Five Lakes Surf Club

Five Lakes Surf Club Documenting and preserving the culture of surfing on all five of the Great Lakes.

New hats fer yer headCotton and polyester versions with our flag logo embroidered Link to website in bio Low inventory -...
06/12/2026

New hats fer yer head

Cotton and polyester versions with our flag logo embroidered

Link to website in bio

Low inventory - will restock if the people demand

Localism. You thought we’d never bring it up.It’s an important conversation, and the culture of it is formed by the comm...
06/10/2026

Localism. You thought we’d never bring it up.

It’s an important conversation, and the culture of it is formed by the community.

Some spots are dangerous and unsafe for the uninitiated. Some are on a permission bases on private property and risk extinction if not respected. Some are metros, crowded beach towns, and some are just a plain secret.

Disclaimer: at Five Lakes, we do our best to protect spots by keeping secret, sacred, or endangered locations obscured. We aren’t perfect, and we’ve messed up, but we do our best.

A few clarifying questions:
- Does anyone own the water?
- What is a local?
- Should we keep secrets?
- Is ettiquette important?

To start, unless it’s your waterfront property, you likely don’t own the access and certainly not the actual water.

Do you need to be born in the location of a key spot? Lived there for 10+ years? 50? Surf regularly? Once a week? Every swell? Did you need to discover it? This gets muddy fast.

As for secrets, you shouldn’t blow up a spot or give free passes to just anyone. But if someone finds a “hidden” spot (or even a popular one for that matter) on their own, does the research, shows up, paddles out, and practices good etiquette . . . then they are the type of person who has earned the “right” to surf that spot.

For those who show up with a bad attitude and poor etiquette, well, everyone has bad days. You can always try having a conversation. Some people are just like that. Try some of the other 10,210 miles of shoreline in the Great Lakes.

We wholeheartedly believe in the joy of discovery and secrets. The sheer vastness and mystery of all the unexplored points, coves and beaches around the lakes is in large part what makes surfing so fun.

As for etiquette, it’s important. Knowing the ins and outs of surf “rules” keeps people safe and the sport fair. That being said, take that party wave with the regulars, cut off your buddies now and again, and give your local longboard elders the waves they’ve been patiently waiting for.

But telling someone they don’t belong because they aren’t local (whatever that means), is not the way we do things on the Great Lakes.

Intro video courtesy of

06/05/2026

Only in the Midwest

What state/province is most likely to crack open a cold one on a wave?

What surf wisdom do you live by?A guru once told me to never catch the first wave of a set.
06/02/2026

What surf wisdom do you live by?

A guru once told me to never catch the first wave of a set.

Big ol block of cheese in the Chicago sky
06/01/2026

Big ol block of cheese in the Chicago sky

Name one person you’d sacrifice to the lake gods for a day like thisDon’t know photo credit, let me know and I’ll tag.
05/28/2026

Name one person you’d sacrifice to the lake gods for a day like this

Don’t know photo credit, let me know and I’ll tag.

Lake Erie may have frozen solid in the winter, but at least she’s 95F now, and all the two-headed fish are out of hibern...
05/26/2026

Lake Erie may have frozen solid in the winter, but at least she’s 95F now, and all the two-headed fish are out of hibernation.

Weekend wave shots by Rose, Anders, and last one by

Recent spring photos from the SToNeY PoiNT surf spot FB page (a self-proclaimed religious organization)Photo 1, 3: Matth...
05/20/2026

Recent spring photos from the SToNeY PoiNT surf spot FB page (a self-proclaimed religious organization)

Photo 1, 3: Matthew Pastick
Photo 2: Tom Rawlyk
Video: Brendan Pham

Milwaukee leftovers for lunch. Read our most recent surf town on our page!
05/18/2026

Milwaukee leftovers for lunch.

Read our most recent surf town on our page!

Northbound toward the Dairyland mecca, Chicago surfers pass it by. And why would a Sheboygan surfer leave their slice of...
05/17/2026

Northbound toward the Dairyland mecca, Chicago surfers pass it by. And why would a Sheboygan surfer leave their slice of heaven? This overlooking of Milwaukee leaves their various breaks mostly empty. A crowd in MKE is only about a dozen, and that’s a dozen on a first name basis.

It is a city of contrasts. Passcode-protected communities butt up against struggling ones. Chain link fences divide industry from bike paths. It’s a constructed metropolis on the shores of an untameable sea. Nearly 600,000 people live here. Yet only a few dozen surf year-round.

Wave riders have found a home in MKE through the generations, with elders Ric L, Joe Medrow, and Snake and Todd Fillingham paving the way in the days of weather radios and beavertail wetsuits. Eric Gietzen, Ken Cole, Ryan Bigelow and John Altmann held it down in the 90’s and 00’s and can still be found in the lineup. Today, the locals congregate through their local Surfrider chapter.

Zoe, current vice chair of the chapter, is a graphic designer and one of the city’s few female surfers. She says the lake is another world. Only a hundred yards away from the stacks and towers and highways, she finds herself removed from the noise without even leaving the city.

Before any surf shop, the community was disjointed and underground. Andrew Wallus didn’t know of any other shortboarders until he met Rusty Malkemes and Adam Kuhnen. After a few years, a small crowd interested in similar riding styles had formed. The Brat Boys etched their own shortboard scene in MKE.

In the following years, Jake and Alaina Bresette tied everyone together through Lake Effect Surf Shop, where they supplied gear, hosted live music, and formed a gathering place. Sadly, their doors are closed after a decade of serving the community. Tamir, the local shaper, has stepped in to fill the void, supplying surf wax and steady ding repair courtesy of the city’s various cobblestone, rebar, and concrete hazards.

Some call it “Brew City.” Some call it Smallwaukee. If you decide not to skip it over on your drive, you’ll probably find yourself on the other end of a session sharing a local beer in the parking lot.

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Great Lakes, IL

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