No one knows exactly how it all started. Farm ponds have 

 supplied water to cattle, sheep, and horses for years. Finally 

 some thrifty farmer conceived the idea of charging friends for 

 fishing and a business was born! 



The investment represented by the 125 or more pay lakes in 

 the Cincinnati area would be difficult to estimate. It isn't stretch- 

 ing things to set the figure at $1,000,000. The annual revenue 

 approximates $800,000. Add to this the revenue of bait shops 

 and sandwich emporiums and you can see that this cow-pasture 

 enterprise is nothing to sneeze at. 



But that isn't all. Because they store millions of gallons of 

 surface water, the little lakes serve as reservoirs for the sub- 

 surface channels which feed wells, springs, and many a big-time 

 industrial water supply. By retarding surface runoff, the lakes 

 also cut soil erosion and aid in the ever-recurrent problem of 

 flood control. 



Fish are trucked from Lake Erie in aerated tanks. 



fr- 



