Boat trailers - scourge of the West

You’ve heard the two best days of your life? The day you buy a boat ... and the day you sell the boat? Well, do you know what the third and fourth best days are? The days you buy and sell the boat trailer.

Boat trailers. What a pain. As you might guess, I’ve had some boat trailer history this summer.

First case was a flat tire on my soon-to-be son-in-law’s raft trailer at the take-out in Craig. Luckily, Matt had a spare tire, but he still had to bum a tire iron from some campers. At Ron’s Towing in Craig, we got the flat fixed and learned many people don’t carry a spare for their raft trailer.

Our joy was short-lived when we realized the trailer lights weren’t working. We’d forgotten to disconnect the power cord before backing into cold water.

Oh, and we also lost the license plate. Our duct tape job didn’t hold, so the new plate is secured with bolts and a cable.

A few days later, while walleye fishing on Lake Francis, I was bailing water out of my 12-foot aluminum Sea Nymph every 15 minutes. Upon returning home, I found an old patch job had failed. Ed Allobaugh, at Big Sky Welding in Columbia Falls, welded a new patch.

Ed suggested I either swap my carpeted bunks for rollers or move the bunks so they didn’t rub the skids on the bottom of the boat, allowing the boat to shimmy down the road.

The following week, I noticed the axle was bent on my 18-foot EZ-Loader on the eve of another walleye trip. Same thing happened three years ago. That time, Ron’s Alignment in Kalispell straightened the axle.

Since this was the second time the axle had bent, I opted for Pierce Manufacturing in Kalispell to replace the axle with a stronger model.

Maybe I should stick with wading.