Saltwater and freshwater ramps: what changes
The same trailer that lasts twenty years on a lake will not last five in a bay.
6,089
4,858 fresh (lake, river, reservoir, impoundment) and 1,231 salt, brackish or tidal
Where the field is published, 20% of ramps launch onto salt or brackish water. The field is absent for most of the atlas, so use the water body name on the ramp page as the practical guide.
What actually differs
- Range. A tidal ramp has a working window; a lake ramp has a season. Both can leave you dry, on very different timescales.
- Growth. Salt ramps grow weed and barnacle on the submerged third, and the transition line is where people fall.
- Corrosion. Brakes, bearings, wiring and the trailer frame all go first. Rinse the trailer, not just the boat, and do it before the drive home if there is a hose at the ramp.
- Bottom. Salt ramps are more often sand or a soft toe; fresh ramps more often concrete slab to depth.
- Regulation. Saltwater licences, size limits and species rules are usually administered separately from freshwater ones, sometimes by a different agency than the one that owns the ramp.
Figures on this page are counted from the agency records behind this site each time it is built, and every count states the population it was computed over. See the sources.