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mnranger5 · 5 years

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Goodbye Ranger 170VS, 4/29/19

Early in the summer of 2013, I got the boat itch. I was 34 years old, and had never owed a boat. I didn’t know the first thing about owning a boat, maintaining a boat or trailering a boat from one lake to the next. One thing I did know: I loved to fish. So naturally, a boat was what I needed to fuel my fishing passion.

I started scouring Craigslist, iBoats.com and boattrader.com. I knew I wanted a Ranger, small enough to fit in the garage, and new enough where I hopefully wouldn’t have to worry about fixing things and maintenance. I looked at many local boats, including one with my mom! It was a beautiful candy apple red, 21’ Ranger, located in Farmington. It was a magnificent boat, but it was WAY too much boat for me. Plus, I had my heart set on a black boat. I had seen sparkly black bass boats on the lake, and I was sold on the look. I quickly found out that small black bass boats proved difficult to find in MN.

I expanded my search to out of state. That’s when I found it. A seller from Indianapolis had a 2009 Ranger 170VS. It was only 17’ in length and would fit (snugly) in the garage. I contacted the seller immediately to inquire if the boat was still for sale. The boat had been on the market for some time and he had recently reduced the price from $20,000 down to $18,000. He was motivated. The boat was 3.5 years old, but was virtually brand new. There was only 11 hours on the 4-stroke Mercury. Within a couple of days, I had struck a deal to buy the boat for $16,000, and made arrangements with the seller to pick the boat up in Lafayette, Indiana. On Saturday, June 22, 2013, I picked the Ranger up. I was a boat owner for the first time in my life.

The first time the grils saw the boat they were just as excited as me. Get this, they even asked to sleep in the boat (in the garage) that night. Who was I to say no? Pajamas: check. Dolls: check. Books: check. Ready for a slumber party!

As excited as I was to be a boat owner, I had no idea how to actually get the boat from the trailer, and into the water. I met up with my buddy Jesse at Lake Byllesby in Cannon Falls.

Jesse showed me all the in’s and out’s of my boat. He also told me to start wearing a hat because the wind made my hair look completely ridiculous.

But most importantly, he showed me how to launch and load the boat from the boat ramp.

I distinctly recall the first time I tried to put the boat in the water by myself. After talking with one of the guys from a local bass club, I identified Circle Lake as good first lake to practice launching/loading the boat without a crowd watching me. So Dyan and I headed over to Circle Lake on 6/25/13 for an afternoon of fun. Dumping the boat in the lake proved to be a piece of cake. And fishing was successful too. This was the first fish I caught in my new Ranger!

Loading it up for the day proved a bit more daunting. But hey, it was the first time doing it by myself.

Five days and two lakes later, Dyan and I successfully launched and loaded the boat in front of the big crowds at Crystal Lake. The launch was crazy hectic with weekend warriors, but we pretty much looked like pro’s. I also caught my first Tiger Musky that day!

2013 had some really fun adventures as well.

I took the boat out to Bismarck, ND to visit Mom and Dad, and we dropped the Ranger in Nelson Lake, a power plant lake!

The early morning steam rising off the 85 degree water made this an eerie yet cool place to fish with Dad. Dad even took home the prize for biggest fish of the day. The only time he ever won that award in the Ranger!

Dyan and I also spent an entire weekend in the Ranger roaming Lake Pepin and the deserted sand bars.

Virtually the entire summer of 2013 was spent on the water. Every free weekend was Dyan and me trailering the boat from one lake to another. It never got old. Why did it take so long to buy a boat?

In July, Aaron and I fished our first bass tournament together. Not gonna lie, I was super nervous. Not only did I have the smallest boat, smallest motor and least amount of fishing experience, we had to launch and load the boat in front of all these semi-pros.

To this date, I have yet to put my finger on what caused our success other than dumb luck, but Aaron and I found a school of 3 to 4 pound bass that bit on just about every cast. We ended up with a sack of fish weighing about 21 pounds and won the tournament!

In an August tournament, Jesse and I won Big Bass in the Ranger with this 4 pound lunker. In the process of landing the fish, my super high quality (Wal-Mart special) landing net broke and landed somewhere in the bottom of Cedar Lake!

