Thread: Another boat ramp etiquette story

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate on this one. I fished bass tournaments for several years and experienced just about every negative situation that could exist when it came to ramps and folks using them. There used to be a saying among my bass buddies that an entire bass club could launch and leave before one "perch jerker" could get his boat off the trailer. I have seen that more than once.

I have helped several folks try to get their boats started, usually the 1st time it has been in the water since the spring before, so they could clear the ramp and not keep it blocked. These were folks who were in fishing rigs who just wanted to catch a mess of crappie or gills. The jet-skiers and ski-boat types are on their own.

There is no excuse for rudeness and confrontations on the water or ramps if everyone would just be considerate of others. Sadly, these days, that is in short supply.

Sooner or later, everybody is gonna have some sort of difficulty at the boat ramp. We've helped other folks with motors that won't start, trucks that die, etc. I don't take issue with stuff like that at all. I do, however, have a problem with people like this guy who had NO business packing up and wiping down the boat on the ramp. Or the two fellas last month who pulled up to the top of the ramp and packed all their gear and dumped their minnows while blocking access to the ramp. Unless we're in the middle of a line of boats waiting to launch, we take care of our prep far enough out of the way for people to access the ramp and we do our packing up and tying down well out of the way of others trying to launch and load.

I used to have men stop and watch me load the boat because they thought I'd screw up or hit their boat. They must've thought I was deaf, cause I could hear them too. Jerks.