Mad River Fishing Regulations

Mad River Streamside Report October

October 15, 2000

For those of you new to the sport of Fly fishing or for those of you that have fished for years I would urge all of you to become involved in one of the many local clubs in this area. On Sunday I spent a very enjoyable and informative day with the local chapter of Trout Unlimited.

With Mark Blauvelt, Steve Grommes, Jeff Johnson, Jorge Villares and Tom Allen I had the pleasure of participating in the Fall 2000 Stream Monitoring. These folks deserve a lot of credit for monitoring the Mad River's water quality!! The Mad Men Chapter of Trout Unlimited spend a great deal of time ensuring that the river will be enjoyed for the next generation of fly fishermen.

We spent nearly three hours determining the water quality by sampling the insects found in the river. For those of you that have never done this I urge all of you to join these folks in the spring!

October 29, 2000

What a fantastic day to be on the Mad River!! The temperature was 55 degrees and the water temperature was near 52 degrees. The leaves are starting to disappear and the spawning beds are starting to appear.

Fishing an olive colored Hare's Ear Nymph I caught nearly twenty browns. None over 6 inches, but with the warm weather and sunshine it made for an enjoyable day on the river. I had a wonderful conversation with a gentleman from Columbus fishing the Mad River for the first time. Nice conversation, warm weather, and catching fish is a good day!

I'm looking for someone in the Dayton area who would like to make a weekend day trip to the Clear Fork. If interested give me an e-mail.

October 28, 2001

While a majority of the rivers in this area are completely blown out...the Mad is very fishable. The water temperature was at 52 degrees this afternoon and the air temperature hovered around the same late this afternoon. The Mad is definitely up, but with the exception of being discolored the Mad is/was being fished pretty heavy this afternoon. We caught 6 browns ranging bewteen 6-8 inches in just about an hour and half. Streamers and Hare's Ears produced the best results. With the higher water levels Streamers appeared to produce the most.

As we got ready to get out we noticed a nice size doe standing at the top of the bank. The doe could not have been more than 10 yards away from the two of us. For the next five minutes she followed us down the river occasionally looking up to watch our casting. All in all a good day to be on the river. FYI for the most part the leaves are gone and did not bother us at all today.

October 7, 2001

"I have a new fly rod that's yet to be used" was all I needed to hear from my dad to quickly plan a trip on the Mad to properly break in the rod. We fished the mad from about 11:00 a.m. till about 5:00 p.m. As we pulled in two flyfishers were just getting out complaining about the cold and the lack of fish. They had been using black ants and had little luck. We gave them some suggestions about other flies to use, but they had enough and decided to go home. My dad looked at me giving me a facial expression that said maybe we should bag the day.

Five hours later we had caught at least twenty brown trout ranging from 6-12 inches. Beautiful coloring on all the fish caught! The leaves were pretty thick, but as long as you didn't use anything weighted too heavy it wasn't too bad. Plus, I would gladly trade a few leaves for the elimination of all of the weekend canoers any day. Although we got pounded with rain Friday night, the water clarity was extremely clear. The temperature was about 65 degrees and the water temperature was about 56 degrees. We used Pheasant Tails and Hare's Ears with a great deal of success. Saw a tremendous hatch of BWO's pretty much all day long.