Way Upstream...

Above Clifton Gorge, the Little Miami is what the Ohio Department of Natural Resources calls "a small meandering stream". But in the gorge everything changes, pinched in between dolomite cliffs, the meltwater of the retreating glaciers cut straight down and in a series of cascades and deep whirlpools a river was born. Walk the trail that follows the gorge in wet weather and waterfalls from the many springs and seeps in the area cascade over the cliffs into the river below.












Due to the fact its reasonably flat right up until you step off into space it's almost impossible to convey in a photograph the scale of the gorge. All the photos I've seen do no better than my poor attempts, trust me this is one place that is a hundred times more impressive in person. In this stretch the normally knee to waist deep upper little miami rages along between the cliff walls at an average depth of 34feet.






Darnell's leap: In January 1778, Daniel Boone and his party of 28 were captured by the Shawnees. Cornelius Darnell was able to escape and with Shawnee in hot pursuit Darnell lept across the twenty five foot gap between the cliffs to freedom. Of course he could not make the entire leap but branches hung out over the 80 foot drop and Darnell went crashing across into them finally grabbing one as he fell and climbing up the cliff to safety! It makes me uneasy here to lean out over the safe rail of the overlook, I cannot begin to imagine the courage it took to even attempt the leap.







The setting of the "The Blue Hole" a painting by Robert Duncanson in 1851 that now hangs in the Cincinnati Art Museum.






Famous steamboat rock, so named because, well, it looks like a big steamboat floating midstream.



















The river here drops at a powerfull rate of 35 feet per mile. Just downstream in John Bryan State park the rock is slightly softer and the gorge opens to a quarter mile or so wide but still retains impressive cliffs.



Below Clifton gorge the trails enter John Bryan State park. The two parks are really separated only by name as they fit seamlessly togethor and you cannot tell walking the river when you cross the boundary.


John Bryan purchased, in 1896, 335 acres along the Clifton gorge area and called these acres "Riverside Farm." The Cincinnati-Pittsburgh stagecoach road served the area and settlers began establishing water-powered industries such as a textile mill, grist mills and sawmills in the gorge.
After the turn of the century water power was no longer as economical as electricity and the industries in the rugged gorge closed. At the top of the gorge in Clifton the only surviving mill still is in operation and is famous for its Christmas light displays, one of the best in the state.
John Bryan gave Riverside Farm to the state of Ohio in 1918, "...to be cultivated by the state as a forestry, botanic and wildlife reserve park and experiment station," which would bear his name. John Bryans park and Clifton gorge have been designated as a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Over 340 types of wildflowers and 100 plus species of trees and shrubs are found in John Bryan State park. The cool gorge has created an "island" that has enabled plants usually found much further north to survive after the last ice age.In the gorge are found two quite rare plants, Ground Hemlock (Taxus canadensis), found nowhere else in the county, and Asplenium ruta-muraria, found nowhere else in the State.




The best base for exploring these upper reaches of the river has to be the town of Yellow Springs. Located just a few miles from John Bryan and Clifton Gorge, Yellow Springs is named after the huge spring that adds it's water thru beautifull Glen Helen Nature Preserve to the river. The spring gets it's name from the rocks of the spring colored by the minerals in the water. Supposedly the waters of the spring cure all that ail you and spas and resorts were even built nearby in the early
1900's.Long before that however the village was founded in 1825 by Robert Owen. Robert Owen wanted to build a commune where everyone would work together for the common good. Well this seems to have worked better in theory than in practice as a year later the experiment had broken up. The town today has one of the funkiest little downtowns you will ever see. There are dozens of small shops offering everything from psychic readings, to handmade pottery, tie die shirts, used books, buddha statues or parkas made out of alpaca wool. A large portion of the tiny town's population seem to be right out of a sixties reunion as every other car is covered with bumper sticker stating "save the whales" or "make love not war". Yellow Springs is the best place I know to buy that one of a kind gift that you know no one else has ever seen much less bought. My favorite gift idea from our last trip there was the crazy cat lady action figure, complete with a half dozen cats and kittens in addition to the frazzle haired, house slipper wearing heroine. By the way, the quaint little tavern downtown might just serve the perfect steak fries. Adding to Yellow Springs charm are the legends surrounding Glen Helen. The beautiful valley, according to local lore was a sort of lover's lane for the Shawnee. Supposedly visitors have seen a ghostly Indian maiden or heard her call out for her long lost love. Glen Helen is a 1000-acre nature preserve owned by by Antioch College. Filled with cliffs, interesting rock formations, and the famous spring, the preserve is on my must see list for anyone in upper watershed.

I keep a few shallow to medium running crankbaits in my river box. I try to stick to ones that mimic a generic minnow or sunfish. These can sometimes really produce in a long run of water that has fish scattered thru it.



Although it loses some fishing time to the grub, a marabou jig is an effective catch everything lure in the river. I turn to the jig especially early and late in the year and work them ultra slow. Often I will tip a jig with a minnow but even a waxworm or bit of worm. This can really help them produce in cold water.



A small minnow plug such as a rapala or bass pro's speed minnow is a must have in any river box. At times they will outproduce anything you can throw. You can fish one with a twitch and sit topwater retieve in an eddy or around structure or reel it back like a crankbait. Perfectly matching the minnow in the river's holes and some of the small minnows of faster sections, a small minnow plug is simply a fish producer in any smallmouth stream.



The tiny torpedo is a blast to fish anytime are willing to hit a topwater. The slicks at the tail of a pool and right where water slows entering a pool are prime places to use this fun little plug.



An inline spinner is probably the best lure to use when bass are active and up on a riffle feeding. Throw your spinner across and upstream and simply retrieve and hold on. The flash, size, and action I think represent a fleeing minnow and trigger a strike in active feeding bass. Make this lure your second purchase after some grubs for your river box.



