Mad River Streamside Report
February

February 25, 2001
During a gusty Sunday morning the TU chapter continued working on the Mad River trail along Rt. 36. The trail along the west side of the river is near completed. Please encourage fellow fisherman to make use of this trail. In addition, steps were started near the spillway below the bridge. Rocks should be placed along the bank sometime this week by the ODNR. This should help maintain the bank below the bridge and create additional needed cover. The numbers of workers have begun to drop. If you fish the Mad I would highly encourage you to come out and give 2-3 hours of work to help maintain this important asset.

The weather was 53 degrees and the water temperature was near 48 degrees. I saw a few risers and had a little luck using a Tan Hare's Ear. Fished for less than hour after working on the trail and caught 5 smaller browns.

February 10, 2001
Sorry folks, but the Mad River will not be fishable for several days. The rain and melting snow has the river off-color and as high as its been for months. We really needed the water, but fishing is not possible this weekend.

However, the cold weather and snow did not keep the TU folks away from the river this weekend. The trail near Rt. 36 that was worked on two weeks ago got a nice batch of mulch. I've said before, but it bears repeating "If you fish the Mad and complain about not enough being done to improve this valuable resource get off the couch and lend a hand to the local TU chapter".

Last weekend I caught a nice 13' brown using a Tan's Hare Ear. This fish was tagged and I attempted to contact ODNR with the necessary information. My phone call was met with little excitement by ODNR. In fact, at one point I felt I was wasting their time by even trying to forward the information to them.