You may not catch a record breaker, but Smallmouth fishing in waters like Greenville Creek and the Stillwater River are as much fun as you can have with light equipment and a Mepps spinner. (File Photos)
We come within a mile of Press Pros, itself, to explore one of Ohio’s best kept secrets for summer bass. We weren’t disappointed.
By Ray Reilly for Press Pros
When I asked Press Pros publisher Sonny Fulks back in the winter about good fishing ideas in his neighborhood, he said, “There are some lakes (Loramie) and (Kaiser), but a lot of people fish the Stillwater River in the summer…for smallmouth bass.
OK, so I put it on my list of possibilities and pushed it to the back of my desk, along with dozens of other suggestions. You know the story…so many suggestions, so little time?
But on my way up I-75 to northwest Ohio in late May I got out my map and checked it out. Where was the Stillwater River, and where do you fish it for Smallmouth bass? A couple of calls to friends in the Dayton area and they put me right on route 48 and within a mile or so of a place called Greenville Falls.
On a Sunday morning with the sun shining brightly on splashing water, we parked south of the bridge, donned waders, and made our way west up the river towards a spot that looked likely, shaded and deep.
Now this hasn’t happened very often on strange water. But for a lack of imagination, or taking more time, I flipped a Mepps spinner with a bucktail into a pool and started a steady retrieve back. Within ten feet I felt the strike, a nice fish, and to my surprise, a strong one, too. It headed for some submerged trees along the bank and it was gone…along with my Mepps spinner. Somehow the light monofilament line I was using had snapped and I lost the first fish hooked at Greenville Falls.
Ten minutes later, and with a new spinner, I flipped to the same exact spot in the same pool and started my retrieve. Bang…at almost the identical spot as the first fish I had another, bigger fish, hooked. This one I didn’t play, curious to see what I had because there are other species of bass in a rural river like this one. It came out of the water like the best fishing picture you’ve ever seen, twisting and spinning, a pound of feisty Smallmouth, and a moment later I had it in hand.
My friend Dale had walked farther west up the river and was throwing a different kind of spinner, but he, too, on the second cast hooked into another Smallmouth and soon had it landed and released. Less than twenty minutes on Greenville Creeks and we already had three Smallmouth bass!
Here’s the point of this story. A lot of people lament the dog days of summer for the fact that Largemouth fishing in ponds and lakes can get pretty lethargic as fish stay in deeper water and their feeding habits change. Early morning and late in the evenings are the predictably best times to hook a Largemouth.
But Smallmouths are a different breed, often found with Rock Bass in the same kinds of rocky, flowing water, and for their size they’re as fun to catch as anything you’ve ever hooked.
Size?
Typically, they’re not as big as Largemouths, but it’s not impossible to catch fish up to 4 pounds on many rural creeks and rivers. In the Mahoning River, not far from my home in Youngstown, people have caught ’em for years and the biggest known fish landed in the Mahoning was just short of four pounds. Now four pounds of Smallmouth would equate to about eight or nine pounds of Largemouth bass, and they’re every bit as much fun to catch.
But back to Greenville Creek and more fish caught, though nothing that came close to four pounds. Dale hooked the best one and landed it on artificial soft craw, a fish that was between a pound and a pound and a half. But there are bigger fish there, because the habitat is such that it would sustain fish up to three pounds.
And there were plenty of them. As I mentioned, rarely on strange water to you have so much fun in the span of a couple of hours. But all told we landed six fish (10 to 16 inches) and another half dozen Rock Bass as big as ten inches. By noon we had our fill, packed up, and left.
Is it like this everywhere? It may not be, but if you’ve never been there and want to experience some excitement on truly native waters, I would recommend the Stillwater/Greenville Creek area, outside of Covington, to anyone. There are good accommodations in nearby Troy if you’re from out of the area and want to make a weekend of it, but do like I did and put it on your list of possibilities.
Just don’t push it to the back of your desk.
I’ve enjoyed it…’til next time!
Olde English Outfitters, in Tipp City, sponsors stories of the outdoors on Press Pros Magazine.com.