Ohio

Fishing in Ohio

With a large water body like Lake Erie, and many other lakes, ponds and rivers, Ohio presents itself as another tempting destination for anglers. Fishing in Ohio is fun for those who enjoy variety of aquatic fauna and a gourmet of fishes as well as turtle.

The state has five regions.

Central

This region contains the Lakes of Buckeye, Indian, Knox, Griggs, Scioto, and the reservoirs of Delaware, Alum Creek and O’Shaughnessey.

Northwest

This region has the Lake Erie, and the Bays of Maumee and Sandusky, reservoirs of Clear Fork, Pleasant Hill, Charles Mill, Crearfork and Findlay 2, as well as Lakes of Harrison, and La Su An.

Northeast

The region consists of the North Reservoir (Portage Lakes), West Branch Reservoir and the Rocky River, reservoirs of Mosquito, Tappan, LaDue and Mogadore, and Berlin Pymatuning, and Milton Lakes.

Southwest

This region contains Ohio River, and lakes of Cowen, East Fork, Rocky Fork, Caesar Creek, Acton, and Paint Creek.

Southeast

The Ohio River flows through this region too and also the Muskingum River; lakes of Seneca, Tycoon, Burr Oak, Belmont and Piedmont, Salt Fork Reservoir are other major water bodies.

Fishes

All the above water bodies contain the fishes like Carp (the world’s largest minnow), wide varieties of catfish, like bullheads, channel catfish, flatheads, and blue catfish, black and white crappie, largemouth and smallmouth bass, muskellunge, steelheads, northern pike, sauger, saugeye, sunfish, rainbow brown trout, white bass, walleye and yellow perch. In short, fishing in Ohio offers you everything in the world of angling. What’s more, you can catch here the ever tasty snapping turtle.

Tackle

When you catch a carp, your gear must be as strong as to withstand the fury of the fish. Ensure that they are longer, medium weight rods (more than 6 ft.) spooled with ample 8-12 pound line. You can catch common carp with bow and arrow too. For bullheads or channel catfish, standard tackle include medium spinning or bait casting outfits with 10-12 pound line, while for flatheads or blue catfish, they include heavy rods and reels with 20 or 30 pound line. The reels used to catch catfish needs to have a good drag system. Crappie of Ohio are easiest to catch and hence popular amongst kids’ fishing. A fishing rod with moderate to fast tip action and with lure weights of 1/16 to ¼ ounce is a good for this fish year-round. You can attach to this moderate sized reel spooled with 4 to 8 pound fishing line. Baits preferred are minnows. Small hooks of sizes 4, 6, or 8, small shot weights, and a bobber, will be needed. 1/16 to 1/8 ounce jigs with feathers, plastic curly tails, synthetic hair, and tube bodies are other effective baits for crappie. Medium to heavy bait casting, spincast rods with 8-17 pound test line, or spinning is effective for largemouth bass. For musky, 6.6 to 8-foot medium to heavy casting rods with attached wide-spool casting reels with line-out alarms work well. It will be best if you take a separate rod for trolling which should have slightly more flex than the casting rod and with a line counter reel for deciding exact trolling depth.

For catching a snapping turtle, a long steel rod with a hook at the tip is used as a safe tackle. When this strikes a turtle, you will feel a thump and by doing the hook under the shell you can pull the turtle out. This method works very well in early spring and fall. Other ways are using bank lines, float lines and trap, which give good results in various conditions, e.g., bank lines are effective on large lakes and long stream banks, while float lines do best in small ponds and trap should be kept in streams where there is a flow. For bank lines you will need short lengths of heavy staging with large hooks (size 5/0 to 10/0) tied to it. The line should be long enough to let the baited hook to rest on the bottom. Many types of bait can be used, though a bloody, tough, beef neck works the best.

You surely must have been tempted by the idea of going for fishing in Ohio this season, and if you go, you are surely going to enjoy to your heart’s content!