Small Oregon Lakes

E

easy does it

Member
We are thinking of moving to Redmond Oregon (near Bend) with Pura Vida in tow. Since we have our kayaks and SUP on board as standard equipment we would love to spend the night on some of the small Oregon lakes. Of course I don’t know if this is allowed (spending the night on the lake) and/or worth the stink eye from fisherman and kayakers. Has any one ever had their 22 cruiser on say Sparks Lake? Waldo Lake? Elk lake? Paulina lake? Little lava lake? Little cultus lake? These are beautiful lakes some with stunning views of mt bachelor.
 
Not sure about the others, but Waldo Lake is non-motorized only. Cultus Lake (not Little Cultus, which is nearby) is a great spot for motorized boats, but we just found that all cabins are booked for months. Camping spots will be busy as well, but I didn't ask about those. Paulina is a gorgeous spot, but again, people are booking stuff.
 
we're packing up and moving to Bend his summer and I'm looking forward to also using the C-D as a kayak base camp. I just looked at the regulations for Sparks. They allow motorized boats and have a 10 mph speed limit, the problem is it's strictly a day use area so a person may be out of luck parking the tow rig.
I aim to torment some bass on Lake Billy Chinook, Prineville Res, Ochoco Res and the awsome Owhyee Res.
So many lakes, so little time

Good luck on the move
 
Waldo lake allows motors according to the forest service. Thanks for pointing that out about day use areas, that would be very rare though. I don’t mind keeping sparks and hosmer (elec. motors only) for kayaking and SUP in fact really it should stay that way. It seems motor boats and fishing and alcohol always end up getting somebody pissed off so they draw the line with the motors. Your right, there are a lot of lakes. I want to stay on my boat not in a cabin so that is not an issue. Lots of camping spots are reservable and some like prineville and lake Billy they have docks at the campgrounds ...way cool. We are making the move in the fall with the entire month of September on lake powell
 
easy does it":rab0ii74 said:
Waldo lake allows motors
Click to expand...
Yes, I checked and you are correct, but... electric trolling motors only and you must stay under 10 mph. This is fairly recent as I was there less than 40 years ago and at that time no motors at all were allowed. The times they are a changin' ;)
 
wow, a month on lake powell ,way cool. I hope you have a place to stay squared away in Redmond. Central OR real estate is crazy.

I think Waldo lake is limited to electric motors and 10 mph speed limit.

the fishing crowd around these parts are pretty well behaved...the splash and giggle crowd with the loud boom, boom music...that's another story
 
Lake Powell Camping is limited to 14 consecutive days and no more than 30 days total in the park in any calendar year. I have seen people get permission from the rangers to stay longer.
 
For most of the Central Oregon lakes, you can stand at almost any spot on shore and survey most of the rest of the lake. For me, that just wasn't interesting enough to launch a C-Dory, but I have launched my canoe at most of them multiple times. They do have beautiful mountain views from most of them though.

It has been years so I yield to the Brats who have current info.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Thank you all for your input! It is time to slow down and/or give it up and that is so hard as you know. So for us at 76 and recent bypass we are looking for options to enjoy the lifestyle we have come to cherish. Yes small Oregon lakes would not interest a lot of you but we have a great setup with kayaks and SUP and my system has made it really easy to load and unload them. There are always little streams you can head into for a while, very exciting to head upstream toward the source-Mt Bachelor on your SUP and not worry about Grizzly bears like at Jackson Lake. To wake up on the water looking at the green shoreline or a snow covered Mt peak is worth the effort. The water is so clean and pure..hard to find anymore. It might interest you to know we have a Honda 50 as original equip onboard so we are a little weird to begin with and not in any hurry to go anywhere. At this point I am more interested in the custom memory foam mattress than more horsepower. Ha
 
For a stunning mountain view, Try Trillium Lake at the foot of Mt Hood.

Be careful on the outflow on Hosmer. It's a oneway water tunnel. A good reason for all the drift logs blocking that trip.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

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Interesting Story. When I went in to the Marines in 87 camping in the sierras was easy. All campgrounds were first come first serve and as we lived in the foothills we always got there first and no problems. I almost never saw a full camp ground even on saturday morning. Move forward 8 years and things changed. While I was gone most of the camp grounds went to a online reservation system for half or more of the spaces, later for all the spaces. Few people I knew even had dial up or a computer at the time. WEll all the flatlander did and would log on on january 1st and book all the spots in advance. We spent one whole friday going to 4 lake ans 10 camp grounds looking for a open spot just to find " reserved " signs on empty camp grounds. Some people got there late or reserved the spot for thursday and friday but not show up until saturday. So the people that drove there had not place to stay but there were empty camp grounds. WE can argue about the pros and cons of the unfair system that benefited the wealthy among us or How it benefited the prepared among us. Good arguments both for and against. Point here is that it opened a new type of camping that lead later to use loving our cdory, which would not come until years later. We ,and many others , started boat camping. WE always tied up our boats behind or near the camp grounds, nothing new about that. But now we started to camp on the back of the lakes. Some places it was legal or not illegal and some places it was down right piracy. But some of our best times where camped on shore on the back of a lake in the mountains with the boat tied up. If it was just me fishing in my 16 open starcraft I would just fish until evening and then anchor and sleep on the deck. My god the views were great.
 
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