bread+carp=money

Today, Pymatuning Lake is financially dead-The largest lake(part in Ohio) is a ghost town.Even though it has over 35 miles of shoreline and has the largest fish hatchery in the state of PA., no one, meaning tourists, visit, let alone fish the lake.  In the 60's  and 70's is was a booming area whose postcard's boast"where the ducks walk on the fish." The area known as the Spillway, where a circular dam let water from one side of the road (game and fishing a no-no), spill under to the other side-fishing and fowl hunting allowed-the carp were so large and thick trying to eat a slice of bread thrown in by the tourists,, the ducks could literally walk on the carps backs and grab some bread.  a concession stand, rented by the State. besides selling "made in China" souvenirs, sold, on average, 4000 loafs of "day old" bread a week for the carp to eat-besides other places that sold the bread.  The carp were over 2 and a half feet long and had to weigh about 25-30ilb each.  When their population became to much(the carp also fed on trophy fish eggs,) the stat state would net them up then grind them up for the farmers to use as fertilizer.
Today, even game fishing is a rarity, and it is not uncommon to hear of a 40"+ Musky being caught on a hook and worm-no one fishes the lake anymore.  My parents home on the lake would easily go for over a half million 10 years ago: now they would be lucky to get 90,000 for it.
The other main road is the Causeway,which separates that part of the lake from PA. to OH.-the road is a dam in itself. The Lake is shallow: one could walk across the causeway in the water, and not go over their head.
The demise:  closer lakes and tourist attractions near the big cities such as Pittsburgh, Youngstown & Cleveland, OH.,  The big "killer" was the new Moraine Lake, outside of butler, PA. It offered so much that the boy scouts used it for one of their national jamborees.  My parent's biggest mistake was building a brand new drive restaurant, "the Duck Inn."  They should have gotten out of the business years before.  But I still feel the reason we moved to Pymatuning Lake was my dad's love of Musky fishing. Side Note: Before Fishing/ depth finders, dad would order a set of maps showing the depths and terrain of all the lakes he fished from the Army Corp of Engineers-he new that large fish, like Musky's, preferred deep and/or hiding places in the water-so that is where he would fish!