The Single Ramp
Spring had sprung and it was time to get the fishing boat
out of the garage for a test run. My son
and I chose to take it to the Eno River to do some white bass fishing. It’s about a 30-mile drive and the weather
was perfect. My son warned me that the
place we were going to launch had only one ramp. It could get crowded, he said, especially
with the abundance of kayakers that go to this spot. When we arrived, there were lots of cars and
empty trailers in the small lot. The
ramp, however, was available and we dropped the boat into the water without
delay. The motor fired right up and
purred in a soft hum as we slowly made our way up the river. My son was aware of the fishermen already in
their spots casting their lines. He
would slow down to minimize our wake when passing them then speed up in between
along the curvy waterway. After
traveling a few miles, we stopped and started to cast our rods toward the bank,
drifting along. We tried three or four
spots without any luck.
At some point, my son
suggested we go downstream, below the ramp site and give it a try there. We passed the ramp and went around the bend
where water was shallow. There were many
people fishing from the bank. A fallen
tree lay out over the water and rocks were piled up along the shore. This was our spot. I caught a stick, then a leaf, then a sweet
gum ball. No joke, there was a gumball
on my hook! My son cast into the right spot
and proceeded to catch the largest white bass of his life. It was a female full of eggs and probably
weighed 4 lbs. He was delighted as his
rod bent nearly in two during the landing.
I took the appropriate photos to document the big catch before releasing
the fish. We could go home now, knowing
we had accomplished our goal. But before
we left, I proceeded to get hung up in a tree limb and lost my lure. That was my last cast. In fact, I got hung several times on this
trip but managed to get out of it most of the time. I did manage to catch one small fish.
We proceeded back to the boat ramp. My son pulled up to the
dock, and I was instructed to hold the boat so it would not drift into the
shallow. He went to get the trailer,
leaving the boat to idle. In the
meantime, a guide with his clients pulled up to the shoreline next to me. Also, a pontoon boat came in and was idling
behind me. The river is narrow at this
point, and it was becoming quite crowded.
Then it happened, a pick-up truck with 2 kayaks in the bed backed down
the ramp. An elderly man and his wife
got slowly out of the vehicle and proceeded to slide their kayaks off the
truck. The wife was dressed head to toe
in a black wetsuit. No disrespect but she
looked like a walking seal. The man got
back into the truck and proceeded to move the truck while leaving the two
kayaks and his wife standing on the ramp at water’s edge. By now, probably five or six of us boats were
waiting. Of course, the man had to find
parking then walk gingerly back down the steep slope. My son was proceeding to back our trailer
down, not realizing that someone was there.
I motioned to him to stop. The elderly
man proceeded to leisurely take his shirt off, sit down on the dock and put on
his water shoes. At this time, the man
in the pontoon yelled out “Take your time, we’ve got all day!” in a sarcastic
voice. The old man replied, “We sure
will”. He then began to push his kayaks
into the water, whistling while he worked.
The pontoon driver yelled “If the game warden was here, he would write
your ass a ticket” to which the whistling man replied, “I don’t think you can
get a ticket for being an asshole”. He
helped his wife into the kayak, and they slowly but surely got on their
way. My son continued to back down and
we loaded up. The pontoon driver shook
his head at me in disbelief of the entire situation. He commented on how quiet our boat motor
was. My son replied he would not have
left it running had he known how long it would take. The highlight of our fishing trip was the
large white bass, but the story of the boat ramp was a close second!
Tammy Harvey
4/18/2026
