# Dublin and Hilliard ponds...........



## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

Spent the last 3 weeks hitting as many of the listed ponds in Hilliard and Dublin at their official parks plus many ponds I happened to be driving by in residential neighborhoods along the way. I know many have been looking for places to fish besides the big lakes, well here ya go. I am not done yet by any means, there's probably over 40 or so that are ok to fish in. Also hit a few in Powell before work over the last month.

Anyway, in no particular order here we go:

Wedgewood Glen park: tiny pond at summit view and conine: 3 1lb ish small mouth, 1 each time I have been there.........hard to fish cause its choked with weeds/growth but quite healthy as ponds go, caught all of them on a small rebel popper, had hits on a frog but couldn't get em to swallow it and hold it.

up the street due north is another pond bordered by borge way and buttleston drive: been there twice and got a small smallmouth on a spinner bait 1st time and pretty good sized white bass last week........there's another public pond nearby in sandwich ct, dont bother its having a green algae/bacteria attack

over to Dublin.......brand road and coventry woods : 2 ponds on opposite sides of coventry woods, western pond is healthy and yielded 2 decent but small smallmouths and a big pumpkin seed sunfish all on a tiny meps spinner.........couldnt get any hits on anything else but they liked that for some reason

Karrer pond: access via violet veil ct ........looked good on google maps.........very shallow, very weedy, and also nice clear water and could see bass swimming around but they wanted no part of any bait not alive. Unfortunately the main fish attraction structure wise is the dock and basically the only place to fish from. 

Dalmore park.........dead zone, bluegill and not much else

Avery [email protected] avery and wynford: nice pond, steep banks though. Anyway........hoping for bass and caught two catfish on a big 3/4oz spinner bait and one was a monster........23" long unknown weight but I couldn't get my hand around his head to hold him and get the hook out cause he was so big. He fought til he was exhausted.....not a happy fish when I put him back, took him about 60 seconds to snap out of shock and swim away. Being like 90F today didnt help I am sure. I didn't like the heat either !!
Not wanting anymore cats to play with I left but I have a hunch there's a bubba bass in there somewhere.

Ballantrae park at woerner temple and avery rd: beautiful pond, tough fishing........1 tiny smallmouth on a plastic worm, 2 small catfish caught using frozen shrimp, nothing else........saw a couple white bass cruising around but even the bluegill in there are skittish.

ML Nature preserve: only tried the 1st pond next to the road but caught a gorgeous largemouth on a buzz bait yesterday in the middle of the day. Hard to fish, lots of places to get hung up in and out of the water. 

Glacier ridge is listed but all I could find is wetland marsh, no pond. 

Balgriffin park: dead zone, just bluegill

Bishops run park: the ponds are exactly in the park but whatever.........tullymore and caraway dr........another nice pond but not much life in it

Into Hillard: Hilliard muni park..3 ponds . The one with the wooden footbridge yielded nothing, looks pretty barren. The middle pond gave me 2 smallmouths but I had to use bluegill for bait. The back pond behind the baseball field gave me 1 smallmouth and it took an hour........lots of fishing pressure methinks, busy busy park.I think more success to be had there with better technique I do not have or understand yet.

Clarence Latham educational park: dead zone except for bluegill

Homestead park: they are having an algae and water quality issue but I know there are fish in there besides bluegill, I saw them but couldn't get them to bite.

I am not gonna list any of the 2 dozen some odd private non official park ponds I visited cause none of them yielded any fish other than bluegill, many were pretty desert like.

Not sure what the deal is with some of these private ponds, toxic runoff from the adjacent fields of grass or what but some were a strange color the the weeds weren't very healthy looking. Some of the public park ponds look pretty unbalanced too, not much diversity of life. It has been very hit or miss. 

Also been very frustrating with the Dublin park listing website vs google maps and google earth.......some didn't match with my GPS, had bad addresses or weren't at all close to where you can park and walk to them. I didn't just hit an run any of them either. I walk the perimeter(if possible) and look for life: frogs, minnows, bluegill, fish jumping, beaver or muskrats, vegetation in the pond etc etc Lot of the dead like ponds had blueish green moss about 2" thick carpeting the bottom and that was it.......and weird water colors. 

there's still half a dozen or so more in Dublin I haven't been to yet..........I didn't take pics of the ponds or the fish other than the white bass and the big cat, have no way to upload em at the moment


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## USMC-BUCKEYE (Apr 2, 2010)

Wow nice job. I've been to a lot of those parks and have had very limited success.


