With all the recent fuss about this lake but no actual fishing report, figured I’d post one. As those of you who’ve been there recently know, things have changed at Oak Thicket. As of May, the dumpster that was down by the ramp has been relocated to the entrance booth. The nice older lady who works there told me it’s to avoid having people hide behind it to clean fish. More of that later. First, the fishing: it was slow to ok for me on Shad colored cranks in the morning. 8-15 fow near creek channels and points. Water temp was betweeen 83-85 depending on where I was. Wind was 9-12 mph from the south. Even a couple of tilapia got in on the action. Not fast and furious by any means.
I moved deeper by mid-morning and found fish around the discharge (south side) and intake (north side) in 15-25 fow. They ate t-rigged power worms and c-rigged creatures baits. I moved to check out the trees on the east side on the 2nd and found a discarded cast net on the tree marked with a point on the map attached. Again, if you’ve been there recently, you’ve seen it. Well, my conscience got the better of me and after a disgusting wrestling match, I hauled it and all the decaying fish within across my bow. Into the live well it went, and I dealt with a progressively more stinking boat throughout the day until I quit and dropped it off around 10 till 8. The lady at the booth thanked me for collecting rubbish and we had a nice long chat about the new gate hours, their cause, the new dumpster location, and all sorts of other topics. Super nice lady. I got home and had to explain to my wife why I was grabbing scrub brushes, bleach, and a bucket as soon as I got home. Turns out vinegar helped a lot getting the smell out of the carpet, Fabreeze just covered it up and let de-oderizer did nothing. It still smells a bit, but. It as bad as it did. There’s also still a few bones and spines in my live well, even though I’ve tried flushing it out. Probably time to vacuum with the shop vac.
Wishing everyone good luck out there! If you smell a funky odor and spot and older Ranger boat, wave and say hey!

Good report CJ...I fish FCL once a week & try & do a little clean up as well. Most of my efforts come from catching old fishing line (usually braid) and hauling it to the trash. It amazes me the length of line some of these guys break off. One more reason I do not like braid. Anyway, thanks for the clean up...

Nice post. Also it was great you did a good dead in picking up the cast net.


Side Note: Makes you think the type of people that leave cast nets out with fish in them.

Seems Fayette attracts a lot of low class individuals of all sorts.
As Vogey’s mentioned before, there’s also a LOT of fishing line in the trees and all around. Sometimes attached to nice lures! I’ve retrieved lots of nice, useable hardbaits and plenty of soft plastics with hooks and weights still attached from the trees. There was a practically new fire tiger crankbait stuck in the net too. Just needed a replacement rear hook. It’s kind of disheartening at times.

Used to be my favorite lake.

If you still need to get rid of fish smell:
one large bottle of Hydrogen peroxide,
about a 1/4 cup of dishsoap and a pump sprayer will do it.
Mix peroxide and soap, spray on carpet or inside livewell,
brush it with a scrub brush for a minute or two, and then rinse, easy peasy!
This will also leave you scent free after cleaning fish, you can eat a sandwich
immediately afterwards, and you won't smell fish on your hands.
I've been using this mix for years in the taxidermy business, for smelly things,
as well as after handling fish, cheap and works like a champ.

Have picked out more than a few illegal cast nets over my years on Fayette. One year I got 3.