The money we earned on this fish went toward buying a real net from Cabelas.

2014 was just as busy on the water as 2013.

The kids got into boating as we had them fishing, tubing and swimming in the lake.

On fishing opener in 2014 at Prior Lake, I got my first taste of bed fishing when I plucked Miss Piggy off her spawning bed. What a thrill. I fished for this big girl for nearly an hour before she finally opened that big mouth and chomped on my worm.

It got to the point that we absolutely loved taking the boat to new lakes. Each one was unique, and more of an experience because each one seemed to involve it’s own adventure. Here is a list of all 32 bodies of water we’ve had the Ranger 170VS on:

Crystal Lake (Burnsville, MN)

Marion Lake (Lakeville, MN)

Lake Byllesby (Cannon Falls, MN)

Lake Minnetonka (Wayzata, MN)

Prior Lake (Prior Lake, MN)

Lake O’Dowd (Prior Lake, MN)

Spring Lake (Prior Lake, MN)

St. Croix River

Minnesota River

Mississippi River

Missouri River (Bismark, ND)

Nelson Lake (Center, ND)

Sweet Briar Lake (New Salem, ND)

Lake Auburn (Victoria, MN)

Balsam Lake (Balsam Lake, WI)

Lake Pepin (Lake City, MN)

Orchard Lake (Lakeville, MN)

Lake Mille Lacs (Onomia, MN)

Cedar Lake (Aitkin, MN)

Cedar Lake (New Prague, MN)

Lake Mazaska (Faribault, MN)

Shields Lake (Faribault, MN)

Cedar Lake (Faribault, MN)

Sakatah Lake (Waterville, MN)

Tetonka Lake (Waterville, MN)

Lake Jefferson (Cleveland, MN)

Lake of the Ozarks (Eldon, MO)

Lake Okoboji (Arnold’s Park, IA)

Mike Minnewashta (Arnold’s Park, IA)

Lower Gar Lake (Arnold’s Park, IA)

South Lindstrom Lake (Lindstrom, MN)

Chisago Lake (Lindstrom, MN)

Probably my favorite adventure ever on the Ranger was in August of 2014. Dyan and I took a 101 mile, 9 hour round trip excursion from Eagan to the Afton via three waterways - the Minnesota River to the Mississippi River to the St. Croix River.

The experience took us underneath the flightpath of MSP, gave us a picturview window of downtown St. Paul and showed us real quick how out of our element we were when we had to navigate Lock & Dam #2, in Hastings, MN.

By 2016, the Ranger was starting to push past her prime. I (who are we kidding? The marina) had to start doing more than just preventative maintenance. I had just had knee surgery in the spring of 2016. I was antsy to get out of the house after being cooped up rehabilitating. I talked Dyan into braving the strong currents of the Mississippi River with me.

We fished all day avoiding catastrophe (due to the current and me almost falling in the river because of my bum knee) on a couple of occasions. While on the river, I had an unfortunate run-in with a gigantic submerged tree and the trolling motor. Let’s just say, that was the beginning of the end for that motor.

Later on that summer, Aaron and I had to forfeit a tournament due to the trolling motor and battery issues. Over the next week I watched youtube videos on fixing the cable drive of the MotorGuide, which temporarily worked. Just long enough for me to catch this giant 5.27lb bass on Lake Marion. My personal best to date.

But the trolling motor continued to give me fits the rest of the summer.

By 2017, we had much bigger issues than the trolling motor. On our way to the Ozarks, we nearly lost a trailer wheel when the bearing overheated due to some heavy duty braided fishing line that somehow worked its way into the bearings.

This incident caused me to do an entire refurbishment of the the trailer prior to the 2018 season. I (the marina) put on new bearings, hubs, tires, as well as updated the trailer with full LED lights. While in the shop, the motor had an issue with the fuel float. I won't pretend to know what it was, but it was sure expensive to diagnose and repair.

