New lake today - Clendening Lake

[CybrSlydr]

Decided to try a new lake today.  Went to Clendening Lake.

 

Clendening Lake is in southwestern Harrison County in Washington and Nottingham townships. The dam is at Tippecanoe off State Route 800. State Route 799 bisects the lake. Township roads provide access to the lake on all boundary lines. Access to Interstate 77 is available at New Philadelphia which lies 25 miles to the north.

Clendening Lake, one of the flood control impoundments of the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, was constructed in Brushy Fork of Big Stillwater Creek. This 1,702-acre lake is mostly long, narrow, and winding and most of its 35.5 miles of shoreline is deeply wooded. There is a 10-horsepower outboard motor limit on this lake.

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District was organized under state law in 1933 for the primary purposes of flood control, conservation, and recreation. The first waters to form the permanent lakes were impounded in 1938. In 1939, the flood control aspect became the responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Ohio-Mississippi Flood Control Program.

 

First surprise was when I got there, the road to the parking lot was closed - bar and everything.  There was another vehicle parked off the side of the road, so I parked on the other side, grabbed my gear and walked the rest of the way.

 

 

 

 

I fished the dam area as it had plenty of available shoreline.

 

I started off with a drop shot rig.  10lb InvisX fluoro with a 1/4oz weight and about a foot of line leading to a size 1 wacky/drop shot hook with a Gulp! 3" minnow in Fire Tiger.

 

Tried it for a bit and didn't catch anything on it.  I took a look at it in the water close to shore and saw that the Gulp! minnow isn't buoyant enough and wasn't suspending horizontally.  So I put on a Catch Co Shimmer Shad in what looks like a brownish color.  

 

This one suspended perfectly horizontally and looked great.  So I tried that for about an hour.  Didn't get any nibbles either.

 

So I pulled out the Deeper and started checking out the area near the... drain?... to see how deep it was and if anything was down there.

I got some really, REALLY strange readings the closer to the drain the deeper got.  I'm wondering if the noise of the water was throwing off the sonar.  Reading got better the farther from the drain I got.

 

https://maps.deepersonar.com/#share-ab3772ce-ea89-4653-b11f-9cc410a20882

 

Tried the drop shot over there as well with no luck.  I then tied on a finesse jig in black/blue with a craw trailer and worked my way up and down the dam  - did that for about an hour and a half with no luck.

 

Pulled out a Red Eye Shad and started tossing it around the drain and local area but to no avail.  After this, I decided to head home.

 

The route home took me past the spot my brother and I caught our personal bests, so I figured I'd give it a go as well.  It was cold enough that about half of the lake had a clear and thin layer of ice on it.  So I threw the jig with trailer around the open water and didn't get anything.  Spent about 45min-hour there and went home

 

All told, I left around 8:00am and got home just before 4:00pm.  Didn't think I'd catch anything, but I got outside and had the whole dam area to myself.  This might be the last time I get out this year with what I'm hearing the weather is supposed to be like come February.  As much as I love winter, it sucks for fishing!