Anglers lament lack of parking at boat launches

Fishing charter captain Jon Bondy says he sometimes has to get up at 3 a.m. to get a good parking spot at the LaSalle Landing park on LaSalle's waterfront if he wants to launch his boat there.

He says the municipality does not have enough parking spots to accommodate all the hundreds of walleye anglers who descend on the area this time of year.

"If you go to Sandusky, Ohio, you go to Michigan and you look at their facilities, they're booming. There's plenty of parking and this county has done an extremely poor job at pushing tourism as far as fishing and hunting goes," said Bondy, who says visiting anglers boost the local economy by staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.

He believes the area needs to double its capacity to handle the demand.

Angler Bob DiPietro agrees weekends at the boat launch area in LaSalle can be hectic.

"There's only so many [parking] spots and it becomes really chaotic. A lot of frustration, a lot of anger at times," said DiPietro, just before launching his fishing boat on Thursday.

Bondy said all the municipalities in the area, including Lakeview Park Marina in Windsor are inadequate. He said he has tried to convince LaSalle to add parking to no avail.

"They have no money for additional parking, yet we're spending $9 million on a skating trail," said Bondy referring to a new development LaSalle is putting in at the park.

LaSalle Mayor Crystal Meloche said she understands the frustration but defends the skate trail as an amenity that benefits everyone. But she says there are no plans to add more parking.

"It's a seasonal issue," Meloche said.

"It happens early spring. We experience it for a few weeks and after that we don't have that issue. So for us to to really pave the entire waterfront of the town of LaSalle for a season doesn't make a lot of sense eitherr."

Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island CEO Gordon Orr wouldn't comment on the issue because he says he doesn't have enough information on the boat launch capacity.