The thermometer might say no, but the calendar says yes.
Late February is the start of the best fishing of the year for sauger in Kentucky rivers and tailwaters. Water temperatures may be cold (high 30s), but the fishing can be good to excellent, when conditions are right.
Sauger fishing is boom or bust. It’s a seasonal fishery at best. Weather is the limiting factor in angler success some years. Unseasonable cold snaps that extend into early March, ice and high water from snow melt or rainfall can make fishing conditions difficult, if not impossible.
Late winter and early spring are the best times to catch sauger because that’s when they school up prior to spawning. The combination of photoperiod (lengthening days) and warming water temperatures trigger sauger “runs” up rivers. Dams halt these migrations and concentrate fish.
By April, sauger disperse and migrate back down river. Post spawn they are spread out, which makes it difficult to catch them in numbers. In Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley sauger can be taken during the summer by trolling crankbaits across main lake flats.
Kentucky has six rivers that support quality sauger fisheries — the Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky, lower Green, lower Tennessee and Cumberland. Statewide, there’s a daily creel limit of six sauger, with no minimum size limit, however special regulations apply in some waters. Consult the 2015-16 Kentucky Fishing & Boating Guide for details at this link.
Tackle and Techniques
Anglers have three productive fishing techniques for catching sauger in the late winter and early spring, with vertical jigging as the top choice.
It’s easy to efficiently probe bottom structure such as humps, rock piles, and deep holes. Sauger also like to stack up in eddies and along current seams below dams. They conserve energy by staying out of the current, then dart out to grab a minnow as it swims by.
By fishing vertically there’s less chance of getting hung up, too. Use your electronics to locate fish and then put your lure right in front of their noses. Sauger typically lay right on or close to the bottom and look up for prey to ambush. They have good vision and can see the colors green and orange best.
Lead head jigs can be tipped with eight live minnows or plastic curlytail grubs, which offer the advantage of being able to catch multiple fish without having to re-bait.
In typical current, a 3/8 or 1/2-ounce jig is usually heavy enough to stay in contact with the bottom, but in deeper water or in heavier current, more weight is needed. Raise and lower the rod so that the jig swims along about four inches off the bottom.
A second option is vertical jigging blade baits, thin metal crankbaits with lead heads that imitate a shad. Lower the bait down until it hits bottom, then I reel it up about six inches.
Pull the lure up, with a sharp jerk of the rod, and keep the line tight enough to feel the lure wobble back down. Most bites will occur on the fall.
A third vertical presentation for sauger is rigging a floating crankbait on the 3-way swivel, with the weight on the bottom and a small, floating crankbait tied to an 18 to 24- inch leader that’s tied to the third eyelet.
The sauger (Sander canadensis) is a member of family Percidae, which includes walleye and other perches.
Sauger are dark, with distinctive brown saddlelike markings across their back and sides, a tall, spotted dorsal fin and toothy mouth.
They are excellent tablefare. The typical sauger taken from Kentucky waterways measures 10 to 16 inches. The state record sauger weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and was caught from the Cumberland River in 1983.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.