Ramp etiquette for a newbie

[stoner]

Sounds to me like your son was faster at getting your truck than that guys partner was & he must have thought you should have waited on them. Which I don't see why you should have to. Even if they were driving down the parking lot & he had room to get out in front of them safely. Just my thought. But you did nothing wrong. You can't help it if they are slow or parked much farther away. Just enjoy the day fishing & don't worry about it. They will get over it, whatever it was that they THOUGHT you did wrong.

Jason

P.S. Welcome to the board. A real good bunch of guys on here.

Ditto, and welcome aboard!

[DYNATRAK]

Only time I ever tie to the courtesy dock is if I'm by my lonesome.

ditto. and even then sometimes i can unload/load quicker than the others.

[basshuntin]

Sounds to me like you didnt do anything wrong at all. Thats pretty much the way my partner and I do it all the time. One thing you should be careful of though,,,if your night fishing and pulling your boat on the trailer,,,,make sure its your trailer that your pulling up on!! I admit I tried to pull on the wrong trailer once at the end of a night tourney. The guy drivin the truck got a kick out of it. He just stepped out of his truck and asked if I minded till he took his boat home before he came back and got me. Hey , it was the same model and color truck and the trailer was a good fit!!

[DYNATRAK]

now that's funny right there.

nice segway into the funny ramp stories that everyone has. i swear, it'd be worth it to just get an ale-8, pull up a lawn chair and just watch folks at the ramp. just some seriously funny stuff that goes on.

husband yellin' at the wife to 'line it up'.

the guy that forgets to flip the switch on the tow ratchet and the boat comes halfway off the bunk on the way up the ramp.

the hurry up and go guy that forgets to put the plug in and starts takin on water right at the ramp.

good stuff for sure.

[dc chopper]

You did nothing wrong. You will find that alot of people need 2 or 3 spaces at the ramp to unload/load. I have had some dirty looks from people because they will sit and wait when 1 spot is open, if they don't go, I do. I really get bent at T-ville when you have a huge ramp at settlers trace and 3 boats are unloading/loading and 2 or 3 trucks just sitting and waiting. Thats when I will "cut the line" sometimes I ask, sometimes I get mad and say the heck with em. It's not my fault they can't back in tight quarters. My old man likes to comment that " I can bulls eye a gopher hole in the middle of a hurricane" with a trailer but thats what I do for a living but the trailer I pull everyday is 45 ft long so a 22 ft one is no problem. Be patient but don't take no smack from the pleasure boat people, they think they own the place.

[Lbrown]

Thanks to all, and for the warm welcome!
I apprieciate the advice...Mom and Dad tried to teach us manners, but some of us kids were harder headed than others! Like Merle said: Momma tried!

Haven't done much for bass there yet, but there are lots of old pilings and abandoned docks upriver that look good.

[artcarney_agr]

You did nothing wrong. You will find that alot of people need 2 or 3 spaces at the ramp to unload/load. I have had some dirty looks from people because they will sit and wait when 1 spot is open, if they don't go, I do. I really get bent at T-ville when you have a huge ramp at settlers trace and 3 boats are unloading/loading and 2 or 3 trucks just sitting and waiting. Thats when I will "cut the line" sometimes I ask, sometimes I get mad and say the heck with em. It's not my fault they can't back in tight quarters. My old man likes to comment that " I can bulls eye a gopher hole in the middle of a hurricane" with a trailer but thats what I do for a living but the trailer I pull everyday is 45 ft long so a 22 ft one is no problem. Be patient but don't take no smack from the pleasure boat people, they think they own the place.

Bingo! There's nothing more ridiculous than one boat at a time on a three-lane wide ramp. I've bypassed people in line before because of this. Anytime I do this, I creep up slowly, and try to point people to go on ahead, but none ever do...then they have the nerve to yell at me about it....to which I reply, "hey man, if you want to go one at a time, that's fine, but if there's ramp space open and you don't want to use it, then I sure as heck will"

[bmck25]

Sounds to me like you didnt do anything wrong at all. Thats pretty much the way my partner and I do it all the time. One thing you should be careful of though,,,if your night fishing and pulling your boat on the trailer,,,,make sure its your trailer that your pulling up on!! I admit I tried to pull on the wrong trailer once at the end of a night tourney. The guy drivin the truck got a kick out of it. He just stepped out of his truck and asked if I minded till he took his boat home before he came back and got me. Hey , it was the same model and color truck and the trailer was a good fit!!

LOL! I have done the same thing. I will admit though it was because I have bad eyes. Now my partner blinks a flashlight at me to help me out.

[dsonthelake84]

That was you jerk. Can't help I parked a mile away and like to ride the break. Just playing. Sounds like you did everything you was supposed to. I was with my wife one day at wood creek and she got the bright idea that she wanted to back the truck in. Well there was no one around and I decided I would let her..Big mistake. It took her bout 5 minutes to get it in there and not only that we started to get a few other anglers out there. Anyway she gave them a smile and said she was sorry and they said it was fine. Boy was I getting some looks though. Learned a lesson that day. Welcome to the board.