Disclaimer: I didn't see this happen, but it happened to a friend IE not someone's wife's girlfriend's second cousin who heard it from her boyfriend.

I've been boating the Muskegon River / Hardy Pond area since the 80's.

I've had - and been in - boats that were too fast, too loud, non current registration numbers, or any of several other reasons to be stopped by the marine patrol.

The officers up there exercise remarkable amounts restraint and discretion not just during Hot Boat Weekend, but all summer long; if you've ever been there you know what I'm talking about.

I've never witnessed, or even heard of any incident where an officer was anything but courteous and professional.

Bottom line was if you got hassled or got a ticket up there you probably had it coming.

Until now…

A friend of mine got stopped Saturday in the no wake zone in front of River Ridge.

The water cop approached him on a pwc from approx 90 degrees and apparently hadn't been trained on the pwc because ran into the side of the boat.

The cop then proceeded to read them the riot act about his grandkid having an improper (no headrest) life jacket. When they questioned him re. at what age that was no longer required he admitted he didn't know the law but "kids on the river need headrests on their lifejackets".

No safety check, just wanted registration, and explained that the reason for the stop was excessive speed in a no wake zone. He was told "i'm idling at 800 rpm this is as slow as it goes" and the cop's reply was "buy a different prop". The cop then went on a rant about all the hot rods during the weekends and especially Hot Boat weekend and on and on…major chip on his shoulder.

They weren't drinking (he doesn't drink) and the boat wasn't a blown hot rod with excessive idle and no dock manners. It was a couple and their grandkid out for a ride and got hassled by a cop with a chip on his shoulder.

He's not going to complain to the Mecosta Co sheriff dept but he is going to call the BBB there and explain to them how he was treated & from now on he'll stay downriver in Newaygo county or he'll boat somewhere else…in fact, he usually boats somewhere else so this asshat just chased biz away from the locals.


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ive stopped boating there this year just cuz of the same exact bs, cop had a chip on his shoulder pulled me over for to big of a wake in a no wake zone and I told the officer its the slowest my boat goes.

officer didn't care told me to figure it out asked if I was drinking and I said not yet officer. he then asked me if I knew my drinking laws and I said I do.

then asked me for name and all the info and I gave him all the info, I also was nice enough to tell him I have my cpl and I am currently caring and I told him I knew my laws and rights on that as well.
then he tuned into more of an a hole and tried to tell me im not allowed to cary at all when drinking and that's when I flipped out on him and told him he better get his book back out and read it him self.
I said actually you are allowed to cary a weapon on bored if drinking as long as its unloaded and the ammunition is as far away from it as possible. I looked into it myself before I ever started caring on the boat and I also was pulled over 3 times last year on lake mi by the coast quard and every time they asked me about wepons and filled me in on every law and legal bs cuz we became good friends after the second time.

so long story short he held me up for 40 mins had a few heated arqument and then asked abuot life jakets and then let me on my way no ticket. lets just say I was a little pissed off.

Update part deux

I just heard another boater experiencing a run-in this douchebag.

Basically same song, different verse....

Lack of any common courtesy, very unprofessional, MAJOR chip on his shoulder for anything even resembling a performance boat.

If the above isn't bad enough, the guy has no control over his jet ski…the story I'm hearing is he hit them hard enough to leave a large black mark on the side of their hull.

Sounds to me like he's a wannabe weekend volunteer with a Napoleon complex…probably was the whiny fat kid back in high school that got stuffed in his locker all the time and now he's got what he thinks is some authority…hopefully it won't be long before he tries this behavior with the wrong guy…like an off duty cop who doesn't like how this reflects on the rest of the LEO community.

I'm heading to Brower Park tommorrow in the morning. I hope the LEO (school teacher on summer break??) has calmed down. Hardy is my favorite place to boat.

I can tell you from personal experience. We got pulled over 7/4 afternoon by the same PWC cop for people standing up in the boat. Then he informed me not to come back unless I have made the boat more quiet. His statement without even doing a sound check was we are at least 100 to 110 decibel at idle. Wow, must be nice to be able to know how loud something is without equipment.
We were north of the bridge and no wake zone doing 38 mph.
His final statement was "consider this your warning".

The pigs on patrol have gotten a little out of hand there in the past few years, IE a cop standing on the SMALL dock at brower yelling at a guy who jumped off a boat to land it and cop was in his wayto the point where the guy about ran into him (no common sense on cops part) immediately asking him to submit to a breathilizer (guy wasn't even driving the boat) to the punk ass cops going 15 miles per hr weaving thru the parked boats at the cove during hot boat with no life jackets on, standing up on their 18 foot boat. Old Navy yelled to them "hey, this is a NO WAKE ZONE", "nice life jacket" , and I think their repsonse was "want to go to jail MTRFUKER". Hopefully it calms back down!

I think that everyone who runs into this butt head needs to call the sheriff.

As a former cop supervisor I wanted to know which of my people were doing good as well as doing wrong. Professionally worded feedback from citizens ws always welcome.

As for the bumping into and damaging of boats, sounds like maybe calling the sheriff department and filing a crash report with the water-wannabee-cop as the at-fault driver might be called for! Being the smart-ass that I am, I would have asked him if he had been drinking and asked him to take his own PBT right there!

I can tell you there is alot of drunken driving that goes on at hotboat, there will be a record number of arrest this year as they have announced their is a big crackdown on the river. I'm sure this cop feels a sense of barney badazz entitlement and was told to crackdown, sounds like he took it a step further on his own. Old Navy got a violating no wake ticket on Cheboygan river a few years ago at a dead idle in his 28 Checkmate, 20 year old punk on patrol decide because water was like glass the boat should not even create a ripple while moving, if there was a 9" chop it would have looked normal. Fought it in court and Judge simply said sounds like you were going too fast, guilty. The water police and Coasties showing zero common sense and hassling every boat that goes by when they are bored pisses me off beyond belief. WE had a big crackdown years ago in Bay city Mi, the cops and coast guard would sit in river watching boaters sitting at outside tables at Hooters thru binoculars then immediately pull you over for a "safety" inspection the minute you got out in the river, the first question out of their mouth was how much have you had to drink. They could never do this outside a bar with no reasonable suspicion but they do it on boats under the guise of a safety inspection, it took a class action lawsuit against Bay county for outright harassment before it calmed down, I was pulled over multiple times in one day and always legal, got to point where we would tell the CG's they were ***ot punk kids and to fuk off, go out on the big water where you belong.

Yep. Purely ridiculous what they used to do. I was very impressed I didn't see a single law enforcement boat in the river on July 4th until it was time for boats to begin staging for fireworks. The new DNR RIB was out off of state park watching through binoculars like a hawk and pulling over the idiots on jet skis that were weaving through the boats. He was watching the partying boats like a hawk too. Im sure if they would have left, he would have pulled an inspection to check for drinking.

I figured they would have renewed vigor this year after the new drunk boating law was passed and lowered limit to .08 on the water.

After all of the idiots that were out for the fireworks, I'm glad my little woman decided she had her one time fill of river fireworks. Morons everywhere....and once fireworks were over, there was no such thing as a "no wake zone"to the flotilla embarking up river.

I was on Hardy on the 1st and 2nd of July. I did not see a county water patrol officer at all. One DNR female launched from Brower on the 2nd in the morning. The 3rd, I saw 2 sherriffs boats launching about noon. I think the county did not patrol early in the week to get more hours on the water during the holiday.