largemouth on the Mahoning

[Dogsled]

Got a couple guys wondering if there's any good largemouth fishing on the Mahoning and if so where? What's the furthest the club has ever floated down the Mahoning and if it was all the way, did anybody chart it?

Al

[JPTolson]

A few weeks ago in his Saturday fishing column in the Vindicator Jack Wollitz mentioned the upper Mahoning as a place that has decent fishing. He didn't mention what kind of fish nor did he define what stretch of the river constituted the "upper Mahoning." The column doesn't come up when I searched the Vindy website.

The club had five trips on the Mahoning last year?Foster Park to Newton Falls; Labrae to Packard Park in Warren; mouth of Mill Creek to Lowellville but skipping the section between Center Street Bridge to Cene Park in Struthers; Lowellville to Covert Road, below Edinburg, PA; and Canoe City to Eagle Creek and back. I'm sure other folks who have been around here much longer than I have been on other sections and can speak very knowledgeably about them. Not exactly sure what you mean by charting the river. I only noted the river levels at the time of the trips. Those are listed in the notes to the cover photos in User Albums on this website.

jp

[Dogsled]

Thanks JP. I'll search around to see if I can dig up the Vindy article.

[Dogsled]

JP I couldn't find the article so I contacted Jack and here was his reply;

Al,


It has been some time since I wrote anything in depth about the bass fishing on the Mahoning River. I did mention it briefly in a recent column, a round-up story about where one might discover good smallmouth fishing. The river is pretty good from the dam at Lake Milton, all the way through Newton Falls, Warren, Niles, Youngstown and Lowellville. Access is limited in many places, but Packard and Perkins parks in Warren have good access. There are several places in Youngstown, Struthers and Lowellville where fishermen can get down to good water.


You basically look for areas where you have relatively deep water -- three to five feet is about average for "deep" on the Mahoning -- that is close to the areas where the current washes over gravel bars and boulders. There are numerous low-head dams throughout the system between Warren and Lowellville, and they often attract smallmouths.


Best lures include small spinnerbaits and topwaters. On nice spring and summer days, that's pretty much all you need, as the fish don't experience any significant fishing pressure.


What club are you in?


I would be happy to answer specific questions. Just let me know and I'll try to help. Thanks for writing!


-- Jack

I told him the clubs were the TCT and Fish Ohio Canoe Club

[redcanoe]

I've never kayaked the Mahoning but would like to.

The locations of the low-head dams would be of interest to me, since some dams are harder to portage around than others. I'm interested in how to do the river in sections that don't require the portages.

It would be a good project just to make a map of the river, accesses, and dams along it. (If there is one already, can somebody tell me?).

[Dogsled]

Well Red Canoe, theres at least 2 of us in this 'dumb' club. I'm curious about everything you mentioned. I saw the lowhead near Yellow creek and it looked like it had some pretty high concrete walls and banks before and after the dam. Hope to see you Sunday (20th) at the meeting, we can talk about everything we don't know about
Al

[JPTolson]

Al and Fred,

There are a couple links on the Trumbull MetroParks Canoe City web page to documents (scroll to bottom of the page to find the links) that discuss dam removal on the Mahoning in general and dam at Leavittsburg. The documents are a little old, but have some good information.

There is also a not-very-readable map of dam locations in the lower Mahoning watershed on a YSU web site.

I haven't checked lately, but I believe that American Rivers has a nationwide database of dams.

jp

[JPTolson]

Originally Posted by redcanoe

I've never kayaked the Mahoning but would like to.

The locations of the low-head dams would be of interest to me, since some dams are harder to portage around than others. I'm interested in how to do the river in sections that don't require the portages.

It would be a good project just to make a map of the river, accesses, and dams along it. (If there is one already, can somebody tell me?).

Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources has an access and hazards guide to rivers throughout the state. Here is a link to the guide for the Mahoning River. I thought this used to be on the TCT website, but it no longer appears to be.

[Dogsled]

Great links, this one may be a part of the YSU link you posted;

http://www.ysu.edu/mahoning_river/index.html

The ODNR has done the southern maps already but very soon the ODNR put-in page you listed will also include GPS co-ords to get you to the exact spot you want to go. It'll be a big breakthrough for them because they're woefully behind in including this format, but i'm a big fan of the work and workers of the ODNR and they are doing the best they can, continualy attempting to move forward with the economy being the way it is.

Alot of good bookmarks here for learning the Mahoning though.

Thanks JP, Al