# Olentangy River



## Samjw08

I live in Lewis Center Ohio and have waded in the Olentangy around the Orange rd Bridge and up and down the river from their many times if anyone is familiar with it (the old rusty one lane bridge) and i was wondering about other people's experiences with this this river at this time of the year and if its any good right now i have caught many Rock bass and a Small mouth bass fishing their earlier and Do you know of any other good rivers to fish at this time of the year near that area? thanks and Happy Thanksgiving


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## crawdiddy

I have fished around there a lot in the past couple of years but not this year. Basically the tangy is "shallow" all around there. I never really did any good this late in the year up there. But I didnt fish it this late in the season last year. I would either 1. try to find the deepest holes (waders)and use a slow presentation(like twister slowly dragging bottom). or 2. consider seeking out a lowhead dam (roller dam)to fish below(north of there mostly). At one point I found a link on the web showing where all the lowhead dams on the tangy are (and I thought there were like 20 or something but some have been removed I think)but I lost it and could never find it again. I know there is one maybe 5-10 miles north of delaware reservoir by some golf course (3 kings?) that was deeper. I bet there are some fish holding up there. Just can't remember the name of the golf course for sure. try google earthing


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## Samjw08

yeah it is really shallow and whenever i do find a fairly deep spot i usually catch a bass or two but yeah ill look for those little dams they should be pretty good thanks


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## Live2Fish

Wow! I did a google search on the subject and learned something new. Over the next 40 years the are going to remove all the low head/roller dams on the Olentangy. I have not fished north of Powell Road in about four years and it appears a couple of the dams are already gone.


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## Samjw08

yeah i was gonna post that too i saw that when i was looking for the location of some of them and all the sites said was that they were gonna remove all of them and a few have already been removed


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## crawdiddy

yep they're on their way out. 

There is a natural spring (decent size)bw home and orange (if you find it that was one my my spots when I used to live in powell...right in that area).

I also used (80's)to fish below hyatts but its someones house now I think they redid the river by the bridge and seriously doubt its the same(river looks COMPLETELY diffn't like they dredged teh heck out of it). There was a deeper hole that held lots of 11-13" smallies and some saugeye. If you had minnows you could catch smallie after smallie there. But it has changed I am sure otherwise I wouldn't be posting totally specific honey hole info to the WWW. In other words I bet its average at best now. But yeah there a few nice spots bw orange and home.


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## crawdiddy

also the tangy has some PIGBEASTS. Very few but I'm talking 3.5-5lbs(and probably more). I've seen them.


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## Samjw08

yeah right by the spot i fished by their was like 3-6 lb carp right by their at first i was hoping they were like huge mutant bass lol but they werent


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## Live2Fish

I hope they don't tear them all out but there are way to many of them on the river (there are 2 behind Antrim alone). In my opinion, it is the most beautiful river around to wade and to photograph. 

The smallies in there are nice when you can find them and there are some very nice carp. The Scioto is better for quantity and size but for color the fish are better out of the Olentangy. Most smallies I pull out of the Olentangy look like they have just been painted with metallic paint and the carp look like they have just been detailed. The rock bass in the Olentangy do rival those in the Scioto for size though.


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## crawdiddy

shhhhhhh!!!!!


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## 01mercLS

good ole' old and tangy!!


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## crawdiddy

grew up on it. it's a beautiful flow!


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## rweis

The area just below Panhandle Rd. is supposed to have the highest density of Smallies, according to ODNR. Also, go to the ODNR page and get the map of the ponds in the Delaware Wildlife Area (surrounds the state park). I had some luck there this summer. Be careful, it is WILD.

http://www.dnr.ohio.gov/wildlife/pdf/pub107.pdf


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## Teeray

since I moved to Cincinnati I don't get to fish there anymore, and they posted my favorite spot a couple years ago anyway. My biggest smallie ever came from the 'Tangy at the Home Rd. bridge.

Sometime I might just test the laws and wade in at the bridge, which should be legal, and stay in the water. I'll make sure I park over at that church, since that old parking area right on 315 is where the posted signs are.

teeray


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## crawdiddy

well I didn't mean to give away anyones honeyholes thats for sure. My experience fishing that area has been well like maybe in 40 days of fishing I'll run into 4 total people (2 of which are a father and son). Also FWIW I tried my own advice and hit up a low head dam by antrim a couple days ago. Nada.  So I went to antrim and hooked into a PIG rainbow that got away.....good luck.

yeah parking is kinda tricky....but not really...so you have to walk 100 more feet, etc.


