Mille Lacs Webcam – boat launch

Just was watching the Appledoon’s webcam, and saw a farm tractor launching a boat. It was way out in the water…

Interesting.

nubbinbuck wrote:

Just was watching the Appledoon’s webcam, and saw a farm tractor launching a boat. It was way out in the water…

Interesting.

Too shallow to do it any other way–without the potential of needing the tractor to pull a truck or the like out of the sand/water. Been going on there for many years without a problem.

Gotta love ‘dem webcams!

So do they charge for that service then?

If so, then why wouldn’t you just launch from one of the public ramps that is most likely nearby?

I was staying up at a resort on leech last year and they wanted $10-15 each time I used their ramp. Doing that daily, sometimes even a couple times a day would add up. So I used the public access a couple minutes down the road. Much nicer ramps and I wasn’t launching into a mucky swamp. Bonus was the public access was about 2 or 3 miles closer to the fish.

munchy wrote:

I was staying up at a resort on leech last year and they wanted $10-15 each time I used their ramp.

That seems weird. I can see paying for dock space but using their ramp should be included in staying at the place.

Reef W wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Munchy wrote:</div>
I was staying up at a resort on leech last year and they wanted $10-15 each time I used their ramp.

That seems weird. I can see paying for dock space but using their ramp should be included in staying at the place.

I was wondering the same thing. Places I stayed at, the ramp pass/access was included in the cabin/resort stay. Also, odd that they would charge each time for more than one use on the same day?

Yeah, I thought the same thing. That and quite a few other reasons are why we will never be back to that resort.

To my knowledge… most of the resorts if not all of the resorts.. charge $10 per day ramp fees. regardless of if your visiting for the day or you have a hotel there or a permanent fish house. Same goes for Ice access.. $10 per day.. Most have a season pass you can buy.

Paul loads and pulls your boat out because there is no deep water near shore. $10 fee, free if you stay there.

sktrwx2200 wrote:

To my knowledge… most of the resorts if not all of the resorts.. charge $10 per day ramp fees. regardless of if your visiting for the day or you have a hotel there or a permanent fish house. Same goes for Ice access.. $10 per day.. Most have a season pass you can buy.

If that’s the case then great. Sure doesn’t make me want to come back. I go to a resort to relax, not to be nickle and dimed to death.

For the sake of comparison. My family is going to a resort in the Grand Rapids area next weekend. First time to that particular lake and resort. We wanted to check out the area a couple weeks beforehand, so a small group of us rented a cabin off AirBnB that just happened to be a block down the road from the resort. We stopped in to the resort to check the place out and noticed they had a launch. The public access was about a 20 minute drive so we asked the front desk if we were able to use the launch for our two boats since we had reservations in a couple weeks. The attendant looked at the reservation book, asked for the name, then said go right ahead. No charge, no big identification check, nothing. I certainly didn’t expect it, however THAT is the service everyone should give if they want customers to be happy when they leave.

It’s the small things that make happy lifelong customers. A boat launch is probably the cheapest part of their entire complex. Now adding a tractor to the ordeal is good reason to charge a little, but that isn’t the case at every resort.

So if your renting in the future or ever you launch free, or does your name have to be “in the books” ? I agree, everything free including beer and I would be a customer that kept coming back… on second thought, I’d never leave… (that business model will fail 100%)