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## Rayfaling (Jun 17, 2016)

Ive been looking at the pond between Sawmill rd and Sawmill pkwy


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

Well, I am not very experienced in this fresh water fishing either.........until I came to Ohio and fished here I had never seen or caught a smallmouth or largemouth bass. The white bass I thought looked like a saltwater striped bass except for its mouth which makes it look like a striped perch to me. I had to ask someone what it was. Feisty little fish though.

I am used to east coast ocean and brackish water fishing where almost everything has teeth but smaller mouths for their size. These smallmouth bass critters are making me make some adjustments I am not used to. I don't think this hot weather is helping the fishing either, it might just be me though.


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

Rayfaling said:


> Ive been looking at the pond between Sawmill rd and Sawmill pkwy


it is officially "no fishing", signs posted along the alley behind the businesses there but I saw a guy fishing there last Sunday..........it has been tempting me too

the ones up at big bear farms along Powell rd are public though

There's a couple in Powell off Jewett rd I wanna try but I am not sure how the residents will react. No signs are posted though. The best ones off Salisbury are private and ENFORCED.


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## Rayfaling (Jun 17, 2016)

pedex said:


> it is officially "no fishing", signs posted along the alley behind the businesses there but I saw a guy fishing there last Sunday..........it has been tempting me too
> 
> the ones up at big bear farms along Powell rd are public though
> 
> There's a couple in Powell off Jewett rd I wanna try but I am not sure how the residents will react. No signs are posted though. The best ones off Salisbury are private and ENFORCED.


Ive also seen people fishing there, I drive by it a lot and saw a young man with a bent rod, I was sitting there watching when a car started beeping his horn so I didnt see what he caught but it looks fishy.


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## Rayfaling (Jun 17, 2016)

In Miami Fl, when I was a kid the best fishing was at the golf courses, I spent many days getting chased off of them. Once they introduced Peacock Bass it was well worth the effort.


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## Bubbagon (Mar 8, 2010)

I've fished most of those ponds with my kids for years. But have never caught a smallmouth out of any of them. We've caught hundreds of largemouth, but never a smallie.
Is it possible the fish you caught were largemouth bass?


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

got that one out of the pond at conine and summit view at 3:11pm on 8/15/16 my first time fishing there

not the best photo in the world but he looks like most of the smallmouth pics I have seen posted

now the one I got at ML Nature preserve looked different, had a spot near his tail and was way more yellow/orange especially his belly and had a different marking pattern on his sides


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

white bass, yes? came out of the bigger pond north of the one at conine and summit view.......like 10 days ago I think










that monster I got yesterday over at tullymore and wynford, channel cat ?


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## percidaeben (Jan 15, 2010)

pedex said:


> View attachment 218190
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For sure a largemouth. When I was young I knew the Connine's. They were hog farmers and I used to slay the largemouth in that pond. Floating silver and black Rapala minnow. Also caught nice bluegills and the Connine boys had a little raft they made. Used large snails for big channel catfish in there. That was late 70's,early 80's.


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## Mr. A (Apr 23, 2012)

pedex said:


> View attachment 218190
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That is absolutely a large mouth bass... not a bad one either, but am LMB just the same. 

Also, many of the ponds in dublin require a pass to fish. You get a pass by living there. You'll probably be ok until everyone reading the site starts killing the ponds and leaving their yrash all over, then they will enforce the rules and everyone will lose out.


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

Mr. A said:


> That is absolutely a large mouth bass... not a bad one either, but am LMB just the same.
> 
> Also, many of the ponds in dublin require a pass to fish. You get a pass by living there. You'll probably be ok until everyone reading the site starts killing the ponds and leaving their yrash all over, then they will enforce the rules and everyone will lose out.


All the ponds listed are Dublin park ponds, no fishing license or permission required. Most have a plaque in front listing what is in them with pics and warning that other species may be in there too. The pics of the LMB they show doesn't look at all like what I have been catching. Campden lakes does have two much bigger ponds that are private and that is posted all over around them.

got two more today:











that came from north orange park in lewis center

and this little dinky one at north liberty park at home rd and n. liberty rd


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## Bubbagon (Mar 8, 2010)

You're catching largemouth.


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## MikeThePike (May 5, 2016)

pedex said:


> View attachment 218194
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> white bass, yes? came out of the bigger pond north of the one at conine and summit view.......like 10 days ago I think
> ...


