My 292 was the same way with the Bennett's. Those tabs were too small to hold a slow plane, the azz would sink and it would porpoise. Not so with the 280S K-Planes! It will hold a slow plane (30-32mph) and ride real nice and smooth plowing through some really nasty slop.

Although, when running solo or with willing passengers, letting her fly is definitely a more fun option!

Every Formula Ive ever owned wanted power when it got rough, 242- current 303 gets bouncy power up and chop it up,

Mine likes it faster too. Slow down and you can get a pound or two but nothing like what I have grown up with. Get some air under the step and let the engines eat some fuel.

LOTO is nasty... real nasty. I would run the drives more or less nutral (you will have to make small adjustments depending on your props, people on board...) and adjust the tabs for best results.

Never been there...look forward to it some day....so I can't speak to it's roughness. Seems a bit odd though with a depth of 60+ feet and covering as much area as it does that it would be that rough.

About the roughest thing we see here inside is Biscayne Bay south of Miami. It's about 1/4 the size of LOTO but is only 12'~15' deep in the center of the bay. When the wind whips up it gets a washing machine going due to the shallow depths.

But then again...there is the "ditch" or ICW in Broward Co between Ft. Lauderdale and Boca. It's 12' deep and 100 yards wide and on the weekends it's a friggin' cauldron.

I've been on a few smaller lakes but LOTO is a whole beast in itself. Weekends can get downright impossible to drive in. Massive 40-45 foot cruisers putting out 3-5 foot waves in every which direction...I would compare it to driving in a blender. No discernible wave pattern with waves coming in all directions. It can be very pleasant during the week but if u are out on the weekends hold on.
LOTO on a weekend=a very challenging drive to master...unless u have a 38+ footer that will just plow through wave after wave.
A big thanks to everyone who has replied with advice, it is really appreciated.

All boats are different but I would start with tabs and drives neutral when it gets rough and experiment from there. It may like a hint of negative tab and drives neutral to slightly positive or the tabs neutral and the drives neutral to slightly negative. Try to get up on top of the water as opposed to plowing through it. Look to keep the nose down but not so much that it is wanting to bow steer.

When you think of LOTO think of as others have said large cruisers, not so large cruisers, speed boats, jet ski's... all going in different directions. Then think of your pool and a lot of people all jumping into it at one time. When the waves from all those people hit the walls they all come back to the middle making much larger rogue waves. Loto's walls are strait up so all the waves go back to the middle. You can be running well in 3 footers then all of the sudden the bottom will drop out and you fall 3-4 feet. It is insane really. I did not appreciate it tell I was there. Makes for some testing of your driving skills.

Run the boat at 45 I bet it's way better.... Lake Erie probably has the worst chop washing machine water of any lake I know... 5 foot high.... 5 ft apart... you gotta get the boat up out of water to make it run smoother... lots of practice helps...

Best luck I've had at LOTO on a sloppy day is to run the aft tip of the K plane almost even with the bottom of the boat, measuring by running a straight edge parallel out from the bottom of the boat and lower the K planes until they touch the straight edge. I mark that position on my gauge. Then put the drives in pretty much a neutral position. If you run the drives and K planes in a negative position I suspect you are diving the nose hard into the troughs instead of riding over them. If you start from those setting you can tweak either drives or planes to see how the boat reacts.

The other thing is the knack and timing of throttling, which just needs hours of practice. The major mistake many people make is to back off the throttle when they hit a nasty patch of water. That take all the thrust away from your props and lets the water push the boat around. Within reason you should do just the opposite, throttle into the rough and out as it quiets down. If you see a nasty patch of water ahead of you try slowing before you get to it, then throttle into the patch just as you hit it.