Acton info

We spoke with a wildlife officer today while fishing at Rush Run and learned that Acton Lake (Huston Woods) has been drawn down four feet to that the boat ramps can be rebuilt. He said that it is difficult, if not impossible, to launch a boat right now.
On the up side of that, he said you can see structure that hasn't been seen in years, including the foundation of the old Huston house off Sugar Camp. He also said that fishing in the pool below thedam shoudm be very good right now. We'll check that out this week and report back.
Recent electro-shock studies have shown that last year's saugeye stocking in now producing fish up to 13 inches.

- Roberta

Thanks for the Info Roberta!
Be safe.
Rick

any idea how long the lake will be "down"?

We're planning on going down there tomorrow. If we can find a ranger to talk to, we'll ask. - Roberta

It ain't pretty, guys.

After fishing below the dam for a couple of hours (one small crappie), we headed to Sugar Camp to see how bad things looked. Push comes to shove, we could put our little boat in there. The mud flats between the pier and the island are walkable. I wanted to go out to the island, bu tmy mudders were sinking in. If I get backwith my knee high boots, I'll go. You can see and walk in the foundation of one of the old Huston family buildings in that area.

If you head north along the bank, you have gravel, snags and rock out about thirty feet from the bank where we fish in the spring. It's easy to see why that's such a good spot. It screams crappie, bass and bluegill spawning area.

If you go from about where the trees start toward the point south of the beach ,you hit a wide mud flat again. That's where we catch some decent catfish. There's another foundation out from there that I now know has been a jig snagger. On the up side, while picking up fishing debris, we found two servicible Rapala crank baits that I will clean and refurbish with new trebles.

Then we went to the ramps. The water down to th eend of the ramps - mud level. I ran into an employee and he said that he was told the gate was closed this week (but there's no sign of ramp work). He said that rather than redoing the ramps, they are only adding rubber bumpers along the walls. With the miserable job the GOP has done managing our parks, he's speculating that Taft will justify closing Acton because of low usage, which will in fact be the result of their mismanagement. If the lake level isn't back up by next month, we can kiss this year's spawn good-bye, because all the prime spawning areas are exposed to the sun right now. - Roberta

Hopefully they will get the rubber bumpers on the docks and the water level will come back quickly. I can’t believe they would invest ODR resources stocking saugeye then allow the lake to go to heck in a handbasket. Please continue to update water levels and conditions, Acton is one of my favorite spring lakes.

Is the water back to normal level?

The person I spoke to said that the level is back up and the ramps are usuable. Before you drive that far, you might want to call yourself: 513-523-6347

With gas at $2.20, I'm not making 50mile round trips to check on the lake like I used to. - Roberta

Going to give it a try this afternoon, 75 and sunny is too good to pass up. I'll let you know what things look like tomorrow. :D :D

Water temp at the ramp was 58 – in the main lake 48. I can not explain the 10-degree difference. :confused: We fished 8 to 25 ft deep, caught 5 crappie, one over 11”. With the warm weather I would think next week to 10 days would be good days to get started.

We're going to get the boat out for the first time thsi weekend, but we'll probably go to Rush Run rathrr than Acton. It's not at as big something fails and we have to paddle like we did last year!

I limited out on trout Wednesday afternoon. That's the good news. The bad news is that the first four fish we caught managed to get out of our basket. Even so, we still took four good trout home - all over a pound. - Roberta

Water level was back to "normal" fior this time of year, no trouble getting in and out. :D