Funny (sad) launch stories

[G_man]

Witnessed two 'moments' on Sat.

1. Guy (assume truck/boat owner) backed the trailer in to retrieve the boat. He went back to the boat to drive it on the trailer. His buddy directed him on and secured the strap/winch and then went to drive the boat out of the launch. Didn't notice (or think) the owner had set the emergency brake. Kept giving it and was 'inching' up the incline, musta thought he was having problems cuz he kept giving it. The noise was so loud, the owner couldn't be heard over the racket yelling at this buddy. Owner jumped out of the boat into about 2' of water and ran up to the truck to stop his buddy. He wasn't happy!

2. Better yet, another guy was launching a nearly new Lund that was very nice. Least a $20k boat. He's in the boat and his buddy backs him in. They musta already released the winch clicker and safety chain. Forgot to unhook the strap though. Buddy back him in and floats the boat. Guy throttles the motor more than he needed to and at the end of the strap -- WHAM! -- Strap holds and snaps the boat back forward and he gets it wedged on the trailer at about a 60 degree angle to where its supposed to be. Almost nailed the guy next to him.

As always on the opener, "Don't be that guy", but that guy can be fun to watch!

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Life is too short to not go fishing today!

[big_fish_guy]

not a launch story, but it's something they should have done at the launch and not once they were out in the middle of the lake. Some older gentleman was trying to get their 7.5 horse kicker put on the transom. funny as he11 watching him struggle to get it on there while bobbing up and down in the waves. He did get it on I think, and not drop it in the lake... I'm not sure, lost sight of him as he drifted by.
Next time, put your kicker motor on while the boat is on the trailer, it's much easier.

[Aquaman01]

Fortunately I can learn from OTHER people's mistakes!

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[Blaze]

$40K diesel crew cab Ford + $35K Lund Boat + Ignorance = Good Entertainment.

2 years ago I watched as a a guy DROPPED his 2150 Baron Magnum Tyee (loaded to the hilt with every darn accessory) on the boat ramp at Gull Lk. I honestly don't think the boat had ever seen the water before - brand spankin' new. Like was mentioned above, he or his buddy unhooked the strap at the top of the ramp and his buddy held a "noodle-line" (which I wouldn't trust as a STRINGER) waiting for him to back it into the lake. He hit the brakes coming down the slope and away went the Lund. Darn near filled my pants at the sound of that thing hitting the ground.

Best Part:
Half the boat is on the trailer, half is on the ground. Transom is 10-12' from the water. The guy starts pulling FORWARD thinking they'll just push it in the water from there (that would've been fun to watch). I ran up the dock screaming for him to stop and use the strap to crank it back on the trailer and launch it right. He got out, scratched his head, and said 'Yeah - what the hell. Sounds like an idea.'

What was this guy thinking?!?!?

[Tonka Boy]

It's not so funny because it happened to me, once...

I got the boat ready to launch. While I was unhooking the rear straps, my buddy unhooked the winch/chain (he always does because he has a bass boat with wood planks). I didn't notice. He went to back me in...and I rolled off the trailer onto the launch. Fortunately my motor was up so it didn't do more then dent the bottom of the boat. But was I [PoorWordUsage]ED! What can you do though?

I did what any normal fisherman would do...shook it off and went fishing!

[Guest]

I watched 5 ladies in their 50's try to launch their brand new jet boat at URL last summer. I was docking my boat to load out when they started to back the boat in. To complicate things even more, their truck was a stick shift. After several tries they get it into the water. As I am waiting with my trailer backed half way down, for them to get unloaded, they pull out of the water and my wife waved me back to help them. They had forgotten to unhook the straps on the back of the boat and couldn't push it off. When I got back there they had the straps off, and just started to back down the ramp again. They had the crank on freespool and the saftey chain off, so the boat rolled off the trailer and onto the cement, and it ended up in the water luckily. As they were starting to get in they were arguing over who was going sit where because one of them stepped on a seat getting in and no one wanted to sit on it.

[Guest]

I've heard a rumor several times that there is a retirement home near a boat ramp somewhere in Minnesota. The rumor has it that the old men of the retirement home go out with scorecards, sit in lawnchairs, and heckle the fishermen who are backing in/taking out their boats.

I've also heard of another place where there's a diver on staff at a local mechanics that is right across from the boat ramp of a lake with a steep boat ramp with a nasty drop off a ways out. So, when people forget to set their parking brake and the whole rig slides into 70' of water, the next guy the see is someone in dive gear driving a tow truck.

No idea if these stories are true...but either way, they're entertaining.