You have seen white bass at Ballantrae park and caught that guy at Wedgewood Glen Park?


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

MikeThePike said:


> You have seen white bass at Ballantrae park and caught that guy at Wedgewood Glen Park?


yes, had a white bass cruise right by me when I was standing at the south east corner of Ballantrae's bigger pond

The one white bass I caught came from the pond north of Wedgewood Glen park. Wedgewood Glen park as far as I know is only the little postage stamp sized pond with the waterfall facing summit view. The pond up the street doesn't have a name posted anywhere that I could find but its a much bigger pond and has a gazebo on its east side. Not to be confused with the 2 lakes Campden lakes has which are private but nearby. If you go north on conine the first intersection forks and both roads go around the second but bigger pond. I have caught fish in both.


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## Bucks4life (Jul 30, 2014)

Not my side of town, but great report!


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## Deazl666 (Mar 30, 2012)

Nice report; definitely a largemouth.


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

Went back to ML Trabue Nature Preserve yesterday and did all 3 ponds, 1st time I just did the one by the road. Anyway, the middle pond is very shallow and full of bluegill and not much else. The 3rd pond by the retirement home or whatever that is has a gazebo/dock and its the deepest part of the pond. Nice clear water and full of all sorts of life. Caught 2 bass there and 3 bluegill in between battling with the weeds growing pretty heavy in there. Tried a hula popper and a frog and got nothing, they like the floating/diving rapala though. Then I went back to pond #1 and fished there for about 45mins and got 2 more bass and 2 more bluegill on the same rapala. Like most of these ponds the fish like the water fountains and any shady areas under trees overhanging the pond if deep enough. Small lures too, the big ones seem to scare the fish more than anything. I use ones under 1/2oz if I can cast a small 1/4oz lure all the way across the pond, I save the bigger stuff for the bigger deeper ponds, seems to work best. Water fountains also seem to drown out the noise of surface lures, only had luck with them hopping them across weedy areas when well away from the fountains. Also, watch out for the cables attached to the fountains, they are pretty much always anchored to shore with a cable running underwater and it will snag your lure if don't pay attention. 

Only have like 3 Dublin parks left, hope to get to those next week sometime. Two of which are river access fishing, not real confident they will yield anything but we'll see.


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## MikeThePike (May 5, 2016)

pedex said:


> yes, had a white bass cruise right by me when I was standing at the south east corner of Ballantrae's bigger pond
> 
> The one white bass I caught came from the pond north of Wedgewood Glen park. Wedgewood Glen park as far as I know is only the little postage stamp sized pond with the waterfall facing summit view. The pond up the street doesn't have a name posted anywhere that I could find but its a much bigger pond and has a gazebo on its east side. Not to be confused with the 2 lakes Campden lakes has which are private but nearby. If you go north on conine the first intersection forks and both roads go around the second but bigger pond. I have caught fish in both.


That is really interesting I live nearby and had no idea they put white bass in those ponds. The Karrer pond with the big dock was actually originally stocked with some hybrid stripers but they either died out or someone kept them all. It is a shame that pond doesnt fish better then it does. Also, be careful if you ever try to walk through the tall weeds/grass around that pond it is full of ticks.


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## pedex (Aug 17, 2016)

oh these ponds have all sorts of stuff in them

some used to be privately owned and stocked farm ponds before developed into residential developments.....

Today at Wedgewood Glen I stopped by right before work just out of curiosity threw a lure out a few dozen times because the wind had blown all the surface algae/weeds to one side which makes it much easier to fish. Pulled a personal best ever haul there of 3 bass, 1 crappie(never knew those were in there), and 1 big bluegill all in shallow water on a tiny crankbait. Usually they are all hiding under the weeds in deep water near the middle, today they were in about 6"-12" of water near one corner where a drain pipe is. The water fountain was surrounded by algae/weeds so I didnt even try to go near it, usually its clear. 

Hit the northern pond too and everything was hiding in the weeds about 4ft off shore and were taking my texas rigged plastic worms and running with them. Had several strikes but hooked only 2 big mouth bass in the 30mins I was there.


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## my vise (Jun 12, 2011)

Might find a bigger cat than you can reel in. Seems the Gahanna lion may reside in Powell
http://nbc4i.com/2016/09/05/large-animal-on-loose-in-powell/


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