In June 2006, I made a trip to Ohio.  Since I began at Lake Lanier working in Park Operations I have been conditioned to take my vacation time in the fall and winter.  Even after moving on to work in other sections, I sort of retained this conditioning.  Finally in June 06 I broke the cycle.

It was very nice to be in Ohio in the summer time.  Very few times in the past 12 years have I been to Ohio while the leaves were still on the trees.  I hate to just sit around the house especially during hard earned vacation time.  This trip I brought both of my kayaks and hoped to make several voyages down the rivers.

I'll back up a bit to the adventure that got me started.  In 2005, I made a short trip home.  In May Dad and I toured the Raccoon Creek from Granville, OH all the way to where the creek passes the end of Seroco Avenue.  Frank and I, and then later, Dad and I also made the trip from Hoback Park in Heath to the Little Texas area of Ohio Street on the South Fork of the Licking River.  I had so much fun I wanted to explore the North Fork of the Licking.  I had very little experience with the North Fork other than to cross it and maybe have fished it once near St. Louisville.

Returning in June 2006 with good weather was the perfect time to explore this river.  Frank and I launched first at the north side of Saint Louisville.  We saw a nice smallmouth bass cruising in a small deep hole under the bridge.  We both wasted much time trying to catch it.  The fish, however, spotted us early on and it would not strike. The river was shallow and crystal clear.  Varieties of suckers and other fish would dart around our boats.  From the 1^st bridge where we launched it is not far to the next bridge.  Between the bridges is a nice run of water and it makes a 90° turn at a submerged rock shelf.  Some of the water backfills to the right into a deep pool.  We pulled up our boats and fished from shore.  I don’t remember catching any here, but there were many large schools of fish and huge carp swimming about.  Oh, how I wish I had taken my bow and arrow.

After passing under the next bridge, I caught a brief glimpse of an enormous catfish.  We continued fishing down the river.  Frank started catching a bunch of small smallmouth bass.  I finally changed my lure and started catching them too.  I must admit that Frank was much hotter on  the fish than I was.  The river continued to be beautiful and clear and at the turns there was often trees down.  We continued to fish and eventually came to a concrete road crossing.  It was intended for vehicles accessing the rock quarry. We portaged around it.

My grandmother was having a get together that night with some folks who I have not seen in a long time.  After we portaged around the land bridge, I stopped fishing as much despite the downed trees and deep holes.  I also met resistance from Frank who wanted to continue to fish.  This was understandable considering the fishing holes we passed.  We paddled a long ways, but finally made it to Snyder Road where the car was parked.  After much searching, I crawled under the car to find my spare key.  My spare lets me in the car, but it will not turn the ignition.  I searched the car for my key.  Finally after wasting much time, I found the key in my shirt pocket.  I returned Frank to his car and raced to my grandmother’s home.  Her get together was just ending, but I got to see most of my friends, plus I got to eat all the leftovers from their dinner.

Dad also wanted to do the river, but he wanted to start at Ye Olde Mill, just outside of Utica, OH.  The river was very shallow, but passable by kayak.  Had we tried the trip in the fall or later in the summer, I think we would have had to pushed the kayaks more than the few times we did.  We fished off and on, but we had a long journey so we only hit the best looking spots.  I saw the catfish again just pass the south bridge in St. Louisville.  Dad also saw it, then we both saw more large catfish swimming beneath us in the rocks. We went all the way to Snyder Road.

On another day, we made the journey from Snyder Road to Water Works Road.  This was the fishing event.  There were several sections of the river where we caught smallmouth after smallmouth.  I caught 2 real nice ones.  There was a large turn in the river and the bank was protected with rip rap.  The riprap also had about 3 jetties sticking out with deep holes full of fish behind them.  I kept catching fish as dad went down stream.  Down further still the river widened and there were large older rip rap and trees on the bank.  There was hungry smallmouth throughout this area.  As I rounded the corner I could see the Newark water works in the distance.  I put my fishing gear in side my boat and paddled to the end.  I didn’t have a fishing license and did not want to take unnecessary risk.

Finally, On Saturday we picked a bigger river.  We put in at Little Texas off Ohio Street and paddled down to Blackhand Gorge in Toboso on the South Fork of the Licking River.  We had a full entourage of paddlers. Dad, Frank, Rusty, Espie and me were in Kayaks. Joy and Brian joined us in their canoe.  No fishing this trip.  We just paddled and floated and watched the Great Blue Herons and other birds fly around.

The weather was perfect.  The river was nice, but not as attractive as the smaller North Fork until we entered the gorge.  Large moss covered boulders and cliffs of blackhand sand stone really makes this trip.  The river is deeper than the others and makes for easy cruising.  Joy and Brian’s canoe proved much faster than our kayaks.  At the end, we took some nice group photos.  It was good to be home in the summer with family and friends.