Ohio River Rocks
Mix equal parts of grit, grime, rust and ridicule, add a splash of industrial discharge and a squirt of municipal effluent, and you have the cocktail that clouds the attitude much of bassin’ America has about the upper Ohio River.
Three times B.A.S.S. went to the Ohio River for its Bassmaster Classic world championship. Three times the Ohio River yielded ridiculously stingy catches. Nevertheless, say the hardscrabble bass fanatics of the Upper Ohio Valley, their river is a fun fishery that tests the mettle of those who go there for entertainment and often out-produces their expectations.
Count me among the Ohio River rat pack. In 30-plus years of tournament competition and countless just-for-fun trips, I have come to grips with the reality of the Ohio River. It may be stingy (but it can be bountiful), it may be overrun with dinky bass (but don’t be surprised by four- and five-pounders), and it may send you home wishing you’d had a better day (but never without solace that you’d actually done a pretty good job of figuring out a complicated waterway with a checkered past and optimistic future).
Optimistic is a good word for upper Ohio River anglers. Yet for those who are not smitten, disdain comes to mind when an angler mentions the Ohio.
The naysayers can have it their way. I don’t mind. Stay away if you please.
I have many choices when I plan my frequent fishing trips. I can hitch up the Bass Cat and drive 15 minutes to a 30-largemouths-a-day lake or 60 minutes north to whack overstuffed Lake Erie smallmouths. Another option–and one I don’t hesitate to choose–is to go in a completely different direction.
The Ohio River pulls me as relentlessly as the sun and moon pull tides. So, too, does the river pull Austin Dunlap, Harry Emmerling and Blaine Bucy. To us river rats, the Ohio is the epitome of fishing and proof of the adage that our sport is about more than catching–but the catching is better than the bass world believes.
The Ohio starts at the downtown Pittsburgh Three Rivers confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which mix and flow more than 900 miles through Pennsylvania and then past Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Upper Ohio waters start in Pittsburgh and end south of Marietta, Ohio. They are home to shad, skipjack and other baitfish, as well as walleyes, saugers, drum, muskies, pike, hybrid stripers, catfish, crappies, carp and bass.
I go to the Ohio with bass as my objective. While I do boat largemouths and spotted bass, more than 90 percent of my catches are smallies.
Austin Dunlap grew up a stone’s throw from the Ohio and learned to work it with his tournament angler father. While the river hasn’t always been easy, it was always fun for Dunlap who knows well the sorry reputation among those who watched Larry Nixon, George Cochran and Kevin Van Dam eke out tiny catches in Bassmaster Classics out of Cincinnati, Louisville and Pittsburgh.
“The perception is small fish and not many bites,” Dunlap said. “That’s the river 10 years ago. It’s not like that now. It takes more than 10 pounds now to win–and often more–even in the summer.
“But even among the local anglers, the river gets almost no fishing pressure,” he said. “Why would anyone want to fish the river when they have bass factories like Mosquito and Portage nearby?”
That’s just fine with Dunlap, who enjoys opportunities to sneak out on unpressured waters.
“There’s just something about those mean river smallmouths you just can’t find anywhere.”
Blaine Bucy is another veteran river rat who dedicates much of his fishing time to Ohio River smallies. He loves the New Cumberland and Pike Island pools and catches hefty limits of bragging size bronzebacks, but he acknowledges that it takes time to learn the river’s ways.
“Those who think the Ohio River is a terrible fishery probably haven’t spent enough time there to figure it out.”
Dunlap believes weather and weeds deserve credit for the Ohio’s improving bass fishing. “With limited snowmelt and spring rain in recent years, the river has not had high water levels during the smallmouth spawn in May and June. That, combined with the establishment of lush weed beds, has helped with young bass’ survival,” Dunlap said, who studied environmental science at Youngstown State University.
Harry Emmerling grew up fishing the Ohio, having experienced the worst and the best of the river upstream and down from home in East Liverpool, Ohio. He fishes the New Cumberland and Pike Island pools regularly, targeting smallmouth bass, and with help from his river rat buddies operates the locally popular Student Fishing League for high school and middle school students.
“The Ohio River is an amazingly diverse, ever-changing fishery. It’s amazing how it has changed over the years, from flowing with not much visibility and no weeds to now with super water clarity and weeds from lock to lock,” said Emmerling. “That being said, it is still a challenging but rewarding experience every time you put the boat in the water.”
Challenging and rewarding are words most every river rat uses to describe the Ohio, which has played a major role in the development of the United States for more than 200 years. Settlers floated on rafts from Pittsburgh to points west with all of their worldly belongings in the 1800s. By the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, Americans were eating off dinnerware from the riverside potteries near East Liverpool. Petrochemical refining operations sprang up throughout the Ohio Valley. The nation’s infrastructure backbone was strengthened by steel made in the mills on the river’s banks and the Allies’ victories in two world wars were enabled in no small part by those same factories.
With so much at stake, manufacturing flourished throughout the 20th century with minimal concern about the quality of the water flowing downstream from cities and mills. It was not uncommon to see portions of the river flowing red and orange and even with a sheen of oil.
Commerce continues on the Ohio, but rules and regulations today ensure water returns to the river at least as clean as when it was piped in for municipal and industrial use.
My wife Barb has been to the Ohio River and knows my infatuation with the place. She has a unique way of putting perspective on it: “It’s better now that it’s not orange.”
Better indeed. I and many others today enjoy much improved smallmouth fishing, including 30-fish days and bass up to five pounds. But, of course, we still struggle sometimes to eke out a limit of 12-inchers.
Emmerling knows better than most.
“It’s hard to explain the Ohio River in just a quick snippet,” he said. “It has amazing views, holds about every type of fish and when you hit it right, there’s nothing more fun than river smallmouth.
“We have some great fisheries in our part of America, but truly, there is no place like home.”
Jack Wollitz is a veteran outdoor writer and angler, and the author of “The Common Angler.” This is his second contribution to Half Past First Cast. We’ll have a review of the book on this site in the coming months.
