Fishing vs Kayaking Debate on North Lake Lanier

Every few weekends, Nita's Bait and Tackle on Clarks Bridge Road becomes a forum for frustration.

In May alone, Nita Pendell said, there were three Saturdays when boaters and anglers would drive to the boat ramp at the Lake Lanier Olympic Center only to find it closed due to rowing and canoe-kayak activities. Most then drive a half mile back to Nita and husband Charlie's bait store to air their complaints.

"Everybody that comes in here wants to talk about it," Pendell said. "They're aggravated. They go out there and come back by here and they're fussing about it."

A petition posted at the nearly five-year-old bait and tackle store has more than 200 signatures, along with a flier posted by residents who say they're "sick and tired" of the Clarks Bridge boat ramp closing on Saturdays, and sometimes Sundays, for paddling events.

In an attempt to find a solution, many plan to attend the Hall County Board of Commissioners meeting at 5 this afternoon at the Georgia Mountains Center.

The meeting's agenda does not include the issue, but residents usually are allowed to address the commission toward the end of the session.

The flyer asks residents to call North Hall Commissioner Steve Gailey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with worries, encouraging them to "take our park and boat ramp back from private organizations."

"Our tax dollars pay for the park," the flyer reads. "We pay tax on our boats, trailers and towing vehicles, not to mention property taxes on our homes and sales tax that maintain these parks."

Officials with the corps, which manages the lake, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Connie Hagler, executive director of the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club, said that people "participating (at the venue) pay tax dollars, too."

The upper arm of the Chattahoochee River off Clarks Bridge Road is a prime angling area.

For more than a decade, however, the site also has played host to some of the world's top rowing and paddling events.

A tourism magnet for Hall County, the 1996 Olympics venue offers programs to the community as well as a site for hundreds of visiting rowers looking to train.

Hagler said she's heard of no complaints and emphasized that the complex was intended to be a "shared" venue.

Nearby Laurel Park, a 136-acre site equipped with a boat ramp off Cleveland Highway, is another option when the Clarks Bridge ramp closes, she said.

"It's a really, really big lake," Hagler said. "There's room for everybody."

The Clarks Bridge boat ramp is closed to minimize lake traffic and because extra parking is needed for larger events, Hagler said.

Pendell's business feels the effects of the occasional ramp closure. The last two years have been especially difficult, she said, when the ramp has closed three and four Saturdays in a row.

"Anglers don't come out this way (when the ramp closes)," she said. "They go buy (supplies) at other places. Saturday is our biggest day."

A schedule of events posted at the venue shows the ramp has been closed five times since late March. Other shorter events don't indicate if the ramp will be closed, leaving Pendell and others in the dark.

Canoe and Kayak Club time trials are slated for Saturday from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Lower level events like this weekend's likely won't force the ramp to close, Hagler said.

"Father's Day weekend is usually a good weekend for us," Pendell said.

Last month, one of two employees at Nita's Bait and Tackle had to be sent home on a Saturday because business was so slow, Pendell said.

And in mid-May, some anglers put their boat in before daylight only to find they couldn't get back out because canoe and kayak events had begun, she said.

"That day, this place was full with everybody fussing," Pendell recalled.

Original article: http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20070614/localnews/179138.shtml

Bookmark

Email This