Nice catches metal muncher. Thanks for the tip ryano. I saw a 60 pound blue caught rite above the dam. Bank fishing at 3 am along the limestone rocks by the woods. Only fish we caught that night. I saw a man catch a good 10 pound large mouth off the bank below the locks. When i had a boat id troll for stripe when the turbines are on and do pretty good. Caught a 7lb small mouth doin that with a big crank bait. Big stripes too. Snag small channel cats by mistake i think. I have caught some 5 pounders inside the turbine holes. Saw a 60 pound blue caught about a mile below the dam before the bluff. I cant wait til i get me another boat so my son can experience all that. Great times.

Ryan I, you weren't the dude in the 12ft flat bottom with the 14fy b&m pole were you? That thing needed wheelie bars.

There were 3 of us in a wide and deep 14 ft boat. No rods over 7 ft in the boat.

I'm going to guess that those big stripers were caught years ago and not recently... I used to fish for those regularly and caught some pretty good ones - but that was years ago when nobody else really knew how to catch them or even really fished for them. I always let the big salts go and kept the small whites if I wanted some stripe to eat. About 5 years ago I saw people catching and keeping the big salts - and WAY more than they were supposed to... since then they are all but gone compared to earlier. Plus they no longer stock the salts to my knowledge.

Took off yesterday and took my future brother-in-law out. Launched out of Ditto's and headed up to the dam. Got there and saw 10 gates were open and left. We drifted several places, but with the high water and current, just couldn't stay in the zone. Ended up anchoring downstream of Hobbs Island and caught a mess of carp. At least we didn't have to worry about cleaning fish. It was a perfect day to not catch a catfish.

What kind of bait did you use to catch carp.

Carp or drum?

If you were around Hobbs Island and that much water was running, you should have been throwing a Spook or spinnerbait for smallmouth.

There are some good small mouth around the head of hobbs island. Sho nuff

They were carp. All caught on nightcrawlers. Was hoping the catfish were laying around just off the current.

Hmm, interesting. Never have heard of carp eating nightcrawlers in current. Pretty neat. I'll bet that was string-stretchin' fun.