ACT good news; bad news

The good news for top anglers on the American Crappie Trail is that several major tournaments, including the ACT Championship, have been rescheduled.

The ACT National Championship (which was held at D’Arbonne last year) at Sardis Lake in Mississippi is happening June 4-6! Several local and area anglers will be competing in that big event. Emails were sent to anglers with all the details and the fishing should be good this weekend.

Kentucky Lake‘s tournament has been reset for June 19-20. Due to the uncertainty, the ACT changed off-limits period to a 10-day instead of 30. KY Lake will go off-limit June 5th.

And finally, the ACT tournament on Grenada Lake has been rescheduled for September 11-12. That is big news for Grenada, but also for here.

The bad news is that means this fall’s only ACT event of 2020 on Lake D’Arbonne has been cancelled. It was set for that same weekend and will not be held. Tour director Matt Morgan has confirmed that to lakedarbonnelife.com. It’s the first time in a long time that the ACT has not held an event on Lake D’Arbonne. The tour’s presence helps add legitimacy to D’Arbonne’s claim as one of the top crappie lakes in the country.

With some other things that have happened recently around helping the ACT, one has to wonder if they will ever be back on the local lake. The lack of an ACT event is not a good sign for local tourist promotion efforts or the local economy and taxes that benefit greatly from events like this.

With the changes brought about by Covid-19, it is going to take some pretty proactive and aggressive marketing and leadership to ensure the lake’s tourism potential is met. Or it will be a loss for everybody that won’t come back anytime soon. It would be a pity to let that happen, folks.