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Tompkins: It's all downhill for boat ramp etiquette on holiday weekend

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  • Tompkins: It's all downhill for boat ramp etiquette on holiday weekend

    Tompkins: It's all downhill for boat ramp etiquette on holiday weekend
    Houston Chronicle Copyright 2012 Houston Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Updated 06:52 p.m., Sunday, June 3, 2012

    The flood of people pouring to the water on warm-weather holidays invariably brings with it examples of behaviors that make using a boat ramp such an interesting and educational, if sometimes not wholly enjoyable, experience."There's a lot of truth to the saying that if you want some cheap entertainment, bring a lawn chair and an ice chest to a boat ramp on a holiday weekend and just watch the show," said Brandi Reeder, assistant chief for fisheries enforcement for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's law enforcement division.There were the usual things you expect: people fishing in and around the boat ramp and floating boat dock, and getting mad when - surprise! - someone wants to launch a boat or tie up to the dock; a pontoon boat filled with alcohol-fueled revellers blowing wide-open through the no-wake zone around the ramp; people on personal watercraft who don't seem to know (or care) Texas law prohibits them from operating those things at anything other than idle speed when they are within 50 feet of the bank or another boat; boats with dead batteries or other mechanical problems tied up to the dock as owners try to figure how to salvage their day.As seems requisite at boat ramps on a busy morning, there was the boat owner who had dragooned an inexperienced person (it appeared to be his wife or girlfriend) into backing the trailered boat down the ramp.[...] it's depressingly common to see someone back a boat down a ramp, stop, then spend five minutes or more transferring gear - fishing tackle, ice chests, etc. - from the vehicle to the boat, removing tie-downs, putting the drain plug in the boat and doing other pre-launch duties.While we had to endure several "ramp hogs" this past weekend (one group blocked both ramps for a good five minutes while they transferred gear from vehicle to boat), I did see a couple of examples of positive boat ramp behavior.In both cases, bystanders assisted guys who were boating alone by helping them shove their crafts off the trailer, then holding the bowlines or tying the boat to the courtesy dock while the boat owner parked the truck and trailer in the lot.The truck and empty trailer were parked square in the middle of the turn-around at the top of the boat ramp, forcing anyone trying to use the ramp to make some tricky maneuvers to simply access the ramps.



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