Charlton Park

Posted hours are 8am to 7:30pm, and they mean it. If you're planning an early morning bass trip or a late summer evening run, you'll need to find another launch — the gate situation here doesn't give you much flexibility.

Only 16 trailer spots and none of them are striped — it's just grass and dirt, so people park however they feel like it. On weekends you might lose a couple usable spots to someone who angled their trailer sideways. Get there early on Saturdays or you're improvising.

Hang a right off the ramp and you're on the Thornapple River. Go left and you stay on the lake — that's where most of the fishing pressure is and where the bigger fish tend to be. Nice to have both options from one launch, especially if the river current is pulling hard in spring.

This sits inside Charlton Park, which is a full-on historic village and county park with grills, walking trails, swimming beach, and exhibits. Great if you're bringing the family and want to keep non-anglers entertained, but it also means random foot traffic near the ramp area during summer events. Midweek is noticeably quieter.

There's an aquatic species cleaning station right at the launch with scrub tools — one of the few inland lakes in Barry County that has this. Use it. Thornapple has enough issues without spreading hitchhikers between waterbodies.