[Guest]

Also, a couple of years ago I saw a guy who was trying to get his boat on the trailer straight on Lake Sallie. He'd back it in, straighten it out, and then haul it back up, only to have it get crooked every time.

Of course, THAT was because the guy still had his motor down and the skeg was hitting every concrete slab on the boat ramp. I tried to talk to him but he was too mad and didn't want help. I don't think he knows how much a lower unit costs...

It was odd though - normally you'd expect this from one of the young guys like me (I freely admit I've made a ton of mistakes with my boat). But this guy was older - retirement age at least.

[Renneberg]

Last year on Minnetonka we watched as a guy backed up his big crusier boat. About half way down the boat started sliding off the trailer.

I guess he unhooked the boat before he but it in the water. It was laying on the ground about half way down the access. We figured that if he's dumb enofe to unhook it before he put it in the water then he would be dumb enofe to distroy the bottom of the boat by pushing the boat in the water instead of trying to put it on the trailer.

Sure enofe he pushed the boat in the water with his trailer.

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"Study to be quite"

[hydro]

Tis the time of year!!!

I have spent many an afternoon on the Mississippi at the Hidden Falls landing in St. Paul, just downstream from the Ford dam, watching the circus.

Combine the spring lack of practice, inexperienced metropolitan yahoos, and a steep ramp leading to a 4 mph current and you have hours of reliable entertainment on a saturday afternoon.

If you live in the metro area check it out some weekend. As an added bonus, the fishing is good on that stretch of the river.

[wastewaterguru]

Downriver. You want to be approaching your trailer from the downstream side. Make sure you know which way is downstream.......for example at the Lillydale ramp, the main river current is South, but the current in front of the ramp is going north because you're in an eddy.

[This message has been edited by wastewaterguru (edited 05-15-2003).]

[Aquaman01]

Thanks!

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[wmn luv me walleye fearme]

I got a decent one that happened to me.
About 2 years ago I was on pulaski in a 67 fibergalss chrysler with a 45 horse motor on it (original motor with the boat), launch went fine, my buddy picked me up at the dock and the motor shut off, we pushed off the dock i fired up the motor (turns out there was a fuel leak) so it shot the motor cover about 10 feet in the air when it exploded, i had no fire extinguisher since it was a 14 foot boat (bad call) the engine was on fire and i quickly unplugged the gas can. At this point i then dumped my minnow bucket full of water on the gas fire (doesnt do much ) then panicked and jumped off the boat and waited it out till the fire died down. The whole time there was a guy trolling about 20 yards next to us, he never even stopped, or gave a yell to see if everything was alright he just kept trolling, we decided to fish anyway and trolled all the way across the lake, the day would have been a complete loss if it hadn;t been for the 5 keepers we caught.

[mrwalleyee]

Here's my story. A few years ago I borrowed my dads 1650 rebel and headed up to my inlaws lake cabin by Nisswa. The plan was to head over to Gull the next morning and fish. I woke up early so I hooked up the trailer up to my brother in laws 1 year old blazer and got the boat ready. We launched the boat at the 371 landing and fished most of the morning. Caught some eaters on the bowtie and headed back. He backed the truck in so that I could run the boat up on the trailer. I eased onto the first rollers and then gave it the gas to run it up to the front. Problem was that I had not gotten the hitch on the ball correctly and up went the hitch into the air, and of coarse since the throttle was reved up so high I pushed the hitch right into the tailgate of his blazer and left a huge dent. Just when you think things couldn't get much worse, they probably will. And they did. I backed the boat off and they hooked it up properly. I believe it was the beginning of Nov. and the docks had already been pulled. We tried again. This time I only ran the boat onto the first coulple of rollers and then climbed out, hooked up the rope, and did the balancing act up to the winch. I managed NOT to fall in and started winching. The boat was 3/4 of the way on the trailer and the rope snapped. Down the trailer she slid and there was nothing we could do but watch as it started to slowly drift away due to the off shore breeze. I imagine normally this isn't a problem because people are coming and going all the time. But we were the only boat at the landing. I striped down to my polk a dot boxers and swam after it as fast as I could. It was probably only 25 yrds off of shore so it wasn't to bad. We finally got her trailered and I got dressed. No one said a word to me the whole way back to the cabin. All they could do was laugh. ON my next birthday they gave me a blow up picture of me standing next to the boat in my boxers, soaking wet with purple lips. I'm sure that I gave some of those cabin owners a good laugh.

[widetrack]

I've launched my boat thousands of times...with no problems...

