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Home › Waters › Ohio › Tuscarawas River
River · Northeastern Ohio, Tuscarawas County from Dover and New Philadelphia downstream through Newcomerstown to the Coshocton confluence · Ohio

Tuscarawas River Fishing Guides

A recovered northeastern Ohio river below the Dover flood-control dam, now a solid smallmouth and catfish float through Tuscarawas County.

A braided prairie river running past a raw cut bank
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Tuscarawas River

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About the Tuscarawas River

The Tuscarawas is a recovery story. It drains a heavily industrialized part of northeastern Ohio, running from the Akron and Massillon area south through Dover and New Philadelphia before turning west to meet the Walhonding at Coshocton and form the Muskingum. For most of the twentieth century the upper river was badly degraded, and anglers wrote off the whole system. Decades of wastewater improvement have changed that substantially, and the reaches below Dover now support a genuine warmwater sport fishery with a diverse fish community, even if the corridor still runs past a good deal of industry, rail line and highway.

Anglers should understand what the dam above this gauge is and is not. Dover Dam is a United States Army Corps of Engineers flood-control structure, one of the Muskingum Watershed system built after the 1913 flood, and it is a dry dam: it holds no permanent pool and passes the river freely except during high water events. That means there is no cold bottom release below it and no tailwater fishery in the usual sense. The water here is ordinary warmwater river, and it fishes accordingly. Smallmouth bass hold on the riffles and rock, channel and flathead catfish use the deep holes, saugeye and white bass move through the lower reaches, and northern pike occupy the slower backwaters and oxbows.

The gauge reads discharge and stage without a temperature sensor. Because the dam upstream passes flow freely most of the year, the trace behaves like a natural river rather than a managed release, spiking after rain and falling steadily afterward. Plan floats around moderate stable flows, and treat a sharp rise as a signal that the flood-control pool upstream is filling and releases will follow.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Tuscarawas River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Access

Dover Dam access, Route 800 - bank fishing immediately below the flood-control structure.
Tuscarawas River access at Dover city park - a launch and shoreline fishing.
New Philadelphia riverfront - developed bank access through town.
Gnadenhutten access off Route 36 - a cartop launch on the middle river.
Newcomerstown access - a ramp and bank fishing on the lower reach.
Tuscarawas County Ohio and Erie Canal towpath crossings - walk-in access at several points.
Coshocton confluence at Lake Park - access where the river meets the Walhonding.

Seasons

Spring: high and often muddy, with flood-control releases and white bass moving up from below.
Summer: the best wading and floating, with smallmouth on the rock and catfish in the deep holes.
Fall: strong smallmouth and saugeye fishing as flows settle and the water clears.
Winter: limited, with catfish and the occasional pike taken from the deeper bends.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Tuscarawas River?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Common Carp, Flathead Catfish, Freshwater Drum, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Saugeye, Smallmouth Bass, White Bass on the Tuscarawas River in Ohio.

Where can you access the Tuscarawas River?

Dover Dam access, Route 800 - bank fishing immediately below the flood-control structure. Tuscarawas River access at Dover city park - a launch and shoreline fishing. New Philadelphia riverfront - developed bank access through town. Gnadenhutten access off Route 36 - a cartop launch on the middle river. Newcomerstown access - a ramp and bank fishing on the lower reach. Tuscarawas County Ohio and Erie Canal towpath crossings - walk-in access at several points. Coshocton confluence at Lake Park - access where the river meets the Walhonding.

When is the best time to fish the Tuscarawas River?

Spring: high and often muddy, with flood-control releases and white bass moving up from below. Summer: the best wading and floating, with smallmouth on the rock and catfish in the deep holes. Fall: strong smallmouth and saugeye fishing as flows settle and the water clears. Winter: limited, with catfish and the occasional pike taken from the deeper bends.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Tuscarawas River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Ohio agency site: https://ohiodnr.gov/buy-and-apply/hunting-fishing-boating/fishing-resources/fishing-regulations