Ohio is full of beautiful outdoor areas for hunting and fishing, including state parks with lakes, trails, and archery ranges. Hunters, trappers, and fishermen come from all over the state and from out-of-state for the chance to bring home white-tail deer and rainbow trout in season. If you’re looking for a place to live that provides an active outdoors lifestyle close to urban areas, the areas in and around Cincinnati offer great hunting, fishing, and other outdoor activities like hiking and running rails, forests, nature preserves, and public gardens.

Outdoor Living

Mount Adams is a historic area of Ohio that was a wine-making capital in the 1800s that attracts young professionals and artisans. It’s located east of downtown Cincinnati, in the middle of Eden Park, on a small mountain that overlooks the Ohio River. Eden Park Reservoir is perfect for fishing enthusiasts who want to bring home bass, catfish, walleye and crappie. It’s a small, quaint community with shops, bars, and restaurants on winding streets filled with houses, historic churches, and beautiful scenery. There’s something of an old world feel in this town named for President John Quincy Adams who dedicated the Cincinnati Observatory in 1843.

Indian Hill Indian Hill is an affluent community near Cincinnati filled with rolling hills, forestland, and countryside dotted with 1920s-era mansions on little roads like Sleepy Hollow Road and Old Hickory Lane. It’s zoned for residential and agriculture, and only single-family homes are allowed. Schools, churches, and city administration buildings are not interspersed with fast food restaurants or strip malls, but there are more than 150 miles of bridle trails for horseback riding. The southwestern part of Indian Hill features the Grand Valley Preserve, a 379 acre nature preserve with walking trails, a large lake for canoeing and fishing, and bird watching.

City Parks

City parks in Cincinnati have experienced deer overpopulation in recent years so the Cincinnati Park Board opened parks for deer hunting. Park management says parks can handle 15 to 20 deer per square mile but counts have shown 32 to 145 deer per square mile in various parks throughout the park system. This is an ideal situation for hunters. The last best estimates of the deer population in Cincinnati parks were above 700,000, a considerable difference from 1904 figures of zero, a result of over-hunting.

Hunters who come to Cincinnati city parks will need to complete hunter education and should obtain a license to hunt in season. Cincinnati parks where deer hunting is allowed include Stanbery Park, California Woods, Magrish Riverlands Preserve, and Mount Airy Forest. Neighborhoods near these parks include Mount Washington and Mt. Airy, both are family-friendly areas of Cincinnati with stable housing markets and a low-cost of living.

Additional Areas for Outdoor Activities

Other areas in and around Cincinnati for nature lovers and outdoor activities include Loveland, Mariemont, and Ashland County. The city of Loveland has many trails and a large Nature Preserve for hiking and running. The village of Mariemont is designated as a national historic landmark fighting transportation development to preserve. It’s near an 80-acre wooded area and some beautiful riverfront scenery. Ashland County has a historical district, hosts an annual BalloonFest, and manages seven parks for walking, hiking, biking, hunting, bird watching and fishing.