FISH and TALES
Home of “The Hoover Fishing Report”
This site owned and operated by Jim Horan and is copyrighted. Copyright © 2024 All Rights reserved.
We will attempt to keep you abreast of news regarding fishing and boating activities that are available to the public at Hoover Reservoir, via this page, which we hope to update at least weekly. This information comes from ODNR- Div. Of Wildlife, Watershed Management, Old Dutchman Bait and Tackle and from sharing members of the public.
To help everyone receive maximum enjoyment when fishing Hoover Reservoir, we ask for your support. Please take a minute and share some of the information of your recent fishing experience in the form provided for below. To be helpful to everyone, it would be appreciated if you would include some information about "patterns". (If you do NOT want your name published, please inform us in the “Comment” box and we’ll refer to you as “An angler” and we'll honor your wishes. However we do have to have your name submitted with the report.) We will also appreciate your input on ways we can make this page more beneficial to you. Please submit reports by Tuesday evening as we would like to report only current information.
Please fill in form to report your Hoover results....
If you would like to be added to our "notification" list, please "EMAIL” us with just the word "ADD", and your full name, and we will notify you when updates occur. Because of mistakes in email addresses, we ask that you do NOT use the report form above to request being added to the notification list. We will not sell or share your names. (NOTE: If you have requested to be added to the list and have NOT received a HFR email, you'll need to contact your ISP and have "jhoran@fishandtales.net" put on a "safe" list (not spam) or for most folks, just add that email to your address book. We add every request to our 1000+ group list but we can not overcome your ISP's spam filter without your assistance.) NOTE: If you are an AOL user, you may not be able to receive our email as we have experienced many "rejected" emails to subscribers. We request you send us another email address as we will NO LONGER add AOL addresses.
Hoover Fishing Report Copyright © 2023 All Rights Reserved.
CODES:
FO = Fish Ohio. A program for anglers, with ODNR awarding a certificate and hat pin for catching fish of a specified minimum length. Details available at local bait and tackle stores.
LOTW = Lake of the Woods, East side, Middle section of lake across from Red Bank Ramp.
C&R = Catch and Release, allowing fish to be enjoyed another day by anglers.
Riprap =Rock works around roadways and bridges to prevent erosion.
2024. Hoover Sports Anglers (HSA) (C&R Fish Ohio species at Hoover)
NOTE: You can now go online and print a very attractive certificate of your FO catch and also reserve your hat pin. Go to FISH OHIO. (New URL)
Following are minimum size requirements for Fish Ohio species available at Hoover.
PLEASE MAKE NOTE OF CHANGES IN QUALIFYING SIZES FOR FISH OHIO AS OF 2018
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CARP - 28”
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LARGEMOUTH BASS - 20"
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SMALLMOUTH BASS - 18"
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CHANNEL CATFISH - 26"
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WALLEYE - 25"
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MUSKY - 40"
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CRAPPIE - 13"
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ROCK BASS, SUNFISH - 9"
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WHITE BASS - 14"
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FLATHEAD CATFISH - 35"
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SAUGEYE - 21"
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YELLOW PERCH - 12"
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BLUE CATFISH - 35"
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LONG NOSE GAR - 34"
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SUCKER - 20"
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CHANNEL CATFISH
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CHANNEL CATFISH
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CHANNEL CATFISH
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BLUE CATFISH
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CRAPPIE
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CRAPPIE
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BASS
Tony Dana - 20" LM
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SAUGEYE
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WHITE BASS
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FLATHEAD CATFISH
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CARP
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BLUEGILL, ROCK BASS, SUNFISH
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LONG NOSE GAR
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YELLOW PERCH
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2024 Contributing Reporters (CR)
NEXT HFR MAY 1, 2024
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SAUGEYE NEWS - HOOVER 2023
5/10/23 From Nick Radabaugh, the Fisheries Management Supervisor for District 1 (central Ohio), Div. Of Wildlife: “Hoover will receive a stocking of saugeye fingerlings, likely next week or the week after. It is scheduled to receive a minimum of 100 fingerlings/acre and potentially 200 fingerlings per acre, dependent on hatchery production this year. This will result in somewhere between 290,000 – 580,000 saugeye going in to Hoover this year.”
5/31/23 - From Nick Radabaugh - “I just wanted to provide you with another quick update now that we are done with our walleye and saugeye stocking around the state. Our hatcheries had a good production year, and we were able to stock Hoover with its full complement of 200 saugeye fingerlings per acre. On May 10th Hoover was stocked with 288,957 fingerlings and a week later on May 18th it was stocked with 288,273 fingerlings, for a total of 577,230 saugeye fingerlings. These fish were about one inch long when stocked and will be 8-10 inches by October.”