Late last fall end of October while late fall fishing for muskies...

had the boat in the lake all week... kept getting colder towards the end of the week to the point i was worried about freezing the boat in the lake, so I get the bright idea to pull the boat out overnight and see what the morning brings...

morning... cold...
back boat down the ramp... can't beleive my eyes, the trailer is jack knifing in the water... darn boat was frozen to the carpeted bunks... and was literally floating the trailer up with the boat...

tried for an hour everything i could think of to get if off... finally pulled it out and went for a nice fast rough ride down a gravel road... that loosened her up...

wasted 1/2 the day... should have left her in... I wasn't too happy that morning... blue smoke was in the air.

Later that day I heard the same sorry tale from a friend of mine... after 3 attempts he wised up and packed it in for the year...

Froze my butt off that day...

[wishiniwerefishin]

yeah, but did you catch anything to make it worth it at least?

[widetrack]

caught a couple of ski's that day, which eased the pain a bit...

drove 10miles home in a snowstorm...

pulled the pin for the year...

[Aquaman01]

Okay - question -

If you're launching into a river with current at the isn't deflected by one of those little rocky peninsula things (rip-rap, jetty, mini-wing-dam?) should you angle the trailer up-river or downriver to help keep things from ending up....well....on this thread?

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Aquaman
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Peace and Fishes

[Valv]

I've read of somebody with a brand new bass boat + motor (large Merc) that were in line to get to the landing and after they loaded boat all up, they thought to start motor and let it idle to warm up while waiting for their turn.
They were mad when motor didn't want to start after finally put boat in water.

Ooouuuchhh !!!

[This message has been edited by Valv (edited 05-16-2003).]

[fishbreath]

I seen a guy with a new boat and he was so excited that as he driving the boat onto the trailer some people were yelling to him that he drove the boat onto the wrong trailer. But he did a good job of putting it onto the trailer.

[setterguy]

I didn't witness this but someone I know swears that its true. He is at a launch and is waiting for his friend to bring the boat in on the trailer. Coming in from the lake is a 14'boat with about 10 people in it. He said he thought that the boat was riding really low, even for having that many people in it. Well, the boat finally gets close and they drivie it up on the beach. What does everyone see? The trailer is still attached to the boat! They were driving around the lake the whole time with the trailer on! I can't say for sure if its true or not, but its still a funny mental image. And what a time saver!

[MNUser]

OK. Not a boat trailer but a sled trailer.

I unhooked it from the truck and like a dumba** I stepped on the rear of the trailer. Up goes the trailer right into the tailgate. Now image this: I'm standing on the end of the trailer trying to figure out how I'm going to get off and minimize damage. I try to wiggle it off but it keeps going, bang, bang.....I just say the heck with it and jump off as the trailer goes sliding down the tailgate.

To top it off, this happened on my new truck only after having it for 10 days!

My wife came into the garage cause she heard the language, she looks at the truck and just goes right back into the house. She needed to say nothing...and knew it. I was soooooooo bummed!

I'm always so careful. Way tooooo many things to think of. I'm amazed it does not happen to me more often.

BTW: it cost 212 to get the tailgate repainted.

[jjr]

Last year we were waiting at the Coon Lake ramp after fishing and another guy was ahead of us. He docked his boat and ran to get his piece of dump S-10 truck. I think he had his lifesavings in the back of it. As he backs down the ramp he seems to have put it in park and goes to get his boat from the dock. The truck starts to roll back and he jumps back up the ramp into the truck and he yells at us to get a rock for him. I stood their for a second and then realized that he wanted something to put behind his wheels so the truck wouldn't roll into the lake. This must have happened before, as he didn't seem too worried. So my buddy grabs a larger rock and the guys places it behind the back wheel and went about loading his boat. He finished and kicked the rock out of the way and jumped in the truck and off he went. We just laughed at the whole ordeal!

[dfv87]

I told my story at the end of the season last year. It was one of the last weekends to go up to Mille lacs and my buddy and I hooked up my boat for one lastt run on the lake. we broke the ice at the landing at Indian point and dropped the boat in, but it wouldn't start and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why as it ALWAYS starts right off. [PoorWordUsage]ed off and freezing, I finally realize that somehow I broke the plastic kill switch on the handle and the plastic piece to clip to your sleeve won't stay on any more. Any other time spending 25 minutes at a Mille Lacs landing probably would have resulted in gun play, but no one else was dumb enough to try fishing that night.

[wishiniwerefishin]

DFV-

I did the same thing last year. I could not for the life of me figure out what the strange beeping noise that i heard was, and why the stupid motor wouldnt turn over. Finally, after looking for the subject of the beeping, i noticed that the kill switch had come off. HAHA what a relief.