Village of Pepin Sportsmans Landing

Just a heads up…as of April 1 $10 daily launch fee..$30 resident annual pass. $100 non resident. Resident is considered Pepin School district.

Damn. That WAS my favorite landing.

Maybe they will fix it now so you don’t wreck your trailer when using it.

Thanks,
RVRDUX

I hope they use the fee to put a more extensive dock in once funds allow. The Pickle Factory dock is a private dock that’s packed constantly for just their restaurant, the Pepin Marina dockage space is filled up by about 4 boats or the one guy who parks square in the middle of the open area, and the Sportsman landing dock is small and only for quick loading/unloading. If they charged the marina’s dockage rates for hourly stops and got the permit to expand out a good 50 yards or so with a couple runs to the side, it’d pay for itself in a year while helping local businesses.

The Pickle Factory gets a lot of the on-water business in Pepin, but the Garden Pub just up the hill has a cool atmosphere on warm afternoons with live music, beanbags, and good food. They will even come get you in their restaurant’s stretch golf cart if you call.

I’m not affiliated with anything on that side nor live there, but it’s what we’ve found on the tritoon cruising over the years up and down the river. Many of these small towns leave a lot on the table for potential income from docking, slips, and accessibility especially since Covid and the boom of recreational boaters. Even Wabasha has x2 marinas in one small town yet has waiting lists for someone to hand over $2-3k to slip their boat. Their city dock holds maybe 3 boats at best by the National Eagle Center.

Good write up Bucky. Some towns on the river do better than others but none cater to the weekend boaters well enough to honor the towns businesses and that always confused me. Then there’s Hudson….