Small Lakes

[SONIC]

Pretty random but I'm curious how many boat on small lakes?

I've seen a bunch of posts with people talking about their lakes being 200 acres or less.
I can't quite comprehend how that works, my home lake is 2500 acres or so and is considered very small, I can't imagine much smaller.

I guess I'm just curious how you do any surfing/riding with docks around and other peoples boats etc.

[MJHSupra]

My friends from Chicago have summer homes in MI and WI. Been on some pretty small lakes up there, but those were ski boats. I could not image taking my SL on them - not even sure it would be allowed if the lakes had boat size limits. I'm sure they did for MI and WI. Lots of laws for sleds, utv, boats, etc.

Living in east TN, everything is big. "Big" is relative being raised on Lake Erie when I was a kid.

[Bigs28]

My lake is 160ish acres. There are only 2 boats that regularly use the lake. Mine will be the 3rd. There are 2 waverunners that regularly use it as well with a few other people who rarely use the lake. Very common for only one person or no one to be out there at a time. The only time it's really a problem is holiday weekends and you just kind of take turns unofficially. There is not a public ramp to our lake so we are fortunate there. We also have 2 float planes on our lake but they are never in the way.

[jason1973]

my hone lake is only 450 acres. There are 4-5 wake boats including a 24ft malibu. Its not bad we just need to respect shorelines etc..

[Tommy2slow]

I am on a small lake. Not sure how many acres it would be. Definitely have to be careful about where we surf and how we are impacting our neighborhood. Running a business on lake kind of puts us under a microscope of sorts so we have to be extra mindful of our wake. Not every boat on the lake is so careful unfortunately. One would expect most of the issues with people surfing close to shore coming from the people dropping their boats in the lake for the day. That’s not the case, the most problematic boats are a few property owners on the lake that surf wherever they wish. Lots of shore erosion the last few seasons, trees falling into lake and other evidence. You get used to having other boats nearby. Hopefully everyone is surfing the same side so that we are at least circling the lake in the same direction.

[MJHSupra]

Lots of shore erosion the last few seasons, trees falling into lake and other evidence.

If it's tubing, surfing, or just driving too close to shore, that will eventually lead to more regulations and groups forming to propose more regulations

[sandm]

spent a day on a lake up around the st. cloud MI area that was small. don't know the size but we were one of only 4 boats on the lake and it felt small. iirc dandy told me it was +/-250 acres. we kept passing the same docks and houses all day boating in circles. like a lot of midwest lakes the average depth in a chunk of the acreage was under 6ft so it was really much smaller in usable space.

boats and staying away from the shore were not the issue on that lake. trying to maintain 100ft from the pair of nesting loons that lived on the lake(state law) was an even bigger pita. surfing and had the throttle chopped on me a couple of times when they flew and landed in the path of the boat. I swear those things were screwing with us

I'll take the 1.5million acre lake mead all day....

[larry_arizona]

The lakes I frequent are as follows:

1000 acres is big with plenty of room for lake traffic and surfing, need to get out early to wakeboard on some glass. 4 sand bar hang outs. 30 min drive, our weekend choice.

460 acres is 10 minutes and our midweek choice, has 2 good runs for wakesurfing and 3 for wakeboarding. Gets congested on weekends making Watersports impossible.

250 acre is 4 minutes from my house, very deep, 4 boat max, one long wakesurf and wakeboard run, only issue is there is a nice public beach and I hate throwing surf side rollers into that beach swimming area drowning small kids. So after our wake surf run, I slowly tow my rider back to reset. This lake is a gem that nobody knows about. Last July 4th when all the other lakes were jam packed, we hit this lake all day with one other boat. It’s perfect.


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[2in2out]

My usual lake is 5 miles long, 3 wide at its widest point. Several narrow arms. We struggle to find acreage on the weekends. Luckily we can get out midweek. It’s a popular fishing lake, so that adds another dimension.

Problem with big lakes is usable water. Tahoe sucks after noon most days. Most of the smaller lakes are I sheltered and wind gets people concentrated in all coves.

[larry_arizona]

I agree, the bigger the lakes, the bigger the boats and dang they get rough in a hurry.

I dabble on parts of Lake Michigan and those can get huge chop in a hurry, but on calm days where we go is glorious. Watch the wind reports.

So many awesome lakes in Michigan but the big ones get rough.

Lake st Clair is a huge lake, not very deep, full of 40-50 cruisers chopping it up, would never even consider taking a wakeboat on it. 430 sq.MILES.


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