I had read a lot fo the posts from the members area as I am new and trying to catch up on some info. I will be fishing a lot of the southwestern lakes this year like, ousterhout, lower crooked, murray, campau and others, I hear that the boat launches suck though. I have a 16.6 ft boat and can slide it on and off pretty easily on my own, and have a 4wheel drive truck, but still am curious how tough some of those launches are. Cause I am driving over an hour and a half to most of those lakes.
Thanks for all input
Bryan
You'll have no problem, I can get my boat in and out of anywhere over here. Sometimes you need to roll up your pants and get your feet wet. If we were bass guys then we might be scared of getting a little wet to catch some fish.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't check those lakes out but… You do realize that you can get to St Clair and St Clair River in the same amount of time right?
Mid,
4wd will have no probs.Forget Lower Crooked,there are much better lakes.Keep Your front tires on the cement at Oster.Campau/Murray
no probs at all.Very little parking at Oster,and no room to move.
Get out on campau early or late in the season,the traffic is a mess.
Murray sucks in the summer as well,but its big enough so you can get out of the
way at least.Thornapple gets lots of pressure,but still has big fish possibilities.Go there on a weekday and its way cool.Ive been the only
boat out there on a couple of occasions.Hope this helped ya a little.-kid
Campau, Murray, Thornapple, Bankson, Long, Austin are no problem. Osterhout I wade about one third of the time, and it is a tight access. Round is a challenge to manuever and somewhat dangerous, backing or pulling out across a busy road. Murray's west access gets points if you bring a lady along due to newer toilet facilities.
Round is low enough that you don't need to back across. There is plenty of room to make a loop to get set up on the ramp side.
Years ago you had to back across the road to get to the ramp.
The ramp itself is OK but AS SOON AS YOU CLEAR it gets un-manageably shallow. In heavy wind it's VERY difficult and I chewed up my prop there because of how shallow it is just off the ramp.
I can't see how you could launch by yourself and not get wet. FWIW there is a sign on the access site sign stating that the ramp is closed due to shallow water/dangerous conditions. Some locals said the sign was up all year last year and there was a 200hp bass boat (I really don't see the point of those around here but that is a whole nother' discussion) loading so I gave it a shot.
Long is an EXCELENT ramp but limited parking FYI. You launch in a channel so launching really long deep boats may be a problem but that channel is nice and deep.
Is bankson launchable by yourself? How about without getting wet?
When I was at Long Lake(Three Rivers) in February, the channel was only about a foot deep so I just made it out, must be it was higher water when you were there.
As far as Bankson goes, I load and unload the boat myself but a pair of waterproof boots might come in handy because it is quite shallow at the ramp. If my dad goes, I just put my Lakewood tackle box in the water and he can use it as a step without getting wet.
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