Dillon

Dillion

By Chuck Martin

    NASHPORT – May and June are the top months for fishing Dillon Reservoir, located on the Licking River west of Zanesville, but the summer fishing can also be quite good at times.
   As a bass lake, Dillon has the reputation of producing a lot of keeper largemouth, although few trophies. Five-pound bass are rare, and a 4-pounder is a big fish, but the number of fish in the 12- to15-inch range makes it a popular site for club tournaments. It’s also an excellent lake for channel catfish and crappie, which are abundant.
   Electroshocking by the Division of Wildlife in recent years confirms what the anglers have found. According to the biologists, large numbers of fish were sampled in 2004, with growth rates and body condition among the best in District Four. Bass were shallow and cooperative in May and June, but the hot, muggy days of July and August call for a change in tactics. In most lakes, that might mean looking for deep-water structure or thick grass beds. However, Dillon contains few, if any, weeds, and few locations with as much as 25 feet of water.
   Red Tilton of Adamsville, who, with partner Chris Tanner of Nashport, is a regular in the winner’s circle in open tournaments and in the Wednesday evening pot tournaments, describes what summer bass anglers at Dillon have to do in simple terms: “Back off. Guys will find fish shallow early, but after the fish are going to back off the banks.” They won’t go far, he noted, and a lot of fishermen will be sitting above where the bass have moved.
    Bob Mathie, owner of Bob’s Outdoor Supply in Newark, has also had some tournament success at Dillon and said essentially the same thing. Look for rocky banks and points that drop into the river channel and work or plastic worms down to about 9 feet. In his experience, the bass at Dillon seldom go much deeper than that because a thermocline will develop in the summer.
   Although there are no weeds in the lake and no timber was left standing when it was built, many of those rocky banks still sport isolated stumps that act as fish magnets. Fallen trees and driftwood are the most common cover in the lake. Carolina rigging soft plastics is another good way to look for bass on the steep banks and points.
   When casting deep-running in the main lake, check out the western shoreline from the dam to where the lake turns to the west. There are numerous fallen trees in this area and the banks are generally rocky. This is an area where the Division of Wildlife has found some of the best bass populations when electroshocking.
   The other thing bass anglers do at Dillon in the summer is to head upstream into the river, if you can find the channel through the extensive mud flats in the upper end of the lake. Some anglers have even taken to using jet drives to get past the flats, or to run up the river well past the limit for conventional boats, to take advantage of the excellent smallmouth fishing in that part of the river.
    A conventional drive won’t make it past the first riffles, but there are still a couple miles of meandering stream that produce good catches of bass for tournament anglers who make the run to take advantage of the cooler water there. Fallen trees, logs, brush and rocks provide some good largemouth bass habitat in the river.
   Lure choices at Dillon have been consistent over the years: diving crankbaits in chartreuse, shad and crayfish patterns; 4-inch worms, especially black worms; green pumpkin tubes and white or chartreuse spinnerbaits. This is also a lake with a surprisingly good surface bite, especially early in the day, with buzzbaits and Rebel Pop-R’s the lures of choice.
Fishing a worm here takes patience. “Bass at Dillon don’t seem to like a lot of shaking, unlike Buckeye Lake where they seem to want more action in a jig or worm,” Mathie said. “Work worms slow, almost like dead-sticking.”
    A tube, he said, should be fished with as light a weight as possible. A sixteenth-ounce sinker is ideal, but the wind may force you to use a heavier sinker. You have to be patient to get the lures down to where the bass are, but it can be productive.
One thing about Dillon: You might be innocently fishing a crankbait and get a hit from what you think must be a new lake record bass – only it turns out to have whiskers. This is an outstanding lake for channel catfish. The Division of Wildlife says the typical size range is 8 to 25 inches and rates the outlook at Dillon this year as excellent.
   If you want to catch a channel over 10 pounds, this is the place to do it. I usually tangle with cats when they decide to hit crankbaits or spinnerbaits, but successful catfish anglers here use more conventional prepared baits or cut shad and fish the flats near the river channel. At one time, the area in front of the beach was productive catfish water, but the accumulation of sediment in the area seems to have driven the catfish anglers down the lake.
    Or, they can also go up into the river channel. This was good catfish water even before the lake was opened in 1963. The late Glenn Montgomery, outdoor writer for the old Zanesville Signal around 1950, would write about fishing the Licking for both catfish and bass, and he commented in one column that his favorite hole was at the Nashport bridge. That bridge is gone, but there’s still a “hole” there. If you make it up into the river, you will see an old concrete bridge abutment on the left, just before a sharp bend in the river. You’ve found Montgomery’s fishing hole.
I spend most of my fishing time chasing bass, but if they’re not cooperating, I enjoy taking out an ultra-light spinning outfit and pitching tiny jigs into likely crappie holes. The popular panfish are plentiful in Dillon, but they tend to be on the small side. However, I was with an electroshocking team from the Division of Wildlife one evening when they turned up a 17-inch white crappie, so some big fish, at least, are present. Overall, black and white crappies sampled here averaged 8 to 10 inches.
    Most anglers fishing for crappie simply use minnows, but small twister tails, mini-tubes, grubs and marabou jigs are also productive. Fish them around any likely cover and experiment with different depths until you find them.
Saugeye have been stocked in Dillon annually since 1989, but the lake has never developed a quality saugeye fishery above the dam. Below the dam and downstream into the Muskingum River is a different story. Many nice saugeye are caught in the Dillon spillway on yellow, white or chartreuse twister tail jigs. Good catches are also made at Dillon Falls and in the Muskingum River.
   Dillon is also going to receive something new this year: its first stocking of hybrid striped bass. District 4 Fisheries Manager Dave Bright told me they really don’t expect a quality hybrid fishery to develop in the lake so much as downstream, much like the saugeye have done. However, the huge abundance of gizzard shad usually in the lake will provide ample forage for the hybrids. Actually, some hybrids have been caught in the lake over the years, but they have migrated downstream from Buckeye Lake.
Dillon is easily reached from Zanesville by taking Ohio 146 West. Two ramps provide most of the access to the lake: the Big Run ramp along 146 and the Marina ramp, reached by turning off 146 onto Clay Littick Drive and simply following it to the end. The marina ramp is more sheltered if the wind is blowing.
   A large campground is available at the park and there are a number of rental cabins. Numerous motels and restaurants are available in Zanesville.