Planning & Strategy

This event has 4 very different types of lakes to choose from all ranging from 15 minutes to as much as a little over 1 hour away from the measure-in.  The choice of lake may very well be the most important choice you make for this tournament.  The two furthest lakes, Acton & Cowan, both have a 10hp restriction, so no need to worry about pleasure boaters.  They also don't see a whole lot of bass fishing pressure compared to other Ohio lakes their size.  If the wind is blowing Acton will be a tough lake to fish.  Windy days make large portions of the lake unfishable, but if it is a calm day there will be plenty of shorline to cast at.  Cowan on the other hand does have some coves where you can hide out from the wind.  The ideal launch on a windy day would be on the North ramp near the beach or on the small ramp located down in the lily pad fields on the far east side of the lake.  It can get shallow on the east side of the lake, but there are a lot of massive lily pads to chuck a jig or plastic into.  The north/northwest side of the lake offers rocky/gravel shoreline that drops off pretty deep fairly quickly.  Both lakes have similar shoreline (sandy,gravel/rocky bottom) in a majority of the lake; the sections of the lakes where the main creek coming in being the exception where you have a predominantly muddy/silty bottom and lot more vegetation.

The two smaller park lakes, 35 acre Sharon Lake and 156 acre Winton Lake, shouldn't be discounted either!  There have been several 3 fish totals of 50"+ taken from both park lakes in previous years, as well as big fish exceeding 19".