CATFISH NEWS - HOOVER 2023
5/10/23 From Nick Radabaugh, Div. of Wildlife sent us this “The Catfish regulation is changing this year at Hoover. In this year’s regulations you will see there is no longer a special regulation for Channel and Blue Catfish in Hoover. That is because we have removed the previous regulation and reverted back to the separate statewide regulations for Channel and Blue Catfish. As a reminder the statewide regulation for Channel Catfish is no daily limit, but only 1 fish over 28” can be harvested. The statewide regulation for Blue Catfish is no daily limit, but only 1 fish over 35” can be harvested. This regulations are currently in effect for Hoover and replace the previous split limit of 1 fish over 28” and 3 fish under 18” for Blue and Channels.” He added, “We are still stocking Hoover with Blues, but on an every other year basis. Last October, Hoover received 28,859 advanced Blue Catfish fingerlings that averaged about 5 inches. We will stock Hoover again in 2024 and continue to monitor and adjust our management to maintain the exceptional Blue Catfish fishery we see today.”
ALERT! - The above form seems to only work now with some Chrome or Firefox browsers. We are working to correct this. Until we do, if you can not use “form”, please submit your report information in email to jhoran@fishandtales.net
From Rich Zweifel - We have conducted numerous surveys of gizzard shad, blue cats, and channel cats at Hoover over the last several years. These surveys have provided a lot of insights … I’ll try to briefly summarize.
Gizzard shad:
We have done a lot of shad surveys at Hoover. In fact, we conducted a shad survey last Monday night (8/12/19). There are lots of shad in Hoover. Preyfish don’t appear to be limiting.
Blue catfish:
We have been surveying the Hoover blue catfish population every year since 2016. Stocking success of blue catfish advanced fingerlings has been high in Hoover. We stocked fish in every year from 2011 – 2017 (except 2014 because of hatchery production failure) and have gotten returns from all of those stockings. We recently started alternate year stocking at Hoover because 1) the initial stockings have developed a good population there, and 2) also to allow us to expand blue cat stocking to other reservoirs. The blues are growing fast and are starting to produce the trophy-size fish we were hoping for.
We have been assessing the Hoover blue cat population every year for the last 4 years and there is no evidence that they are successfully reproducing in Hoover. Which is fine; we don't stock blue cats (or any fish really) to establish a self-sustaining population. That is not the goal. The goal is to diversify the catfishing opportunities and to provide some trophy-sized fish. It seems as though we are meeting that goal at Hoover
10/23/19- Marty reminded me yesterday that we did not plan to stock blue catfish in Hoover this fall. We are happy with the current population of blue cats in Hoover and have pulled back the stocking to every other year. So from here on out, Hoover will be stocked with blue cats in even-numbered years (stocking in 2020, 2022, etc...). The every other year stocking approach allows us to expand the blue catfish program to other reservoirs throughout the state. We are still trying to expand this program, so switching to the every other year approach after a good population is established following 5-6 years of annual stockings gives us the flexibility to stock more total acres of water. We have been assessing the Hoover blue cat population every year for the last 4 years and there is no evidence that they are successfully reproducing in Hoover. Which is fine; we don't stock blue cats (or any fish really) to establish a self-sustaining population. That is not the goal. The goal is to diversify the catfishing opportunities and to provide some trophy-sized fish. It seems as though we are meeting that goal at Hoover
Channel catfish:
There are a lot of channel catfish in Hoover; it’s a high density population. Hoover channels can live into their early 20s, but they don’t grow super fast. Growth appears to have been average long before blue catfish were ever stocked in Hoover. It takes 18-20 years for channel catfish to get to Fish Ohio size in Hoover, on average. Generally, what we’ve seen with channel catfish populations throughout Ohio, is that the more fish there are, the slower they grow. Its not surprising that the channel catfish growth in Hoover is average.
Also, reproductive success of channel catfish appears to be very inconsistent from year to year, which is pretty typical for most freshwater fish populations. While there are some fish spawned in every year, the spawns in a few years produce a majority of the fish. It appears that there were big spawns in 2002-2004 and 2008-2011, so most of the fish in Hoover right now were produced in those 7 years. Catfish don’t live forever and there are just very few of those older/larger fish in the population right now. The fish from the 2002-2004 year classes should just now be starting to reach some trophy sizes.