Waist deep in fishpot ford

From the outside the stone is a riddle;
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river,
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where fishes come to knock on it
And listen.
...Charles Simic




When I take the trip to fish the ford I usually park in the nature preserve lot at the mouth of ceasars creek and walk down the bike trail. After about half a mile you pass the boundary of the Ceasar Creek Nature Preserve and the wide river bottom between the bike trail and river becomes a huge cornfield. I keep walking downstream even though a tractor path follows the preserve boundary down to the river and curves downstream to the ford. But the open gate has an old keep out sign that somehow seems more serious than most and I keep walking. Another half mile walk and a shallow grass covered drainage cuts across the cornfield straight to fishpot.




Here at fishpot ford the river is at it's best. You are now deep into the really good water quality and above the busiest of the canoe rentals. Luckily the best fishing on the Little Miami is early morning and at dark. About the time the canoes and kayaks show up the fishing is pretty much done for the day anyways.
Fishpot ford gets it's name from John Sublett. John Sublett was one of the earliest settlers and lived with the Rev. James Smith familly at the mouth of Ceasars Creek around 1798. John Sublett built chairs and furniture in a log workshop but was most famous as a hunter and fisherman. John was famous as a hunter and fisherman in a time when everyone was a hunter and a fisherman. At the head of the riffle complex at the ford he built a stone fishtrap to catch the plentiful fish of the river. This stone trap stood for many years and gave the place it's name.
The ford itself was well known long before John Sublett though as the main indian trail from Old Chilicothe to the Ohio river crossed the Little Miami here. General George Rogers Clark led his army across the river here also in 1780 in his campaign against the indian villages in Ohio. General Josuah Harmar also crossed here in 1790.
Simon Kenton was a captain in that army and Daniel Boone was a scout.
Here the Little Miami splits in two then rejoins and splits again as the river makes two sharp turns. All this twisting and turning makes for several fish holding riffles, pockets, runs and eddies. I usually bring along a knapsack with a lunch for if the fish are biting it's possible to spend half the day right here and never wade upstream to the truck. I also usually bring along a pretty varied lure selection because of the varied water. I always try to have the following lures along:



The plastic grub is the ultimate river lure, you might catch bass, sauger, whitebass, rock bass, sheephead, and the occasional catfish on one.



An inline spinner probably accounts for more smallmouth than any other lure and is ideal for fishing riffles.



A top water plug can be very exciting right at daylight or dusk.



A floating diving rapala is another all round lure like the grub and often produces big smallmouth.



Small crankbaits can at times really produce numbers of fish,



A jig of some sort is an excellant choice in the deeper runs and can be tipped with live bait.

Fishpot ford is roughly fifty miles upstream from the Ohio river and the water quality and diversity probably starts peaking thru here. One hundred and sixteen species of fish have been found in the little miami and a single rock in the river may be covered by a million algal cells of at least a hundred different species. An astounding eleven hundred plus species of algae and invertabrates make the Little Miami home. Twenty three of these were new to science when found in the river.
Just upstream from the ford is a nice hole that is full of down trees and logjams. If I were trying to catch a big flathead from the river this is one of the first places I'd head. I'll often slip a container of chicken liver in my pack and after fishing the ford below with lures switch and catch channel cats here.
The hole ends in a rockbar that's good for another smallmouth or two to a grub fished on an jighead. I call this "hooterville run" as just downstream on the far bank is a run down old fish camp with a handpainted sigh stuck up in the trees that states "welcome to hooterville usa" I've never had the guts to climb the bank and see if I actually was welcome in hooterville though the sign always brings to mind visions of the girls of hee haw laying around in cutoff jeans.
Just upstream you enter the boundary of the nature preserve. From here to the mouth of ceasar creek the river makes two more sharp turns and is good fishing all the way. Even if you plan on wading the entire way wear jeans instead of shorts as the river bottom vegetation is very thick and filled with stinging nettles and in some places the river is simply not wadeable. The preserve here also overrun with whitetail deer and it's common to see a half dozen on every fishing trip.
John Sublett hunted deer, turkey, and bear all along here and once killed a black bear on the ridges overlooking the river that weighed over four hundred pounds. He also trapped furbearing animals such as beaver and otter and trapped wolves on the ridge just south of here. The beaver and otters have came back strong and the river bottom here has lots of beaver sign and cuttings.
At the mouth of ceasars creek a nice rock bar lines the far bank while weedbeds extend out into the mouth of the creek. In most flows a school of gar hang around the mouth and big carp can be seen slipping in and out of the creek. An inline spinner allmost allways produces a couple smallmouth while nightcrawlers produce sheephead,carp, and catfish.






The short stretch of creek from the mouth up to the parking lot at the preserve is excellent fishing for smallmouth bass. The creek is simply beautiful and a great place to bring a flyrod as the creek is only thigh deep and but wide enough for a good backcast. Here the Smith familly tapped sugar maples in late winter and the father drove a wagonload of maple sugar and bacon from pigs fattened on acorns from the surrounding woods a couple times a year to Cincinnati. He slept in the wagon at the market where fountain square now stands before returning.




Upstream from the parking lot the creek flows down two and a half miles from the ceasar creek dam. This section of stream flows thru a deep gorge and has ok fishing for small bass in a beautiful setting. At one point large cliffs cut into the hillside and beaver sign is common along the creek. Here I also heard a loud ruckus while fishing and looked up just in time to see a large coyote leap off the bank trying to catch a goose standing on a small midstream island.









The quarter mile of stream right below the dam holds a large amount of fish. I've caught largemouth, smallmouth, kentucky spotted bass, sauger, pumpkinseeds, catfish, carp, sheephead and white bass here. And just this last spring lost a big muskie right below the dam. A few years ago while carp fishing I caught a five foot long paddlefish on light spinning tackle,then a month later landed one four feet long.
My guess is these filter feeders accidently suck up the bait as the strain the water thru huge gill slits.





The dam here holds back 2800 acres of water up to one hundred ten feet deep. I don't pretend to know much at all about the lake even though I fish it alot.The lake holds large numbers of crappie and sauger and is making a name for itself as a muskie lake.