Logic Check - Halls/Bullfrog

PowellBride said:
If you send vehicles over to Halls, your group would have to unload at the Halls marina and cart everything down a long, steep hill. There is a nice shaded area where you can stage next to the marina store, but carting stuff down, and then back up on the return trip would not be my idea of fun.
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I wasn’t sure if you could get next to the boats with the trucks, I have never driven there and it was just a thought, I would leave the trailers at bullfrog but it sounds like it was not a good idea anyway. What ever you do good luck!
 
We're dealing with this same situation on Wednesday. Two families renting a houseboat at Halls and we have one fishing/ski boat. We decided to split up and send one truck with boat to Bullfrog to launch and the rest of the crew to halls to check in and load gear. Coming from Idaho, it's about 1.5 hours farther to Halls than Bullfrog so I figure I can launch the little boat and drive it over to meet the rest of the crew at halls to help load the houseboat. We'll definitely be looking for Adam upon arrival. Thanks.
 
dgundy said:
We're dealing with this same situation on Wednesday. Two families renting a houseboat at Halls and we have one fishing/ski boat. We decided to split up and send one truck with boat to Bullfrog to launch and the rest of the crew to halls to check in and load gear. Coming from Idaho, it's about 1.5 hours farther to Halls than Bullfrog so I figure I can launch the little boat and drive it over to meet the rest of the crew at halls to help load the houseboat. We'll definitely be looking for Adam upon arrival. Thanks.
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How do you decide who hauls gear and provisions onto the HB and who gets a boat ride? Hope the younger family members are pack mule age and enjoy Halls. 😀
 
You should contact Hall's Marina to confirm if there is a walkway in place from the new parking area to the relocated docks and also to arrange for a porter to help you with a tractor and cart. Even if there is a walkway, the trek to transport everything will be challenging. If there is not a walkway in place yet, then you will have to bring your stuff down to the existing Hall's marina and shuttle it from there to your houseboat.
 
Terry G said:
You should contact Hall's Marina to confirm if there is a walkway in place from the new parking area to the relocated docks and also to arrange for a porter to help you with a tractor and cart. Even if there is a walkway, the trek to transport everything will be challenging. If there is not a walkway in place yet, then you will have to bring your stuff down to the existing Hall's marina and shuttle it from there to your houseboat.
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I will do that for sure. If I can arrange a porter that would be huge piece of mind. Thanks.
 
This means you will have to trek your stuff down to the Halls Marina dock, then load it into your runabout to shuttle it to your houseboat. I suggest it would be better to load it once into your runabout at the service dock now located at the old Bullfrog houseboat rental area. You can drive within 50' of the dock for unloading. A couple of boat rides between Bullfrog and Halls will be much more enjoyable than what will be required if you take your stuff to Halls.
 
This is the only thing I was going to suggest. I’d they have a shuttle service then use them. Load up your boat and their boat and hope you can do it all in one (or two) trips. At this point, they may even let you “rent” the pontoon boat for extremely cheap given these circumstances.

One thing I’ve learned in these situations is just simply asking nicely can go a long ways. Most folks are just doing the best they can and that really is the case with seasonal workers. If your plan makes sense, they’ll usually go for it.
 
POk3s said:
One thing I’ve learned in these situations is just simply asking nicely can go a long ways. Most folks are just doing the best they can and that really is the case with seasonal workers. If your plan makes sense, they’ll usually go for it.
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This is the best advice I'd heard, and it's exactly right. It almost always works for me. Almost always.
 
I've been on a houseboat in the Halls Buoy field for over 20 years so this is a twice a year occurrence for us as we always go out of Bullfrog. We usually go down with 15-25 people for 7 days and take 2 boats - we don't seem to ever pack light. With that being said, we've always been able to get everyone and everything from the Bullfrog ramp over to the houseboat in the buoy field in a single trip although it's usually a little tight (and the skiboat is heavy). Maybe not Coast Guard approved but it's only a short drive over to the buoy field so we deal with it. I've learned it's best to pack every nook and cranny in the boat (including under seats, ski locker, engine compartments, etc), and leave the bow seating open (usually I'll put wakeboards there that can go up on the wakeboard racks when we get to the lake so they don't take up compartment space int he boat). I then pack up the main area of the boat as tight as I can (only leaving the driver seat open). I'll always leave life jackets and bumper/ropes in the top of the rear compartments so they are easy to access. When I meet others at the lake, I can finish loading all their stuff into the back/main area of the boat as well. We fill up all the floor and seats with gear, bags, bins, and coolers. Oftentimes the gear goes above the windshield but that's just how it is. We sometimes strap a cooler or gas cans to the swim deck if there is not room in the boat. Once the boat is packed up, we put all the passengers in the bow of the boat (the reason for this is that the boat will plane a lot better with weight of people in the front and it tows a lot better as well). We then launch the boat, and wait for the car driver to park the car and come back. With space in the bow, we can pull the boat up to the dock and they can right in and off we go. If the weight is distributed right you can usually get on plane but there have been a couple times where it's been slow getting over there.

I know this might make many hesitant but we've found the risk worth not having to take multiple trips. Just make sure (like really make sure) your drain plug is in before doing this ;) Here's a pic of what our boat looked like pulling out of the driveway last year (I think there were about 15 peoples stuff that got packed in the boat before we left home so we didn't have to move much gear at the ramp).
 

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Be careful, boat trailers are usually rated for the weight of the boat not with an additional 1200+lbs. we would go to the East boat ramp at Spinney Mtn. Res. when the storms would come in from the West and watch the carnage when the boats would get swamped while being loaded onto the trailer and when they pulled them out of the water the tires would blow or sometimes the axle would break. Sq
 
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