Also in 2018, I finally got fed up and replaced the trolling motor. The days of not knowing which direction the boat was going to go when giving the trolling motor some juice were finally behind me. And the money pit continued as soon as Aaron and I got the boat on the water for the first time and realized the cranking battery was dead. By May of 2018, I had spent more money YTD on the Ranger than I had in all the years combined since 2013.

And 2019 started off with more fixes. This time, I spent nearly $300 having the shop diagnose what was thought to be a bad fuel filter or faulty fuel pump. Neither were the correct diagnosis. The issue ended up being cheap spark plugs.

The Ranger is a great boat and has been almost like a companion to me over the years. She was always ready to hit the water as soon as I said, “Let’s go!” This blog would not exist if I never would have bought her. The original premise of this blog was to document my experiences on the water in that little boat. Obviously, this blog has come a long way since then, but the Ranger deserves the credit for encouraging me to write!

But now, she’s getting older and doesn’t fit our growing family. In the past two years, we have not gone out as a family of 7 because the boat just isn't big enough for us.

Although we made it work when the kids were younger, I am not sure that boat ever was big enough for all of us. Hell, I am not sure there is a boat in existence that is big enough for all of us! But we didn’t let the size deter us from having some memorable trips to the lake.

And that brings us to where we are today. Given the problems I had been having with the Ranger, I was ready to sell. I had contacted a couple of local marinas and they were willing to give me between $9,000 and $11,000 if I traded it in on a new boat. Not too bad of a value considering I paid $16,000 for it, and owned it for 7 years. So I decided to list it on Facebook Marketplace for $17,000. I knew I was way overvaluing it, but hey, it gave me room to negotiate. I was hoping to get $12-13K.

The boat was listed for 5 days. In that time, I had 12 people make serious inquiries, with 3 setting up appointments to test drive it. I must admit, I was a bit relieved. Relieved in that despite the issues I had with the boat people were still interested in this 10 year old vessel.

Then a guy named Greg messaged me. He was very interested in the boat. From the moment Greg reached out to me, he was hook, line and sinker. Greg even went as far as telling me to cancel the test drive appointments because he was planning to bring COLD HARD CASH when he stopped by to buy it. There are some flakey buyers out there in cyber space, so I tried my best to not get my hopes up. I was anticipating Greg to go silent at some point and never to be heard from again. But that wasn't the case. For 3 straight days Greg messaged me over and over asking questions about the boat. I felt like many of my responses to home were disappointing such as, “No Greg, the trolling motor is not linked the the Humminbirds.” “No Greg, the trolling motor is not Minn Kota.” “No Greg, the rod box doesn’t fit a rod over 7′.” I felt like all my responses were going to deter Greg from buying the boat, but every time his counter was, “I can work with that.”

As it turned out, Greg was a real guy and not just some cyber punk wasting my time. Greg showed up at my house and looked the boat over before signing paperwork that transferred the title over to him. And the craziest part about it, he really did bring $17,000 in cold, hard, cash. Fat stacks of $100 dollar bills!

It was a surreal moment. The boat was no longer mine. However, I just received $1,000 more for the Ranger than what I originally paid for it! How is that possible? Quite the return on my investment!

Despite the great deal I had just made on the boat, it was painful to watch my baby pull out of the driveway destined for a new home. I watched the Ranger head down the street, knowing I’d never see her again. Only when those brand new LED tail lights were out of sight did I finally head inside. I was no longer a boat owner. But, I now had some discretionary money burning a hole in my pocket... What shall we buy Dyan?

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bbblocksmith · 4 years

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FOUR SUPER-TIPS TO FIND A GOOD LOCKSMITH IN EAGAN, MINNESOTA

First let’s talk about Eagan – this one is a beautiful city located in Dakota County, Minnesota and is very popular for its greenery. With a population of about 67000 people Eagan is a great place to live if you want to be surrounded by natural beauty. Having said that it a nice place to live, it does have its darker side – FBI crime data suggests that Eagan is also not very safe for one to live owing to its crime. Personal, property and automobile crime is very common in this city and hence one needs to make sure that proper safety and security measures are taken to ensure that no mishaps happen due to negligence. Needless to say one needs the property and personal experts to take care of this. Also, the confusing part for the people is that there are so many options to choose from when it comes to finding the right locksmith for your needs. For example: Locksmiths in Eagan provide a variety of services like - Break-in repairs, key replacement, transponder key duplication, key extraction, Home lockouts 24/7, security upgrades, ignition cylinder repair, lock repair, etc. That is why we have written this article so that you get general guidelines on finding a good Locksmith in Eagan for your requirements.

