Fair Haven Beach State Park

Fair Haven Beach sits on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Cayuga County, on the narrow neck of land separating the open lake from Little Sodus Bay. That geography is the whole appeal. Walk one direction and you are on a natural sand beach facing 150 miles of open water. Walk the other and you are on a sheltered bay with a boat launch and marinas.

The park runs to roughly 800 acres of beach, bluff, woodland and campground, and it has been a state park since the 1930s.

The beach

Wide, sandy, and long, with a designated swimming area that is guarded during the posted summer season — usually late June through Labor Day, with hours posted at the beach. Outside those hours and outside that season, swimming is at your own risk and the park says so.

Lake Ontario is the deepest lake on the chain after Superior and Michigan, and the south shore water is cold into June. Surface temperature typically reaches the upper 60s to low 70s Fahrenheit by August in a normal year. A north wind blowing across the lake can pull cold water up and take 15 degrees off in a day.

Rip currents. Ontario’s south shore does not get the constant attention that Lake Michigan’s east shore does, but the physics are identical: onshore wind pushes water up the beach, the water finds a low spot in the sandbar, and it drains back out in a narrow, fast channel. Where there are piers or jetties — including the Little Sodus Bay channel entrance just west of the park — the current sets up hard along the structure and runs straight offshore.

Two things worth memorizing. Do not swim beside a pier or jetty. And if you are caught in a current pulling you out, swim parallel to the shore rather than fighting straight back in; the channels are narrow and you will be out of it in a short distance.

Do not swim outside the guarded area when a red flag is flying or when the surf is standing up. Every Great Lake takes swimmers every summer, and it is almost always in unguarded water on a windy day.

The rest of the park

Behind the beach the ground rises into bluffs with a trail system running the top — a few miles of walking through hardwood and old field with lake views from the edge. There is a small pond and marsh at the back of the park that is good for birds in migration.

Camping runs to around 200 sites plus cabins, reserved through the New York state system. Summer weekends and the whole of July book out early.

The fishing

Little Sodus Bay and the state launch are the reason a lot of people come. The bay is a genuine harbor of refuge on a long, exposed stretch of shore, and it is the closest access to the offshore salmon and trout fishery for anyone coming from Syracuse or the Finger Lakes.

Chinook and coho salmon, brown trout, steelhead and lake trout are the offshore quarry, worked with downriggers and dipsies out over the deep water. Browns run close to shore in spring and again in fall. Inside the bay, largemouth and smallmouth bass, northern pike, walleye and panfish hold to the weed edges and the channel.

NYSDEC sets seasons, sizes and limits and they change annually — including specific Lake Ontario and tributary rules. Check the current regulations before you keep a fish.

Before you turn up

Vehicle entry fee is charged in season at the contact station; Empire Pass is honored. The beach lot fills on hot weekends.

Weather off open water changes fast here and there is no shelter on the sand. Watch the western horizon in the afternoon in July and August; thunderstorms come across the lake with very little warning.