Charles Mill Lake Offers Best Fishing

Local outdoor expert, Dick Martin, published the following story in September, 2009, in the Mansfield News Journal and Bucyrus Telegraph Forum.

Last week, I got a phone call from a new resident to this area.

I'm an avid fishermen, and I'd like to know which lake in the area is best for fishing and where I can go in it to catch some?"

That's an easy answer. Clear Fork Reservoir is a good muskie lake and Pleasant Hill is fine for saugeye, but the top all-around lake in north central Ohio is Charles Mill. It has just about everything.

I'd rank it the top largemouth bass lake for long miles around, and there are plenty of hot spots.

One of the best, if you stand near the launch ramp with your back to the marina, is directly across the lake. Fish it to the right in a boat clear down to the curve and around the corner down to among the small docks there. Crossing at the same place, you can swing around to your left, fish that stretch, then work up into the bay, casting clear around until you're back near the marina again.

A third good stretch begins near the marina on the same side, and travels along the main campground to the end before you cross the cut and cast the shoreline working north a bit to where the lake begins to shallow. You can try the main lake too, but I wouldn't bother. I've never had much luck there. But I have caught a few north of Ohio 430 among the stumps and fallen timber there. Not a lot, but a few.

Top lures are just what you'd expect.

Plastic worms, pig and jig combinations, smaller crank baits and spinner baits. One thing I usually do that's a little different is to move in as close to the shore as possible and parallel cast a three-eighth-ounce pearl grey Roostertail spinner to get those close in and hungry before switching to something else. I always fish where the shoreline drops off fairly quickly and avoid the long, shallow flats.

Channel cats come next, and Charles Mill is an excellent channel cat lake. Many fishermen here fish near or even under the Ohio 430 bridge because each twilight cats pass under this bridge before fanning out to feed in more northern areas. Each dawn they pass back under, coming home to their deeper water loafing spots.

The east side of the Eagle Point campground above the bridge is good too, if you like to camp and fish all night.

For daytime fishing, stand at the launch ramp again and boat down to your right where the lake widens dramatically. There's deeper water here, and it's a good place to bottom bump with a nightcrawler and Lindy rig, drifting here and there with your bail open and waiting for a bite.

Anglers often pick up saugeye on the same rig.

You might try fishing along the dam face too, or even below the dam in its tailwaters. All are favorite daytime (and nighttime) loafing sites for cats.

Best baits?

Many use night crawlers or minnows, and that's fine, but fresh shrimp is tops, and some favor chicken livers, always fished on the bottom.

Wipers are a fine, hard-fighting fish that roams the lake and might be caught anywhere, but some anglers favor the cut at the end of the main campground and again, use chicken livers fished on bottom.

I used to wonder why this game fish, a cross between a white and a striped bass, would eat chicken livers, but found out finally that in the hatchery, they're often fed on the livers and are used to eating them.

Finally come crappie, and Charles Mill is fine for this tasty fish, too. Try for them along the shore of the main campground, where brush and fallen trees can be found or among the limbs of fallen timber elsewhere. Just remember that fall crappie are likely to be deeper than spring ones, and fish accordingly.

Simple rules indeed, but they'll get you fish.

CLICK HERE for the story on the Bucyrus Telegraph Forum website.