Beaver Lake, Arkansas

[Bill D]

Has anyone boated Beaver Lake, Arkansas? We are taking a family vacation to Bella Vista this summer and plan to bring the boat. It's about 30 min to Beaver, and about an hour to Chain-O-Lakes. Any suggestions are welcome. It looks like a beautiful area.

 

[LTM1964]

Beaver Lake is worth visiting. I have only boated on the east side where I think the water is probably deeper and clearer as it closer to the dam. It is very scenic. Hogscald hollow is a good place to raft-up to get out of the chop on the main channel. Monte Ne is interesting. War Eagle Caverns might be good. You should visit the town of Eureka Springs. I think boating on Beaver lake would be better than anything west of Chain-O-Lakes on Table Rock as it is more like a river.

 

[Wayloncle]

Beautiful area! I've never been on the water but my cousin has some property and house on the lake, and I'd love to run around on it with the boat!

 

[Bruce]

I lived in the area for a year but never made it onto the water.

@5MoreMin posted about lots of plans for Beaver Lake in 2014 https://jetboaters.net/threads/checking-in.465/#post-4621

 

[Venkman]

It's a great lake. I would definitely get a map of the lake, it is a huge lake, I have been on it many times and it is not hard to get turned around, especially if going very far down the lake. Most of the bigger points are numbered which helps a lot with navigation.

 

[Bill D]

Thanks @Venkman. I assume that most of the marinas will have a map available? We're looking at putting in at Prairie Creek Marina. During the same trip we're looking at hitting Grand Lake in OK too. My parents just bought a house on the river in Big Cabin. Have you spent any time on Grand?

 

[Venkman]

I have only been to the marinas near the dam and they were great with friendly people. One is lost bridge, I don't remember the other marina name.

I have spent a lot of time on Grand, before we started docking our boat full time at a different lake. It is the more social lake in the area, probably tied with texoma as the big party lakes in oklahoma.

It's probably the opposite of beaver lake instead respects, lots of traffic on the weekends, especially holiday weekends. There are a couple of coves with big boat raft ups, specifically party cove (that's the actual name) and dripping springs cove on the south side of the lake near disney. Grand has huge boats, it is not uncommon to see 50 foot yachts on the water or 90 mph cigar boars. As for launching a boat the facilities are not great especially when comparing corp of engineer lakes like beaver. There are two public ramps that I would go to and they are near towns named Langley and disney, the other public ramps are closer to gravel drives than actual boat ramps. All that being said it's a lot of fun with many restaurants and marinas and large areas, but if on a weekend keep eyes in the back of your head there are boats everywhere.