Boat Landing Stories

A popular subject on the fishing message boards right now is stories about what people have witnessed at the boat access.

Here are a few of my stories:

For myself:

Was putting in at the Platte Lake (Crow Wing County) access in the middle of the week so there was nobody around and I think it was early June. For some reason I put the rope line inside my topper instead of tying it to the trailer. I back the boat in kind of fast so the boat will clear the bunks as it comes off the trailer.

You guessed it. The rope went out to sea with the boat. Fortunately there was almost no wind and I quickly stripped down to my underwear and swam out to retrieve it. The boat was out about 120 feet by the time I got to it. Got in the boat, went back to the dock. Put my clothes back on and went out fishing.

Another time I was launching out of the NE access on Sullivan on a summer weekday morning. Either I forgot to secure the rope again or I didn't tie the boat to the dock well. Either way the boat wandered off aways. The water is fairly shallow and sandy there, so I had to wade out about 50 feet and up to my waist to get it.

Another time I was at Tonka Maxwell Bay access during the Holiday Crappie Contest and it was windy. Tied the boat to the dock and went to the car only to see the boat came untied and was heading out onto the lake. Of coarse being a busy landing on a busy day someone saw what was happening and immediately retrieved the boat and brought it back to the dock. Boy did I feel stupid.

Not involving me:
I was at the Casino access at Mille Lacs at about 11PM getting my boat ready to do some October night trolling. My boat was beached right next to the ramp. A boat was coming in to drop a guy off so he could get the truck. While I'm watching a guy steps on to the end of the corner of the dock with his left foot. Everything is OK until he goes to take a step on his right foot which he put down right onto nothing; he went straight down into the water all the way over his head. He shot right up and got on the dock. His buddies and myself got a pretty good laugh.

I was at the Maxwell Access on Tonka and a group was down on the ramp trying to launch their fishing boat when the trailer hitch detached from the ball and the front of the trailer went pretty much straight up about a foot into the air before the saftey chains caught. So there the trailer sat nose in the air with the only the saftey chains keepings it from rolling down the ramp into the water. It was wierd.