Duck river from below Normandy dam to three forks bridge has a nice population of chain pickerel.

Chain pickeral may survive but Northern Pike populations start north of cincinnati, OH and they are few and far between. Musky on the other hand are all over the mid Atlantic because they are NATIVE to these rivers.

Chain pickeral I have no Idea about but I have caught 10,000s of thousands of northern pike.

Anything over 25 inches resembling an ESOX is 99.9% a musky south of the ohio river and its basin.

And most Yankee's think Walleye are a Northern fish yet we have the world record on Old Hickory/Cumberland River.

I just need to find those big boys as it is hard for me but I did get two Sauger this weekend a 15" and a 19"er!! Damn good on the Grille with butter,pepper and lemon!

As a kid in the 60’s my family used to fish for “Jacks” all the time in Old Hickory. Since I left Gallatin in 1973 I can’t really speak to the population in there now but used to be a ton of them.

Regards

That is an incredibly foolish statement. The Ohio River basin and Cumberland River basin hold all of the biggest walleye in the world. No yankee will disagree with you there. I know personally people who fly from Minnesota to dale hallow just to walleye fish.

Although the population and table fare is far far far far far better up north because of water quality.


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Southern atmosphere trumps the water quality in Yankee land. :) :)

Not in a million years. Weather, fishing, hunting, water, women and hunting camps are better up north.

The warm weather turns you into mush after too many years. When you don’t fear winter, you get lazy.


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Last year we kept some bass to eat while camping at Lake Cumberland, we had 2 smallmouth, 3 Spots and a Largemouth , when I opened the live well they all had the exact same markings, could tell them apart until they were out of the livewell for a while

Anyone else ever see this?

I can't think of a time I've noticed this. Usually it just the opposite, if they all look the same it's because of being very deep or muddy water but they usually color up nicely in the livewell

Here's a prime example. This is the same fish.

https://i.redd.it/ba64eu8qkaj31.jpg

This is what they all looked like when we opened the live well, all 3 species, I wondered if it was stress or maybe aggressive behavior causing it , not sure