# Hargus lake



## JohnyUtah (Jul 19, 2016)

What has happened to this lake? It's like all the fish have been taken out of it. I use to be able to go there and catch so many fish all the time. It's been terrible for some time now.


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## stanimals2 (Mar 20, 2011)

Been that way for a couple years now in my opinion, I am about done with it


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## Snyd (May 5, 2004)

Did you go over today after the rain? Just wondered how muddy it was.


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## JohnyUtah (Jul 19, 2016)

I did, The water was not muddy. Not as clear as it usually is. Was not bad for all the rain there was.


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## Jeff25 (Apr 5, 2014)

I typically always catch a few fish there. But it is way over fished. Most of the lake is fish able from the banks and it's not uncommon for 20+ boats to be out on the water.


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## Jeff25 (Apr 5, 2014)

Caught these 2 after the rain stopped yesterday. My buddy caught one and I had 2 more get off at the boat.


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## Dustin Phillips (Apr 26, 2017)

JohnyUtah said:


> What has happened to this lake? It's like all the fish have been taken out of it. I use to be able to go there and catch so many fish all the time. It's been terrible for some time now.


I was camping there this weekend. We caught one average LMB close to the marina from the shore. The water was muddy for a bit after all the rain. Bite was slow all day after the rain. Should have gone to Deer Creek, but my 5 yo had a blast anyways. The rain while tent camping this weekend was the real adventure! We toughed it out.


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## sharp33 (Mar 30, 2015)

According to the ODNR Hargus gets more fishing pressure than any lake in the state . It is a fertile little lake and back in the early 80's was the musky and crappie mecca of central Ohio. When they killed the vegatation a couple years back it seemed to hurt the lake. It just can't keep up with all the pressure anymore.


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## JohnyUtah (Jul 19, 2016)

25 years ago I saw quite a few musky in there. Have not seen any since. I have not Caught any catfish in there for awhile also.


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## Dovans (Nov 15, 2011)

Dont know about killing the vegetation, years ago, 80's maybe, they were working on the dam, and broke it even worse then what it was and all the water drained out. It was long time before it filled back up. Told the Muskie pop. never recovered from that.


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## sharp33 (Mar 30, 2015)

When I first graduated college I rented a place just a half mile from Hargus and fished it all the time. The state decided back then that musky wasn't a good fit for Hargus and as part of the dam repair tried to eliminate musky from the lake. Right after the dam repair below the spillway there was a nice sized hole that had huge bass and musky in it . A friend of mine caught a 50+ incher in there once , it was pretty cool seeing all these huge fish in basically a creek. Of course the state filled in that hole below the dam because of safety reasons.


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## Snyd (May 5, 2004)

Jeff25 - That's a nice slab from Hargus - I was over there bass fishing a few weeks back and started to crappie fish a little since I was struggling on the bass - I ended up catching 7 on jigs but all were small. From what I was told there are a lot of crappie in there but most are in the 7-9 inch range.


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## Jeff25 (Apr 5, 2014)

That is the biggest crappie I have caught from there. I have also heard hargus has the highest fisher density per acre than any lake in ohio. I fished it 2 weeks ago and with another buddy and we caught 13 bass and a small crappie


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## kvdsucks (May 8, 2017)

I've heard they stocked the lake earlier this year with tons of yearlings. Biggest thing that kills Hargus is the amount of fish taken out for eating. There is a bass tourny every Wednesday night with a small buy in and so far the biggest fish this year has been 7.6 pounds. There are nice bass and crappie in the lake but definitely too much pressure on it.


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