Hey there,

Just a quick reminder when loading on these shallow ramps that a lot of us have right now.

When loading on the shallow ramps, please do not use your big motor to push your boat onto the trailer. Just use the winch to bring it up. Using the big motor just creates a "prop hole" at the base of the ramp...and pushes all the sand out behind the boat. Every time a boat does this, it makes the sand bar taller...thus eventually cutting off the ramp from the lake

Excellent bit of info. I did not realize that.

Thanks for letting us know.

Just createing a new place to fish! Good advice too.

Duck Jerky,
You must be talking about fisherman's wharf. Am I right? I saw your truck there 3 weeks ago. Definately a sand bar there now from prop wash.

Yep...both there and Sunny Glen have been hurt by this. I launched at FW again yesterday, and nearly bottomed out about 20' from the ramp on the sandbar. Not going to last much longer without a dredge or some rain.

so do tell how you get your boat ALL of the way on the trailer if you can't back in far enough?

And do not say use the winch, I was just on a ramp yesterday, and watched a guy damn near have a heart attack "winching" up his boat while his rear trailer axle hung off the edge of the ramp suspended over a 2 foot drop and the front axle balancing on the edge while the partner stayed in the truck on the brakes so it would not roll back even another inch.

He winched on that boat until he couldn't budge it and still had 2 feet to go!

Sorry, but you aint gonna get the type of support on this topic that you might think.

I understand the point behind this, I seriously do, but the ONLY alternative to not using the big motor is to stay home, and well, that just won't happen.

A little common sense(?) ought to go a long way here. That "sand bar" can be dispersed the same way it was made......by backing into it......v e r y s l o w l y...it can also be forward flushed. We've used that technique after having been caught on low tides. It's too bad folks aren't any more willing to work together on stuff like this than they are. I guess when somebody gets hurt, people will start thinking a little different.

Once the majority of the boat is on the trailer it can be wenched in a lot easier when it's brought to "level" with the tow vehicle.

Whew! Now that I got that off my chest LOL, I guess it's time to go fishing!

i agree, common sense can go a long way...

But i'm not real sure what you mean by backing into it, please expand.

Once your rig is in the pocket......that is to say "before the "bar" at launch...after the bar at retrieval...s l o w l y back up to the bar......as you approach it go into forward...it takes a few minutes and a few times, but it's a heck of a lot better than sitting there stranded.

Sorry about the smack......I get frustated with people that seem to be more interested in themselves and their well being than the well being of others as a result of their actions. Of course you understand that being perfect in every way has it's drawbacks! LOL

(I can be such a jerk!)

Time to go fishing!

Never once did I say I was perfect, nor self involved and oblivious to others! And don't apologize for talking smack. You apologize for things that are an accident, not intentional. I was wrong in thinking you would know that!

Now, to the topic at hand, I still may not be following your lingo of rigs and pockets, and yes I know what you are referring to about my "rig", but if the trailer can't even back into the water to float the boat without falling off the end of the ramp, then how would you "back" up to it and play this game of "back-and-forth"? Or should I tie up the ramp and tell everyone they have to wait on me while I excavate the prop-wash hole?

Again, I may still be missing what you're saying.

And with the way you worded your reply, you seem to be a bit oblivious to the fact that you may not know about all of the different scenarios at the different lakes. You speak so generally about this, and yet have the audacity to say I don't take others into consideration. Wrong! If I didn't, I wouldn't be bothering giving my $.02 on the issue that it may not always be possible to not use your big motor. Guys couldn't get their boats on the trailer enough to even safely pull out of the ramp to level off the boat to finish winching it up as someone stated earlier.

You're right. I don't know every scenario at every lake etcetera......as soon as I think of an intellgent response to all this, I'll get back to ya! LOL

I guess what I'm tryin' to say is expo facto......maybe the backwash sandbar bar thing just kinda sneaked up on people. So Duck_Jerky's original post was where I should've left it.

Thanks for your observations Nitro.

I'm going fishing!

ditto, we only touched on 2 scenarios...

no harm no foul, nothing personal Leonardo!

Guy's, I'm just outside looking in but that does not sound like a good place to launch or land a boat.

Are there no other places available with better design?

Just asking

This is one of the only places to launch on CC right now.
What DuckJerky is talking about is loading the boat, not unloading it. The ramp is deep enough to float your boat off the trailer right now. It�s the loading of the boat that Brian is asking people to change there ways. I see lots of guys at the ramp using there motors excessively. The idea behind not using your big motor too much is that the ramp will be usable longer since the lake is so low. When guys use there big motor to push there boat every last inch onto the trailer it creates a sand bar behind this already shallow ramp.
Today I saw a guy set there and hold the throttle down heavily while he crawled up there to attach the winch. This did two things, it created a bigger drop off on the end of the ramp and it made the sand bar even taller. Then he had to continue to throttle up while in gear to drain the gas from his carburetors. I don�t see why he couldn�t have used his motor to get close then crawl up there and attach the winch and move his boat the last 6 inches with it, then put his boat in neutral to use the gas up in his motor. Sunny Glen is a prime example of a ramp not being usable because of this. I understand its easier to use the motor but not using it as much is a courtesy that Brian is asking all of us to do. Most guys who use this ramp daily understand how to do this. There are about a half a dozen of us that use this ramp 4-6 days a week right now. If I can persuade people into not doing this it will make the ramp last longer. Once this ramp is unusable we will all be wishing we had a place to launch. Yes, there are other ramps that you can load at but they are just as bad or worse than this one. Smaller boats of course can load easily but guys with bigger boats, this is the best ramp right now. The guys that are making things worse for us probably don�t even understand what there doing. It�s kind of like the guy who trolls his lure right through the school of fish your on, or the guy who parks on the ramp to get his boat ready to launch. They don�t understand the courtesy that many of us understand.
As for me I will continue to try to use my motor less and my winch more. Yea, it�s a pain but I want to be able to load my boat there next week.

I replied to this topic, but I think the post got lost in the cutover to the new software...

Anyways, The fact of the matter is, big bassboats, especially the 19, 20 and 21 footers are not going to be winched anywhere. They are called drive on trailers for a reason, in that you have to use your motor to drive them up the trailer. IF you back the trailer in far enough to float the boat so you can use your winch then you usually can't make it sit on the trailer straight when you pull out, or at least that is how it is with my Ranger.

I think that a ramp is either usable or not, sound like this one is more for jon boats and lighter boats...