By Paula Pyzik Scott

The Bluffton Sportsmen’s Club will host its 81st annual Trout Derby on Sunday, May 4, 2025 at Buckeye Lake. Should a club member catch trout No.1 between 2:00-4:30 p.m. on Derby Day, they will receive half of the day’s jackpot plus $1,000. 

In total there will be over $4,000 in cash and prizes on tagged trout in the quarry. In 2024, the jackpot was $2,250 and half went to Cory Glick.

Bluffton Boy Scout Troop 256 will provide concessions beginning at 8:00 a.m. at a shelter house near Spring St. Chicken BBQ will be sold by Ted & Don’s of Pandora beginning at 11:00 a.m. at the clubhouse, 405 N. Spring St.

In 2025 Trout No. 1 will be named for Roger “Hawk” Hoffman, who moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania to attend Bluffton College. He met and married his wife Sam here and would become the manager of Peerless Glove Factory. He excelled at baseball, softball and bowling and became an avid fisherman, competing in many tournaments and placing in the top 10 at the Big Bass World Championships in 1994.

Some 120 individual, organization and business sponsors have provided cash and prizes for catching the other 217 trout that will be stocked in Buckeye Lake. Sponsors are from the greater northwest Ohio area including Ada, Beaverdam, Bowling Green, Columbus Grove, Findlay, Ft. Jennings, Gilboa, Gomer, Kalida, Lima, Ottawa, McComb, Pandora and Rawson.

The pond will be closed to fishing from Monday, April 28 until the Derby opens on the afternoon of May 4. Rules and regulations for the Trout Derby are available in a 12-page brochure provided to Bluffton Sportsmen’s Club members.

Membership provides fishing privileges at both the Buckeye and Cobb Lake. Memberships are available at the Dough Hook Meat Market, 117 N. Main St. and at the Buckeye Quarry on Derby Day.

For more information about the Bluffton Sportsmen’s Club, visit www.blufftonsportsmenclub.org.