It’s late March and the ice has been off for a while. The next couple of months will be a flurry of fishing action with water temperatures on the rise from the mid-30s all the way into the 60s.
As an avid catfish angler, I do not dedicate much time to the tastier species once cat season is in full swing, so I like to take advantage of this time of year to put some filets in the freezer.
Being a gentleman of good sense and taste, I prefer to stock my freezer with abundant and delicious fishes, such as crappie, bass, and saugeye. Because this is a relatively short window, I try to make each trip as productive as possible and that begins with knowing what is out there and active.
Sauger and saugeye have been hitting all year and will continue to be active until the dog days of summer drive them into hiding. Crappie will begin appearing on stringers. White bass and hybrids will start showing up in buckets. Muskies will blow up crappie rigs below the spillway at Clear Fork Reservoir, snapping lines and breaking hearts. There will be plenty of trout about and you’ll find channel cats in shallow flats.
It’s a good time to look for some brown trout on Cedar Fork Creek or a mix of browns and rainbows in the Clear Fork River. I often walk and fish Switzer’s Creek from State Route 95 down to the mucky backwaters of Pleasant Hill Lake. It’s a worthwhile walk, whether I want trout for sport or chubs for bait.
The Black Fork south of Charles Mill will have white bass, hybrid striped bass, crappie and saugeye on the move. The best public access will be at the spillway on State Route 603.
A lot of people fish the bridges on 603 and 39. North of Charles Mill there is good public access along Crider Road near 603. Here you are a little less likely to hook up with a saugeye and the water contains more silt.
The spillway below Pleasant Hill is a mulligan stew of fish species where anglers will find brown and rainbow trout, largemouth and smallmouth bass, muskellunge, crappie, saugeye and sauger, and channel catfish … to name some of the gamefish present there. Downstream there will be trout and smallmouth hiding in the ripples.
Both Pleasant Hill and Charles Mill Lakes will be productive for crappie. You don’t even need to ask where to find them. You just watch how everyone else is fishing and you’ll find plenty of seasoned anglers doing it right. Just imitate them and even a novice angler will find it hard to go wrong.
Clear Fork Reservoir will be another crappie hotspot, with anglers running the risk of hooking up with a muskie on light tackle. These lakes are well worth putting the boat on in the early spring.
Small reservoirs like the ones in Galion and Bucyrus are good spots to hit for crappie and early action black bass. You can find the same type of action at the Shelby Reservoir. These are good places to fish the corners. This allows you to fish a drop off from the shore, working your bait from shallow to deeper water.
Small ponds will be picking up action now and will often warm quicker than other bodies of water. This makes for some of the best early bass fishing. A lot of public park ponds are regularly stocked with rainbow trout in the late winter and they can be fun to catch in spring.
A little farther out but still within an hour’s drive south is Hoover Reservoir. A warm April day is well-spent drifting for blue catfish on the northern end of the lake. These brutes are the largest catfish species in North America and can grow to weights in excess of 100 pounds.
They are not native to Ohio outside of the Ohio River system and have been stocked at the reservoir by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. At this time blue cats weighing over 20 pounds are far from a rare catch for those anglers targeting them.
Heading in the opposite direction, Lake Erie is a reasonable drive for some world-class pre- and post-spawn walleye. In Sandusky Bay the channel catfish will begin gorging themselves as water temps approach the mid-50s.
Knowing where to find fish is only part of the battle. It’s also important to understand their behavior and what they eat as well as their feeding pattern.
The key to putting the right bait in the right spot at the right time is timely information. It’s always great when a buddy calls and tells you to get to Charles Mill Marina, get some minnows, and meet him at the dock, but that doesn’t always happen. Most times you have to find your own fish.
Good fishermen are my go-to resource. I’m never afraid to ask successful anglers how they are catching their fish. Mostly they size me up, judge that I am not a risk to their own catch total and decide to help. They show me the right bait, explain the right presentation and keep to themselves that their technique has been practiced for most of their lives and that it took many years to perfect.
Facebook angling groups have been valuable resources. With a lot of real time posting, members of these groups frequently give detailed information on how to catch fish using their goods or services. They tell you where they were, when they were there, and the presentation and bait they used to catch their target species.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources website is another excellent source of information, with profiles on the native sport species of fish in the state. These profiles provide behavior and habitat for each species, including diet and location information. You will also find fishing tips by species on the ODNR website. These are extremely helpful, telling you what type of locations to fish, using which bait and presentation at which time of year.
Water level and temperature are the two most important pieces of the puzzle in your fishing formula. The more you learn about fish and their behavior the more obvious this becomes. So for real time information on water conditions, I like to use the United States Geological Survey (or USGS for short) website. It lists water conditions including flood stage, volume, and temperature for many of our streams and reservoirs, helping me pinpoint where to try my luck.
Armed with this knowledge, even a novice angler can enjoy good spring fishing. Whether out on the lake, walking along a stream, or cranking at the spillway, there are a variety of angling opportunities in the area. Taking advantage of those opportunities is just a matter of getting out there and doing it.
So good luck to you. I hope you catch a lunker.