I usually prefer a curly tail grub over a tube in the moving water of the river but I think very highly of this little tube called the slurpie as an imitation of the darters that inhabit the river. Fish a tube just as would a grub on light four or six pound test line and you will catch alot of fish in the Little Miami.



Unlike most bass fishing you don't need a thousand dollars worth of lures to be successful in the river. A few well thought out lures in a small box that you can carry in a pack or a pocket is really all the wading fisherman needs. I find a light daypack with a small box or two of lures, lunch, water bottle, and a rain jacket allows me to spend all day afield with a minimum of fuss or trouble.

matching the "hatch"

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In today's fishing world dominated by bass tournaments on huge lakes, there are literally thousands of imitations of everything that bass feed on in lakes. But check the box of the typical stream fisherman and your lucky to find much more than a half dozen different lures and some of these are still more at home in still water. There are some inline spinners like the roostertail and minnow plugs like the rapala that do a good job of imitating the minnows and chubs that live in the streams pools and backwaters but that's about it. But the small fish that inhabit the riffles and runs of our smallmouth streams and rivers have been completely ignored, for often these look nothing like the silvery minnows of the backwaters. For instance in my home water, the Little Miami River there are no less than 13 different species of darters and five species of madtoms that live in it's riffles. All these little fish use strong pectoral fins to hold their place among the rocks in the swift current. When viewed from above (like a foraging smallmouth looking for food) these fins are a very noticeable feature of most darters and madtoms.
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These little fish seemingly come in an endless variety of colors ranging from quite dull to brighter than any aquarium fish. Many darter species change color also during breeding season to attract a mate. I've tried to come up with a few simple ways to imitate these little known but important members of the food chain.
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Using acrylic paints, leadheaded jigs can be painted to give you a wide variety of color schemes to try during the days fishing. A coat of clear fingernail polish protects the paint from chipping on the rocky stream bottom. A round ball jig best imitates madtoms and pointier types more closely resemble most darter species. Having a few of both types in a variety of colors gives you more options to experiment with on the water.
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Then take a grub or plastic worm and cut a triangle out of the tail with scissors. This triangle is threaded on the jighead ahead of another grub to represent the prominent pectoral fins of your darter or madtom. Often there are a few species on every riffle with pectoral fins that are brightly tinged with color and using a triangle cut out of a grub that contrasts in color with the grub used for the body of the jig can make a big difference.
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As there are often multiple species of darters and madtoms on the riffle togethor, the smallmouth are used to feeding on a wide variety of colors. I carry several different colors of triangles already cut out in my tackle box as well as a variety of different colored grubs. By mixing and matching different triangles with different grub bodies you can experiment around to find the combination that works best on any given day.
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The main constants are size and the prominent pectoral fins. I almost always fish a three inch grub on an eighth ounce jighead and just vary colors.

Darters and madtoms spend almost their entire lives among the rocks of a stream's riffles and runs, the same places smallmouths move into to feed. Fish your imitation along the bottom in short quick motions or let it sweep along the bottom in the current, as these little fish do not swim up high in the water column or in schools, but as the name implies dart from rock to rock. These little guys are almost never caught in traditional minnow traps but are only seen by using a seine right among the rocks of the riffle.

Another resident you will seine out of these riffles, and a main reason smallmouth move in to feed, is the crayfish. While there are some great crayfish imitations out there such as the jig and pig, these are mostly just simply too big to imitate the small crayfish that stream smallmouth love.
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A modified double-tailed grub makes one of the best imitations of these little craws I know of. I first use the jig head like a crochet needle to pull living rubber through the grubs body to make legs. I then trim these to length with scissors.
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Just like darters, crayfish can vary wildly in color and it pays to have different combinations of bodies and legs. Sometime a bit of bright orange or red living rubber can be key in triggering smallmouth when they are in a picky mood. Finding out more about the things that smallmouth feed on in your stream and adding baits that imitate them can add new dimensions to your stream fishing arsenal.
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Some funny looking "saugeye"

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With the weather finally breaking I headed out to Paint Creek Lake to try and catch some saugeye. The lake itself was still mostly frozen over with hundreds of gulls and geese standing around on the ice waiting for open water.
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I was aiming instead for the spillway, locally famous for it's saugeye fishing in late winter. Fishing for several hours produced no saugeye for me and only a couple for all the fisherman there. But I did manage to connect on some fish. Crappies in an unlikely spot, right below the dam holding over rocks with no brush around, hardly classic crappie water. But hey in late winter any kind of action is good action.
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Paint Creek itself is one of Ohio's prettiest streams, lined with beautiful cliffs cut by melting glaciers at the end of the last ice. Even without the fishing, its a great destination just to see such a gorgeous stream. An added plus this trip was an adult bald eagle perched high in a streamside tree.
Sullivantia, one of Ohio's rarest wildflowers, blooms in the gorge in mid-summer. In some early history of the area, a Shawnee named Waw-will-a-way was unjustly accused of scalping a white man. This Indian encountered three white men in the Paint Valley bent on revenge for the scalping. They shot him in the chest, yet he killed one and severely wounded the other two before he succumbed. He was buried at the junction of Paint and Rattlesnake creeks. The creek also has several caves in the tucked into the steep cliffs that were once used as shelters by prehistoric peoples and according to local legend by some early outlaws. I took a bit of time away from fishing to explore a huge rock overhang that would make a wonderful shelter in rainy weather. There are literally miles of amazing rock formations in and around the park. Nearby Seven Caves is worth a visit to with awesome rock formations, it's famous caves and beautiful old trees. Once a tourist attaction it is now a quiet park located just a couple miles below Paint Creek state park.


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