Find the right experts for your specific requirements

There is always a dilemma when selecting the right locksmith based on your needs. One always gets confused whether to get an all-rounder locksmith who knows every domain or to call someone who just expertise in a particular trade. This obviously is a tricky question to answer. We suggest that instead of choosing from these better option is to find out the locksmith based on when and where the need arises. You would however want to ensure that the locksmith you choose has great reference and reviews in addition to expertise in this field. You should never choose someone just based on the price-factor as the safety and security of the people and premises depend on that, so choose wisely.

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availability

An important factor to note that when you are searching for a locksmith for your needs – please do check their availability before making the decision to choose. You would want to choose someone who is not only just reliable but also should be available at your convenient time. Also, you must ensure that the locksmiths have credible reference regarding keeping their appointments – nobody wants to spend an entire day after booking the locksmith for their services.

cost-effective

Obviously we are not suggesting that you choose the cheapest locksmith but you would however like not to over pay for any of the services you avail from them. So we suggest that you compare first with a few other locksmith before you finally choose someone for your services. This would give you an idea about how much ideally one is supposed to pay to the locksmith for a particular service.

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bbblocksmith · 4 years

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An Easy Guide by Car Locksmith Eagan Mn to Understand Various Reasons on Why Your Car Keys Have Stopped Functioning!

Do you ever experience difficulty opening your vehicle through keys? It is a very common observance that the keys of automobiles stop functioning without warnings. The annoying part is not knowing what caused it? Or whether to spend on repairing it or getting it replaced? These questions although irritating, are important to understand to decide the next course of action. The best Car Locksmith Eagan Mn would tell you all the things that we are now going to mention in this article. We have taken time and effort to present you with a simple guide on understanding the reasons why your car or automobile key suddenly stopped working? Regardless of whether you have a key or keyless vehicle lock, a few things can be the reason for the lockout or the vehicle not beginning.

Before calling a Car Locksmith Eagan Mn close to you, we urge you to evaluate the circumstance to help spare yourself time. The unusable key might be because of one of the accompanying:

1. The batteries in the key is dead

Can't make sense of why your car lock won't open? The main thing we frequently prescribe is to check the battery! Numerous individuals don't think to change the battery in their key coxcomb before calling a close-by locksmith, bringing about sat around idly and cash. Please check properly if the battery of the keys has died? If so then this might be a very simple, cost-effective and easy solution to the car-key issue. Just get a new set of batteries and replace them in the keys and you should be good to go.

2. A Damaged Key

After some time, keys frequently become worn as they're by and large carried wherever with us. They're regularly tossed in pockets, handbags, and dropped on the ground a few times each day. Tragically, this can chip, twist and even break, bringing about a futile key.

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3. Inner damange to keyless section remote

Connectors inside the key can get harmed after some time, bringing about a non-working key. This may prompt the vehicle not to begin or not having the option to get inside the vehicle when bolted.

4. The key hasn't been modified

Like the inner key harm, the vehicle won't open or start if it hasn't been modified to your vehicle. The best Locksmith can cut and program vehicle keys for a wide range of vehicles.

5. Low-quality vehicle key duplication

Tragically, there are numerous locksmith benefits out that offer low-quality vehicle key duplication, which prompts sat around idly and cash. We urge you to do your examination before getting out only any Locksmith.

Locksmiths in Eagan are trusted and moderate locksmith offering vehicle lockout administrations, vehicle key duplication and vehicle key programming. Once more, we urge you to do your research and if you are not sure of whether to check for it manually or not then might we urge you to just call an expert locksmith to help you out.

the post An Easy Guide by Car Locksmith Eagan Mn to Understand Various Reasons on Why Your Car Keys Have Stopped Functioning! published first on BBB Locksmith MN

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