Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Nuts at the boat ramp

I have no troubles what so ever backing up a boat trailer, snowmobile trailer, dump trailer, etc. but if you give me a 4 wheel hay wagon and ask me to back it up I will be there all day!

We have had small power boats (16-22 ft) for the better part of 30 years. To this day, my wife is in the boat, can pull off and on with minimal guidance and I am the driver. With only lake traffic, the wind and waves are some impact, but she is pretty good. I laugh (well scream) all the time when we see folks that cannot spin the trailer correctly, load or unload without multiple issues or, wait until the are at the water to tie up the ramp completely while they remove straps, put plug in and get ready to launch. Boat launch entertainment is a favorite when I'm not in a hurry.

Keep one of my boats in a lift at a marina for 20 years. The boat ramp was the entertainment after a mornings fishing.
It got so bad the owner of the marina told us to stop watching and laughing. It was costing him business.
The marina also had an overhead crane to lift boats and set them in the water. The blacks always used the lift.
Hasbeen

The chit show I watch him and Fred the gator

I thought I was pretty damn special in terms of getting the boat on the trailer. That was a boat with an outdrive. Then I got a boat with a jet. That adds a whole new level of complexity. When you cut the throttle, there is no skeg in the water to keep you straight, so any puff of wind or current sends you sideways. Now I keep the trailer a little high and come in a little hot. That takes a lot of practice to get right. I'm sure my first few attempts were painful to watch.

Yep, 30 years ago(teenager) I read an article on stock trailers, how to pull, back-up, etc..


The thing I remember most.


Turn the bottom of the steering wheel the direction you want to trailer to go. Incredibly simple yet very handy advice!


It's been 20 years but boat ramps are a piece of cake.


Backing up stock trailers or bale processors in the mud or snow can get a little tricky. Hardest of all is backing a short hitched home made irrigation pump down towards the river on sandy landing and having to be within a couple inches to get the fixed discharge pipes lined up to the buried pipeline. That is tough. But just remember, don't be afraid to pull ahead, straighten out and get control of your 'aim' rather than try and fight it.

So when do we see some of your great photographs again. Like on the river with a beer or fish?

Jag, I need to get a new camera, not a fan of the smart phone!

If you want to see or experience ‘nuts’ try running a kicker motor in the ocean bay, at the jaws of a jetty, during salmon season.

It’s absolutely combat fishing, trying to troll and fish. Then when a boat hooks into a fish, if people aren’t paying close attention, you have cut lines, tangled lines, boats trading paint, dudes yelling at other boats to pay attention or move out of the way. It’s a hoot!

You’ll never be more tired after running a trolling motor for 7-8 hours salmon fishing the jaws.

🦫

Sam, I get kidded about my pictures, but it's me not the camera. I carry a Panasonic DMC CE1731. It fits nicely in my shirt pocket.

Ex big rig and cement mixer driver here, so I can back up anything with minimal fuss.

But backing up my boat with a quad runner humbled me.

The guy taking video at the boat launch in the OP thread could have a field day here. The last weekend in April is our Walleye Festival to celebrate opening day. The boat launches are lined up well before midnight with guys waiting to be the first one in the river at 12a Saturday morning. An absolute zoo complete with the DNR parked to the side looking for violators.

That's why the good lord equipped tractors with separate wheel brakes. Otherwise, yep, darn near impossible for any distance at all.

Backing the truck in under the camper is a whole different ball game. It needs to be absolutely straight, and it has about 2 inches clearance to each wheel well. There are a couple bumpers up front that the camper has to fit between - with pretty much zero clearance - maybe 1/16" or so on each side, if centered. Fortunately they are a little tapered on the nose. That helps. It's taken me over an hour sometimes to get that SOB just right- Ram 3500 club cab with 8' bed. Once, just once, in the last 17 years I nailed it on the first try.

I swear someday I'm going to lay out some sunken concrete wheel grooves or some such. If all 4 wheels are in the groove when I drop the camper, it should work the same way putting it back on, right?

As a teen, doing it all the time, I got pretty good at that, even with two hay wagons- a LOT trickier! Now, I muchly doubt it.

Practice, practice, practice makes one good.... It's us guys that launch boats about 3 times a year .......

And by the way, that "it's closer than it looks" mirror is no prize when backing up either.

I can drive just about anything, minus a boat lol. Ive tried. Im not good

Boats ramps are a piece of cake when you grow up backing up bottom dump almond carts over the conveyer.
Just to up the level of difficulty, one would have Dad and Grandpa watching ready to rip your azz if you screwed up.
Yeah, boat ramps aren't anything to get stressed about.

For a lot of years I was on the water from ice-out to freeze up, 3 to 5 days a week. As well, I was frequently hauling quads, farm equipment or horses somewhere. I would rate myself as better than average at hauling a trailer. I've always made it a point to have the boat ready to go when I back down the ramp. Also, if someone is with me, before I back down to the ramp I tell them to get out of the vehicle and stand on the dock: if something goes wrong, I don't want to worry about someone being in the damn truck. I also make it a point to tell them I don't want any help. I do this alone all the time, I have my ways of doing something, someone "helping" would just get in my way. I back in until the boat is floating, step from the bed of the truck into the boat, and start the motor before I unhook the boat from the trailer. That way if, for some reason, it doesn't start (never had it happen yet) I don't have a dead boat to get back on the trailer and off the ramp. Motor starts, go forward, lean over the bow, let it loose, unhook and move the boat over to the dock. Look the springline over a cleat, go up to the truck, pull the trailer out park the truck and trailer, back to the boat and I'm off.

I realize a lot of people only launch a boat infrequently. Up home, a lot of people went to the boat ramp in the spring, put their boat in, took it to their dock/boathoiuse/boat lift at home or their summer place, and took it out again in the fall. Other people launch a boat once every two or three weeks in the summer. You can't expect those people to have it figured out like some of us do. I started working at my wife's grandfather's marina when I was 16. I learned to tie up a boat from an old bootlegger we used to duck hunt with so, "..when they're right behind you, you give it a yank here, and you're gone!" RIP Harold.

I'm thinking some of those people who struggle so with boat trailers can probably do a few things better than I can.

We used to goto the boat launch to watch the drunks try to launch their pickups trying to load their boat. Saw one lean out the door so far he fell out. Only hit one car and boat. His pickup had alittle of the front of the hood above water. Entertaining.

That is something I have never seen!



I'll take notes when you back up....lol



Those are bush whacker tractors and the tires are something else as well.