is there a trick to getting augered in dock poles out of the lake bottom?

I have a floating dock section that uses two 8′ poles with auger tips. I purchased a large pole ratchet that works great for drilling the poles into the lake bottom, but when taking the poles out in the fall it’s a pain… I can reverse the socket and drill the poles backwards a few inches before they don’t spin upward anymore (They sort of make a small cavity under the sand) My only method then to getting them out is to constantly pull up & down & twist back & forth on the poles and eventually they lift out, but not after basically killing myself from exhaustion.

Is there a trick I don’t know about to getting them out easier?

How deep in the muck are they? And how deep is the water? If the water isn’t too deep, maybe put on your waders and grab a shovel.

no muck, some clay though… water isn’t very deep so yes I could dig them out I suppose…Pipes are probably augered 2′ deep into the lake bottom…It’s actually a floating jetski lift, not sure why I said dock section…

You might want to think about a water jet to loosen the lake bottom.

Here is a ytube video on how to make one.

My cousin used to use one to assemble and disassemble his dock on White Bear.
It worked great for many years. He would use it like a drill to peculate the sand bottom and drop his dock legs in. Then in the fall he would put it by the leg peculate the sand and pull the leg out.

Relatively in expensive. His was a piece of 3/4″ galvanized pipe with sill cock on one end and a reducer on the other.

Try a post pulling tool?

Maybe something like this?

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Yes but a roll in. May cost more but takes little time to put in and take out.

I used a big pipe wrench. I made sure that I had a rope on it and tied it to my wrist so if I dropped it I could retrieve it easily enough

I use a huge pipe socket wrench specifically for dock pipes, the problem is when reversing the socket and essentially back-drilling the pipe out after it lifts up a few inches the pipe just spins in the small void pocket it created under the lake bottom, I then have to basically battle ram it up out of the remaining 18+ inches of lake bottom, after 10 minutes or so this is extremely tiresome with the heavy 8′ steel pipes…

Make sure to keep upward tension on the pipe when reverse wrenching them. If you could use the floating section for this it’s even easier.

I believe what he is saying is the soil has lost its structure so the auger doesn’t back itself out. Like striping the threads on a bolt. Helped a friend once pull post out of the lake by attaching a tractor inertube to the post then filling it with air

Eelpoutguy wrote:

I used a big pipe wrench. I made sure that I had a rope on it and tied it to my wrist so if I dropped it I could retrieve it easily enough

Hope it not a real short rope on a real big wrench.

I like the tractor tube for lift while you back it out like normal idea, just attach an extension to the valve stem and get it down as far as possible for most lift, strap choker or something?

Mx I have the same problem with my awning for my pontoon
And we use a large pipe wrench and back the posts out and pulling them at the same time. It’s a PITAs

I agree with the water jet idea. Even taking a pressure washer with the narrowest stream should loosen everything up.

I use a large pipe wrench. Using it I can turn the auger post while putting upwards pressure on the wrench. This way the post is not relying entirely on the auger screw in order to rise up out of the ground, and prevents it from in effect stripping the threads.

When I say a large pipe wrench, I mean large! It is a 36″ wrench made mostly of aluminum to keep the weight reasonable. To keep the cost reasonable, it is a harbor freight tool (still seems like a good quality tool though).

Pipe wrench

what Sticker said, but I would think that would go without saying.

ptc, thanks for the pics, i thought that was a monkey wrench. LOLOLOL.

This is what I use

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Same dock post I used, didn’t know they had a fancy tool.
Any way you can pull up while ratcheting? I know when I was removing my post I would put the upward pressure on it until it caught. I was going thru sand/gravel and once you made it out of the “pocket ” it was clear sailing.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Any way you can pull up while ratcheting?

i doubt it by myself, but with another person pulling up on the pipe it should come right out, i’ll try it next fall

Appreciate all the responses!