Shad

There's one spot along the Ohio River in my area where the water is shallow for a few feet until you come to the dropoff, where the river gets deep quickly. Last week it was a great spot to see swarms of small fish darting around.

An old guy started up a conversation with me as I tried to get photos. The water just wouldn't let me get a crisp photo. He started talking about those little fish were young shad. And he showed me a bucket of larger shad that he had caught.

I asked why he needed so many. He said he was using them as bait to catch catfish out in deeper water.

For what it's worth, gizzard shad is the fish species found most often in the middle Ohio River, according  to a survey done last year by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission.

I don't know a whole lot about fish, but I'm trying to learn. Sort of.

Three news items on a Sunday morning

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a story about efforts to bring paddlefish back to the upper Ohio Valley , but there are concerns about whether they will establish a breeding population.

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From the Beaver County Times, money has been made available to convert an old steel mill along the Ohio River in the Aliquippa area into a dock that can serve multiple users .

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From the Evansville Courier & Press, that Indiana city is trying to recover some of the money it is having to pay out as part of a consent decree with the federal government over problems with its sewer system.