# Mad River above Huffman Dam



## BigRed (Jun 19, 2008)

Fished the Mad this afternoon, from around 3:00 to 6:00. Water was crystal clear and averaged 3 feet deep. Great rock bottom. Nice breeze. ... can you see it coming? Yup, not a single fish, not even a bite. Fished slowly, fan casting, switching lure types. On the Mad river, I have fished some of the best looking smallie water I've ever seen ... and never caught a decent fish. Maybe the river is too cold ... it never really warms much ... until it get close to Dayton. Any theories?


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## dinkbuster1 (Oct 28, 2005)

Hopefully Salmonid will chime in here, he knows a lot about the Mad from Huffman-North. i know the water starts getting much cooler once you get North of the Dam and smallies and cats get fewer and farther between. the Mad isnt known for its great smallie fishing anyway, even down in Dayton. they are there but tend to run small.


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## Salmonid (Apr 14, 2004)

Yup, at Springfield the water river gets too warm for trout (~70 degrees in summer) and is still too cold for smallies to have successful spawns in June, ( Smallies need 72 degrees in June to spawn) so what you have from Sprigfield down to about Rt 70 is a "dead Zone" where there a handful of trout on the upper end and a handful of smallies on the lower end and a lot of suckers in the middle. The problem is that the few decent tribs for the smallies to get into and spawn have been so full of sediment the smallie population has dropped off considerably in this stretch, in fact back in the day, DNR used to stock this middle stretch of the Mad with Northerns becuase they fit the cool water model vs a Coldwater for trout and warmwater for smallies. But they were short lived and will never happen again. Dink is right the further towards dayton you get the better the fishing is but unfortunately, thats where the river has been channelized ( 2 strikes so far) now adda lack of access and a lot of sediment behind Huffman and you got some more real problems to deal with. They are there in decent numbers but never with any size, lots of 8-12" fish and youl have to find the best water for them. The LMR and the GMR are much better fisheries and Id spend my efforts there if I was looking for smallies. 

Salmonid


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## H2O Mellon (Apr 5, 2004)

We saw a couple guys walking up the trail at one of if not the most overfished area of the Mad Friday evening. I bet that had a stinger of 20 channel cats. I was amazed at first anyone could catch that many channels from this certain spot and also that someone would keep that many from this certain spot. lol


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## BigRed (Jun 19, 2008)

Dink and Salmonid, Thanks for all that info. I've been curious about the lack of fish since the structure is soo beautiful. It's hard to see that great fishing habitat go to waste.
Again, thanks for the knowledge, I'll look to the other rivers for smallies.


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## dinkbuster1 (Oct 28, 2005)

the lower Mad (from Harshman-downtown) nowdays is not much better due to the MCD removing any and all debris which has destroying many eddy's and pools to make the river flow faster catering to the Kayak crowd. have had 3 of my best smallie and catfish spots in the lower Mad destroyed over the past 3 years.


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## farleybucks (Aug 8, 2009)

I have fished the Mad and Little Miami for 30+ years and I wouldn't pick one over the other. I have routinely caught 3-4 lb smallies out of the Mad River south of I-70 all the way down to the GMR every year. Salmonid is right on the money with north of I-70, but south of it I couldn't disagree more with what has been said by everyone. They are there, trust me, and there are numbers but you have to locate them and have the right approach in the clear moving water. 

As far as the kayak crowd thing...MCD & the Metroparks have done some work, but to cater only the kayak crowd is not true...it is mainly to help curb bank erosion and induce bank stabilization since the bike path is very near the river south of harshman. The kayak crowd wants more features with drops and deep holes (perfect smallie & catfish locations by the way), not one constant flow with no eddies. 

Man, i shouldn't have posted this...now it will be shoulder to shoulder next time I go out, but I couldn't resist.


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