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Lake Snowden
Lake Snowden
Location	Athens County, Ohio
Coordinates	39°08′54″N 82°06′52″W / 39.1482°N 82.1145°W
Area	675 acres (2.73 km2)
Operated by	Hocking College
Website	Lake Snowden website

Lake Snowden is a 675 acre education and recreation park in southeast Ohio 6 miles southwest of Athens and 1 mile northeast of Albany. The lake Lake Snowden is the largest of four lakes which form the Margaret Creek Conservancy District, covering about 136 acres with a maximum lake depth of 42 feet. Lake Snowden provides flood control, water supply, recreational activities, festivals and natural wildlife.

History

Lake Snowden was developed as a part of the PL-566 Margaret Creek Watershed Project with federal funds through the Farmer’s Home Administration and the Soil Conservation Service to try and control flooding in the area. The dam was completed in July 1970 across a branch of Maragret Creek. Recreation pool was achieved in April 1972. It opened to the public in 1972 and in 1998 Lake Snowden was purchased by Hocking College.

Hocking College

Hocking College purchased Lake Snowden in 1998 from Le-Ax Water District. The college owns and operates a fish hatchery located at Lake Snowden that furthers local fish management and aquaculture.

Recreation

Lake Snowden offers a wide range of outdoor recreation including fishing, swimming, boating, camping, picnicking, hiking, horseback riding, bird watching and many more. For camping 125 sites are offered in four different areas of the park; The Locust Grove, Big Oak camp, Hickory Camp, and Hilltop Camp. Lake Snowden has a grass and sand beach and swimming area as well as adjacent fields that offer a great place for softball, volleyball, and badminton games. The park has two shelter houses with seating for 75 each for picnicking. Boating and horseback riding are popular as well, with 12.5 miles of horse trails and several types of rentable watercraft including canoes, rowboats, paddle boats and kayaks. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources orders Lake Snowden to be a "no wake" lake or idle only lake in order to keep the lakes natural beauty and reduce erosion caused by large waves.

Paw Paw Festival

The Ohio Pawpaw Festival is a yearly festival for the local Pawpaw tree fruits held at Lake Snowden. The festival is held every year around the third weekend of September. This three day event offers music, artwork, food and beer, entertainment and activities, as well as special events from local businesses throughout southeastern Ohio. The Pawpaw is North America's largest native tree fruit with Southern Ohio having some of the largest wild Pawpaw patches on the planet. The fruit is very nutritious and has a creamy texture and a tropical flavor. Some popular events at the Pawpaw Festival include the Pawpaw cook off, the best Pawpaw competition, and the Pawpaw eating contest. There is also a prize awarded for the largest Pawpaw. Several Ohio breweries provide unique Pawpaw beer brewed with pawpaw pulp at the beer garden as well.

Wildlife

Lake Snowden has a wide variety of wildlife including whitetail deer, canadian geese, many species of duck, beaver, mink, fox, raccoon, squirrel, rabbit and wild turkey, and a wide assortment of aquatic wildlife. Bird watching is a very popular activity with the park being a great place for migrating waterfowl such as canvasback, common goldeneye or ringneck duck. bluebirds, song sparrows and northern harrier are also common species to the area. Lake Snowden is a popular fishing lake known for its largemouth bass and channel catfish.

Fishing

The primary sport fish species managed are channel catfish, bluegill, red ear sunfish, large mouth bass and saugeye. Saugeye are stocked every year and channel catfish yearlings are stocked every other year. Lake Snowden is one of the finest catfish lakes in southern Ohio with excellent largemouth bass catch rates according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Bluegill are caught on primarily wax worms and red worms at various midwater depths and can be caught near the surface during warmer weather. Redear Sunfish like deep water and are often caught around underwater structures and also favor wax worms and red worms. Largemouth Bass fishing is best when the lake starts to warm up in early spring. Largemouth tend to favor deep water and are caught primarily on lures such as jigs and deepdriving crank baits. The bass move to shallow water to feed as the water approaches 70 degrees. Channel Catfish are generally caught around the dam and shoreline access points and can be caught with chicken liver or hotdog bits.