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## LFN

The golf course with the dam is Kings Mill.


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## crawdiddy

fished the tangy for 1 hour 2day. Got one (report in central). Yeah Kings Mill, thats it. Below that lowhead is good. And in that pool. Also the far side of that dam looks deeper like it could hold some bigger cats.


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## Samjw08

awesome i might go to the tangy this weekend and try my luck


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## BobcatAngler

I was up early a couple of saturdays ago...after my wife woke me up from a fish dream. Saw a show on ESPN2 called the Fishin Hole. This guy was using "Wheatie-balls" to fish for carp out of the tangy. It must have been taped in the 80s. He pulled a bunch out. Talk about your exotic fishing destination...


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## rweis

That was Jerry McKinnis' show - The Fishin' Hole. He was covering the group C.A.R.P. I believe as one of the first Carp Clubs. All he shows now are old film clips and I think this is his last year hosting a show.

A friend of mine had a book called The Black Bass that was published around 1935. The author noted that the Olentangy was "one of the five best Bass rivers in the Midwest".


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## BobcatAngler

I really need to explore it a little better. I just moved to within walking distance of the stretch just north of campus, around the Park of Roses. I usually hit the tangy when I'm short on time. I've been only been a short distance up and down stream from there. I gave up on wading that part because it's pretty soft on the bottom and there's lots of garbage, some dangerous twisted metal. Still canoe it though, which is very nice around the Whetstone area. I haven't had a whole lot of luck there with bass a few little bronzebacks, but have pulled out some of the most beautiful pumpkinseed sunfish around there. Not big, but really pretty. I'm excited for the spring so I can explore further north. It was great to hear about the 22 mile stretch north of Worthington being state scenic river. I really would like to explore that some more. Is it springtime yet?!


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## LyleStyle

The olentangy used to be considered one of the best smallmouth rivers in the country. People would come from out of state to fish it or so I've read.


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## buckdawg

I'm going to have to try the Olentangy this spring. I drove over the Home Road bridge every day going to school and have never once fished it. Growing up on the 257 the O'Shaughnessy was right across the road.

As far as the Wheatie-balls, I had much success using those on a treble hook immediately below the O'Shaughnessy dam. They aren't pretty but they're fun to catch!


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## jholbrook

LyleStyle said:


> The olentangy used to be considered one of the best smallmouth rivers in the country. People would come from out of state to fish it or so I've read.


A.J. McClane mentions it as a smallmouth destination in his encyclopedia of fishing.

Likewise, I had a neighbor that had lived on the river in the 1940s, give or take. He squirrel hunted the area around Morse Rd. and High. He said that he caught quite a few 3 and 4+ lb smallies out of the river - 14" was an average smallie; 17" were pretty common. He blamed the decline of the fishing on the population explosion in Columbus, farming, and the construction of the dam in Delaware.


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## jsalkas

I'll bet your neighbor is dead accurate.

The Fox River in Illinois has had similar trying times. However, due to some well intentioned folks, it is now one of the premier Smallmouth flows in the Chicagoland area. In the next few years the Dupage is going to have some dam removal done, and I'll be in the area to "monitor" first hand the river recovery.


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## LyleStyle

The Olentangy is still a great smallmouth river, I fish it all the time in the summer, it's close so I can sneek out after dinner during the work week. The problem is size. The main area I fish 15 inches is big. In fact you will mainly catch "clones" that measure about 8" and 11". Mabye they came from good hatch years which would bode well because I can often pull them out in big numbers. The area I fish is pretty shallow, though most of the tangy is. Another area I fish produced a 17" smallie though the fish were few and far between. At the end of the day it's a great place for me to sneak out during the week, get my feet wet wading and enjoy fishing. Like they say it's not the size but how you use it.


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## jsalkas

That's mostly what I've caught there Lyle, but I haven't caught any over that 12" mark. It just seems to me with the numbers of small ones I catch, there should be some _bigger_ ones mixed. I still love the Olentangy, but I think it could be better. 

I'm always amazed at how much insect life is in that river. If you turn over a few rocks, you'll find a ton of nymphs, and in the evening most stretches get some very nice hatches


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## LyleStyle

Well with the strong numbers i get with smaller fish we'll know in couple years if the olentangy can support the hatches or if they move to the scioto when they grow. Or they get stunted with the smaller river.


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