As it is for most of the year, the Mud Creek boat ramp is high and dry above the water and unusable. The ramp's limited usefulness and the trees that clog its path to the Kansas River a quarter mile downstream prompted the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department to announce its closing last month, disappoint catfish fishermen who use it during periods spring rains make it possible to launch boats from the ramp.

For as many as 11 months a year, the now-closed Mud Creek boat ramp is high and dry from the stream for which it is named.

The creek’s slowing trickling water, discolored from heavy bank erosion and biological materials from the trees that have collapsed into the swallow stream, is now 2 to 3 feet below the ramp’s lip. Only when spring rains raise the level of the Kansas River is the city-owned boat ramp usable.

But those days too are gone as the city last month decided to close for good the ramp near the northeastern terminus of the Lawrence Levee Trail off Alexander Road..

The Kansas River advocacy group Friends of the Kaw advises those looking for canoe or kayak access to the Kansas River east of Bowersock Dam to make use of the Eighth Street boat ramp about 4 miles upstream to the west, said Dawn Buehler, Kansas Riverkeeper for Friends of the Kaw.

“Most of the year at the Mud Creek ramp, it’s complete portage with a canoe or kayak to the river,” she said. “For 11 months out of the year, Mud Creek isn’t usable.”

But when the ramp is usable, it is a fishing haven, many say. The spring rains that allow canoes, kayaks and boats to be launched from the ramp also bring visiting catfish that make the Mud Creek ramp desirable for a group of local sportsmen.

“That’s when you catch the big flatheads and big blues,” said Michael Coffman, of Lawrence. “They come up with the high water from the Missouri River to spawn.”

He and other fishermen catch flathead catfish weighing as much as 75 pounds and blue catfish up to 60 pounds on lines they set along the banks of Mud Creek and the river, he said.

“We catch a lot of blues running between 35 and 50 pounds,” he said. “They are coming back really strong.”

Coffman fears the Lawrence Park and Recreation Department’s decision last month to close the Mud Creek boat ramp will prevent him and other line runners from catching the trophy fish each spring.

“They are telling us to use the Eighth Street boat ramp, but that’s 4 miles from Mud Creek where the big flatheads and blues are,” he said. “My family has been fishing that river since the 1940s. We got on the river from Mud Creek even before they put in the boat ramp.”

Ernie Shaw, director of Lawrence Parks and Recreation, said a decision was made this winter to close the boat ramp because of the difficulties of maintaining it, the department’s inability to keep the Mud Creek channel from the ramp to the river cleared of trees and its limited use.

The city has issued 250 keys to a gate blocking access off to the boat ramp area, Shaw said. That’s not too many from the city’s view, he said, considering many of those were given to mushroom hunters and those fishing off Mud Creek or the Kansas River’s banks.

It was ongoing problems with the ramp’s maintenance and condition of the Mud Creek channel downstream that led parks and recreation to close the ramp, Shaw said. The city had to replace rip rap on the ramp’s northern upstream slope when it washed away during 2008 and 2011 flood years and even now the department is taking steps to protect the area from further erosion of the slope, he said. A bigger concern is trees felled by erosion of Mud Creek’s banks that clog the waterway downstream from the ramp.

“That’s the main problem,” Shaw said. “It got to the point we just couldn’t do it. We don’t have the equipment to clear out the trees and don’t have access from property owners to get to in some areas. The last time we had to have the fire department use their rescue boat to cut the trees with a chainsaw. We’ve had reports of people using the ramp taking chainsaws to clear their way. That doesn’t seem like a very safe situation.”

Nonetheless, Shaw said he was mindful of the asset the ramp represented to the line-setting fishermen.

“That’s what made the decision so difficult,” he said. “We have the Eighth Street boat ramp. That was the deciding factor. There’s still access to the Mud Creek to those willing to fight their way back there.”

A concern of some of the fishermen was they don’t have boat motors powerful enough to make the return trip against the Kansas River’s current to the Eighth Street ramp, Shaw said.

That was true in his case, Coffman said.

“I’m handicapped,” he said. “My shoulders and hips are gone. I’ve got a small boat, and that’s the only place I can fish. If they keep that ramp closed, all I’m going to do is sit on the couch and watch TV.”

Buehler said she hoped the city could find a compromise that would allow the fishermen access during high water.

“We are always for compromise that allows access to the river, but we leave it up to the city to determine if that ramp is usable,” she said.