Made a trip down to Columbus to visit the In-laws and do a little fishing (actually, a lot of fishing). Hit the Big Darby twice, first from a kayak rented from Trapper John’s, and then wading with a friend from the Ohio Game Fishing board (wish you could have made it, Mike). Controlling the kayak and casting in moving water was much more difficult than I thought, combined with some high, colored water downstream of the confluence meant I got skunked. The wade trip went much better, I got a nice 2+ lber on a chartreuse woolly-twister pattern (don’t know the official name), and kept getting bumps, and finally cut the tail off and started hooking/landing some dinks. Beautiful water. Ran across some biologists doing some seining, and they were picking up a nice variety of nymphs in the riffles and water willows (the willows were nice and thick, great looking habitat for the smaller critters). Was told there was a good stonefly hatch in June I’ll have to check out next year. Once again, I didn’t make it very far upstream, I always get stuck fishing the same water (it just looks so good, and I always get my fill).
The Olentangy just upstream of 161 was pretty dead until sunset, and then a very nice mayfly hatch came off (the number of bugs in that water always amazes me, I think the silt we’re not too fond of provides some good habitat for some species), and I proceeded to get a few 6-8" on a black woolly bugger. Also got the crap scared out of me again by those darn carp that go ballistic when you get within 5 feet of them (they weren’t shallow enough for me to fish for this trip).
I then hit Alum Lake for some panfish, promised the family a fish dinner. Big mistake, promising dinner from a body of water you haven’t fished before. The spots I fished looked like they got pounded pretty good, and the gills were very picky and not too numerous. They ignored several nymphs (even tried a copper jon because they were hitting so lightly), and only took PH and Hare’s Ears reluctantly. I had one nice 14" or so bass on for a while (put a nice bend in the 2 wt), but he came off. So I need to find some still water that has a decent population of panfish next time.
Anyway, all in all, some good time on some nice water, and then a little too much time on a marginal lake.