Paint Lake Boat Launch

The parking area is all gravel with no marked spaces, so on busy weekends people park however they feel like it. With 45 trailers' worth of room it rarely fills, but the lack of defined spots means someone will inevitably angle their rig sideways and eat up extra space.

Paint Lake is not a big body of water, so when the speed boats and jet skis show up on summer weekends it gets chaotic fast. If you're kayaking or fishing from a small boat, weekday mornings are the move. Saturday afternoons in July can feel like a demolition derby.

This lake holds some genuinely big northern pike — fish in the 19- to 30-inch range are common, and there are bigger ones lurking. Work the steep drop-offs in 9 to 13 feet of water. The structure around those ledges is where the action is.

The road in from the main road is dirt but smooth and short — no issues getting a trailer through. Just know it can get a little soft after heavy rain. Nothing that'll stop you, but don't come screaming in with a low-clearance car towing a boat.

Water drops noticeably by late season — I've seen it down close to ten inches from normal. The ramp still works fine for small fishing boats, but if you're running anything with a deeper draft, check how shallow it's getting near the launch before backing in.