Boating on the Ohio River
 

I am looking for some info on boating on the Ohio River between Cincinnati & Louisville. Where do people go to raft up with other boaters, the party places etc

any info is a great help

We boat a lot in the Warsaw area near the Markland Dam. There is 2 marina there (Smugglers Cover and Pier 99). These marina's are located in a big back water which allows you to get off the main river and we tie off a lot with other boats to off the main channel. Smugglers also has a restaurant to eat at after a long day of boating.

Surely people don't swim there? Drive to Cumberland..........

Do you swim in Harmon, or the Falls?

We tend to go up across from Riverbend a lot to tie up

Spent a lot of time in the Ohio around Louisville. Been from Cincy to almost Paducah on both side of Mcalpine. The lower side is the best to overall just water ski, be with friends and float. swim down the river. The upper side is also good but you need to get a bit above 12 mile island. Just upstream from six mile island on the Indiana side is a huge barge operation. They dug a large place out to bring there barges in. After it was built pleasure craft started showing up on the weekends and they tried to keep them out filling law suits. To keep it short, they lost, so every weekend there can be 20 to 100 boats in there partying.

Further up from Louisville on the KY side is grassy flats, they park on the bank and this is another spot for parties

June 2016 my wife and I took my brother and his daughter and launched our 25' Eliminator Daytona on the Mississippi river just below Cairo, IL. We made the entire almost 1000 miles of the Ohio River to Pittsburgh, PA in 5 days. We especially like the area's between Cincinnati and Louisville. There are so many amazing places to beach and/or raft up all along the Ohio.

That sounds like it would be a pretty interesting story...quite an adventure and a trip to do in 5 days.

I was wondering if people still went there.

Like Cabana said a lot boats raft up across the river from Riverbend/Coney Island. The water is a bit cleaner there, not clearer just cleaner. Not many performance boats but just about everything will be out there. About half way from there to New Richmond a lot of big cruisers raft up.

The river only gets clear when it stops moving. About every year the EPA does a study and list the cleanliness of the waters in a 50 mile radius around Louisville. For the last several years of seeing it before I left was the Ohio was the cleanness, the worst was Talyorsville lake. The folks look at the river and see brown, that's just silt (dirt). When the rain stops and the current slows down the dirt falls to the bottom and you can see clear as a bell down 20 feet thru the river

Take many pictures?

No, but I fill up my fresh water holding tank from there.......

There is a "cove" that has been quarried out about 22 miles upriver from Louisville (about 3 miles upriver from Westport, KY on the Indiana side). It's a great place to raft up because it is out of the current/wake of the channel and is HUGE. The bank/beach is soft too, if you're inclined to pull up there to let kids play/dogs run, etc. On any given summer weekend day, there may be up to 75-100 boats. Don't let the naysayers discourage you, the river is a great place to boat and, yes, swim. Both of these pics were in "the cove".[ATTACH=CONFIG]564084[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]564085[/ATTACH]

Thanks for all the information, wife and I are thinking about moving our cruiser and our black thunder from one of the inland lakes in Indiana to the ohio,