What’s up with Bayport?

I haven’t heard of anyone mentioning Bayport now has a $10 day use fee for parking a truck/boat rig in the public lot by the Beach House Marina and Andersen and the tracks? I pay $10 to launch and if their 6-8 spots are full you have to pay another $10 to the city just to park? $20 is a little steep for a weeknight in my book isn’t it?

I used to use the so called “public Launch” in Andersen bay until Bayport outlawed boat trailer parking on it’s streets years ago. What good is that launch unless you work there and can use their lot?

I wish we had a $25/yr Bluff’s launch up North we could use!

OK, I’m done crying!

Ferny.

Sounds like they have a monopoly and are willing to abuse that power. I’d find somewhere else to fish or have someone drop you off with the boat at the “public” landing and come back later to pick you up.

I saw that too, Ferny. I guess the City of Bayport figured if everybody else was making a buck on launch fees they should too. I get the yearly fishing launch pass at Beach House Marina and it costs $120 and it is only good for Monday – Friday. It is a perfect launch site, 2 wide launch ramps with good docks and well lit for night time launching. It puts me right in the middle of the river stretch that I like to fish. Beach House was not going to offer the fishing pass this year because of parking issues with the city. They resolved it when the city decided to charge for the overflow parking in the city lot near the ballfield. That whole city lot parking situation is a rip-off.

At $10 a pop for each launch the $120 fee at Beach House kind of pays for itself in the long haul. If I cannot find a spot in the Beach House lot I won’t launch. I have been able to find an empty spot at Beach House Marina everytime I’ve launched so far this year but I normally fish at night so spots are available.

C-15 I have often thought of getting a yearly pass but never have. Last year I didn’t go enough. This year it would have worked out cheaper. I usually hit the launch between 4-5pm so I am borderline finding a spot. Too bad we couldn’t use the fenced in Beach house lot? We’ll be down there tonight for some more smally action.

Ferny.

I’m with ya Ferny. I dont fish that area because of the parking scams including, and mostly blaming, HUDSON.
How can there be reasonable and even free landing upstream and down stream??!! Scamomatic. Its too bad since I would like to fish that water more but I rarely succomb to the larceny from availabe resources.

Suzuki,

How does Hudson fit into this? The fee at the downtown site is only $3.00 for residents and I think $5.25 for non-residents. They have a fair number of parking spots (although I did have to wait for about a half-hour once on a Saturday at mid-day until a parking spot opened up). I’m sure that on very busy weekend day, the lot will fill up and Hudson doesn’t have on-street parking for trailer rigs – (its not that there’s a big fee to park your rig in Hudson, its that there is NO PLACE to park your rig in Hudson if the launch lot is full). The way the streets and the park are laid out, I don’t see how they could accomodate any more than they aleady do… If the downtown lot is full, there’s always the ‘back-up’ site just south of the marina – again, somewhat limited parking but still a decent launch site. I’ve only needed to use it once this year for a late afternoon launch. The way I see it, timing is everything… I’ve never had trouble putting in at Hudson when going out for the morning bite or putting in for the night bite and the fees are very acceptable and seem appropriate for the services provided. True, I’d love to see twice as many parking spaces but they’d have to pave over some of the park to achieve that goal or allow for rig parking over by the beach house (and then the non-boaters would be screaming about the lack of parking). Overall, the Hudson area has just grown faster than the on-street or off-street parking spaces can absorb. Maybe the owner of the mini-mall could work a deal with the Parks department to provide a few parking spots in exchange for free snow removal/lot maintenance or something?? Sounds like a win-win-win to me – the city would generate more revenue by allowing more boats to launch, the owner of the lot would save money by getting service in exchange for the use, and the boater would get better access to the river at a reasonable rate. Anyone know who owns that lot? Maybe its just a matter of getting the two parties to think along the same line…

I just went to the Bayport website – Bayport, MN web page
This was what I found concerning boat trailer parking at Lakeside Park:

Quote:

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Lakeside Park offers designated parking stalls for vehicles with boat trailers. However, users must have an annual residents sticker attached to their boat trailer or purchase a $10.00 daily permit to parking in these stalls. Also, please be advised that no overnight parking is allowed in any city park.

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I guess if you are a Bayport resident you can park for free in that lot with the appropriate sticker on your boat trailer.

I wonder if the City of Bayport would consider selling a yearly sticker? You could launch at the Andersen launch site for free and then park at Lakeside Park. That would work OK if you had a couple of people. One could park the trailer and then get picked up by the boat down at Lakeside Park. A little bit of a walk but not that bad.

There are some concerns that I would have when using the Andersen Launch site:
#1: If you were launching by yourself that would be kind of an inconvenient way to launch.
#2: I don’t know if I would leave my boat unattended at the Andersen Launch and park all the way over at Lakeside Park and walk back to Andersen’s. Probably find most of your stuff gone from the boat when you got back.
#3: I know Beach House Marina had some issues with people launching like that and then trying to use their dock to board their boat after they had parked at Lakeside Park. They were trying to discourage boaters from doing that.

I’ll give the City of Bayport a call and see if they have thought about selling a yearly launch pass. Prescott does that and it is a pretty nice system.

I just got off the telephone with a representative of Bayport and he told me that Bayport has looked into the yearly boat parking permit systems of other cities. He said they are going to stick with the system in place this year and that next year they are considering offering a yearly permit. We need to follow this on their website and through contact with their City Hall (Telephone 651-275-4404). About the 1st of the year in 2007 we should see something offering the permit. Depending on how much the permit is it might be a good way to go.

Non-res is $8.00 or $8.50. Resident is $5.25. City res is $3.00. Too high for me. At least Prescott has a yearly which is a steal.

I didn’t know they had a three-tied fee system… I thought there was only two prices: $3.00 for Hudson residents and $5.25 for all others. I guess it would make sense to charge non-WI residents a few bucks more if they’re getting any sort of subsidy from the state of WI.

With gas prices the way they are, I think driving to Prescott to launch would eat up enough gas to obliterate any savings on the launch fee, at least for me.

OK I just heard this from a Bayport resident last night.
He said the mayor has a grudge against the Beach House owner.
He saw how much money they make on a weekend and wanted in on it. Ahhh our elected officials…gotta love em

He lives a few houses to the north.