Auglaize River: Piquad Rd. to Fort Jennings Park during low water.

Trip Overview

Put In: Piquad Rd. fishing access actually located on Dogleg Rd. just off Piquad right before or after the bridge depending on which way you are coming. There is room for parking and 3 separate short trails of 20-30 feet that lead you to the river to put on from the bank. Not the best access point, but not the worst either. Take Out: Fort Jennings Community Park, just after the bridge on the right. Parking lot available 50 yards from access point. Water Level: 4.64 ft. according to the USGS meter in Kossuth, OH and 1.90 ft for the meter in Fort Jennings. I would recommend it being close to a foot higher. Trip Length: Around 15 miles is my estimation. Fishing: Very good for small mouth and rock bass, even caught a 4.2 lb catfish while bass fishing with a shallow diver. Wild Life: A Bald Eagle Family, Mom, Dad, and two juveniles who just learned to fly. A common theme all along the Auglaize and Blanchard River, every single time we go out. The usual Herons and other birds, and of course always a snake or two. What was supposed to be a 6 or 7 hour paddle, ended up being a 15 mile hike and paddle that lasted over 13 hours. We entered the water at 2:45 pm and got off at 4:15 am. I knew the upper part of the Auglaize was really low right now and I was hoping it would be a little deeper in this section, as this was my first time on the Auglaize, North of Agerter Rd. It started out good catching fish and seeing Eagles, but then we started getting stuck a lot and time became our enemy. The first obstacle happened when the current took our boats through a narrow passage into a bunch of low laying bushes that gave us a boat full of spiders. Shortly after that darkness sat in and the real adventure begun on a section of river we have never done before, It was a full moon, but unfortunately the trees blocked it out a lot. It's pretty crazy when you have to go through the many marshy areas with tall grass and mud when there is only one narrow path through it and it's pitch black and you can't see 5 ft. in front of you. On top of having to get out and drag our kayaks thru the many shallow areas, we had to drag them about 100 yds thru the tall marshy grass in the darkness with who knows what creeping in it, luckily it was dark and I couldn't see what was around me . The first time we took a dead end and it was a long way back upstream to look for another way and the other time a huge tree that was so fat it was too high to go over and to low to go under blocked the narrow passage, not to mention it had the most spiders I've ever seen on one tree. That almost broke us there, we chilled in the middle of the river for at least 30 minutes trying to keep warm with a dry towel, cuz we were soaked from the waist down and it got below 60 that night and we were dressed for the warm daytime temps. But we regrouped, toughed it out and drug our boats through the creepy marsh and many more low spots until about a half mile to go we actually got good water. It was such a relief to be finished, but it was full of memories and stories to tell. It tested our mental and physical strength and now that's it's over, we can laugh about it. I been on 100's of kayak trips and never anything like this trip. I guess I had too many good trips in a row and needed to be reminded of the importance of proper planning. We were planning on doing Alum Creek the next day, but needless to say, that didn't happen. We kayaked at night before on the Hocking River, but that was by choice and we've done that section multiple times and it was maintained by a canoe livery. This was a new section and paddling in the dark wasn't by choice and there weren't grassy marshes with narrow passage thru, like the ones in a few of my pics, that are next to impossible to see at night. I had a headlamp, but we already learned that spotlights and flashlights don't work very good, you have to have the light up high for it to have any affect. In conclusion, our experience was one that we will never forget, some good and some bad, but it might of been a decent 15 mile trip if the water was about a foot higher. I might try it again when the conditions are better, but I would leave a lot earlier. It's not really a section you want to do at night, do those on open sections that you are familiar with, unless you get a good light post. We got home and the adventure didn't end, one of us had a leech on their foot and I had a dead fish in my kayak that must of jumped in along the way. We will be talking about the time we kayaked until 4:15 am in the morning for a long, long time.