Tallahassee guys..Commuting to the boat...

[procraftwes]

Basically moving to tallahassee in a month or so and just wanted to know what you guys do for the commute down to st marks.

Do you dry store your boat/keep it near the water?

Trailering a pain in the?

Do you make small weekend trips overnighting somewhere?


Coming from a guy who is less than 5 minutes to the water it sure seems like a pain.

[EddieJoe]

Basically moving to tallahassee in a month or so and just wanted to know what you guys do for the commute down to st marks.

Do you dry store your boat/keep it near the water?

Trailering a pain in the?

Do you make small weekend trips overnighting somewhere?


Coming from a guy who is less than 5 minutes to the water it sure seems like a pain.

First, I would wait a bit to decide where you want to "home port" your boat unless you already are sure it will be St. Marks. Then, the choice may also depend on the size of your boat, the capacity of your vehicle, and your general ease with trailering, launch, and recovery. After many years of keeping the 17 on trailer at the house, I moved up a bit to a 20 footer, and kept it on trailer under roof dry storage near the ramp in Carrabelle. For the last two years it has been on a rack in a dry storage facility in Carrabelle, which is great for me. Costs go up, flexibility goes down, since you launch out of one place, only, but the convenience is wonderful. The trip down to Carrabelle takes right at one hour, and the boat is in the water when I arrive. If I like they will gas, ice, bait, and clean the boat for me, but it all costs more. Mostly I do those things for myself but not always. Sometimes with a load of kids or folks I just have the guys do it all when I come back to the dock. The boat is not quite as perfect in the stack as I had it under cover and under roof, but pretty close.

You can find the same choices at St. Marks, Panacea, Carrabelle, and Apalachicola.

Luck,

EJ

[pizzle4]

I trailer from Tally. I like to have options. I started fishing out of ST. Marks which I think is a good move. Now I launch from there,spring creek,rock landing or lanark depending on conditions. Dry storage would be nice but it's costly and it limits your options a little. Having grown up in Valparaiso only 1/4 mile from a boat ramp, Tallahassee is a change for sure. It's makes taking the boat out pretty much a full day. It's worth it though....

[silverking]

I had the same experience when first moving over to Tallahassee from Pensacola. I have rented an individual stall at a boat barn in St. Marks for years and it has worked out well in the long run. It's only minutes from the ramps and when I went west to Lanark/Carrabelle when I was guiding I simply drove down, hooked the boat up and motored west on Hwy. 98. The boat is out of the sun and weather and secure (an insurance consideration). In addition to AA Storage ($55 monthly), Shields Marina has dry storage for trailer boats and there's another one just as you come into SM on the right. Rack storage is also available at Shields and Shell Island but that limits mobility.

The only drawback is boat maintenance since you have to take all your tools with you when you do go down to work on the boat or keep a set on hand. Fortunately, Shields has everything I need as far as cleaning supplies, lower unit oil, parts, etc.

[Pirate]

I used to pull several different boats to Florida (Keys to Pensacola) from near Athens Ga. We finally decided to buy something somewhere down there and settled on the St George Island area. Never considered anything on the island because of cost and we are two blocks off the water. I really like having the boat on a trailer. It gives us so many more options as to where to fish depending on weather etc. I also have two boats, inshore and offshore so I have double the issues to consider. We pull in the yard when finished and never take anything out of the boat so we're ready for the next day. Not trailering long distances has a bunch of pluses, but short distances I'm not so sure about. I wouldn't want to have one on a rack as it would limit my options, and I would weigh cost of storage against inconvenience. To unload the entire boat of equipment after each trip, I might just consider trailering short distances. (hour or in that ball park). I've never had many boat problems but plenty of trailer issues, but I think I have damaged more equipment loading, unloading and transporting.

[crappielimits]

Unless you have a huge boat, trailering not a problem. St. Marks not far from Tallahassee.

[BeachRum1962]

Basically moving to tallahassee in a month or so and just wanted to know what you guys do for the commute down to st marks.

Do you dry store your boat/keep it near the water?

Trailering a pain in the?

Do you make small weekend trips overnighting somewhere?


Coming from a guy who is less than 5 minutes to the water it sure seems like a pain.

First, I would wait a bit to decide where you want to "home port" your boat unless you already are sure it will be St. Marks. Then, the choice may also depend on the size of your boat, the capacity of your vehicle, and your general ease with trailering, launch, and recovery. After many years of keeping the 17 on trailer at the house, I moved up a bit to a 20 footer, and kept it on trailer under roof dry storage near the ramp in Carrabelle. For the last two years it has been on a rack in a dry storage facility in Carrabelle, which is great for me. Costs go up, flexibility goes down, since you launch out of one place, only, but the convenience is wonderful. The trip down to Carrabelle takes right at one hour, and the boat is in the water when I arrive. If I like they will gas, ice, bait, and clean the boat for me, but it all costs more. Mostly I do those things for myself but not always. Sometimes with a load of kids or folks I just have the guys do it all when I come back to the dock. The boat is not quite as perfect in the stack as I had it under cover and under roof, but pretty close.

You can find the same choices at St. Marks, Panacea, Carrabelle, and Apalachicola.

Luck,

EJ

I'd like to know where in Tally you live that you can get to Carrabelle in one hour. Southwood? I live in NE tally and it is right at 1.5 hours for me. If I leave from work in NW tally and hit traffic right I can shave 15 minutes off at most. Have experimented with bypassing Crawfordville during rush hour by taking 61 by Wakulla Springs State Park and that is a much nicer drive, but not any quicker.

[EddieJoe]

Live near TMH, and traffic is pretty light going south. Take the springs cutoff, go through Sopchoppy, nothing fancy or more than 5 over the speed limit. I'm going about 7 am, sometimes 6:30 am if the boat is already in the water. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes more if I catch a school bus near Shadeville.
EJ

[Harmsway]

I trailer my 22' cc from Tallahassee to st marks regularly. No problem.