The semi-enclosed Argo was shielding me from the cold… sorta… and I was having a ball. So why the heck shouldn’t I really test it?
This would’ve been wiser if I knew the area. The damn ATV ditch trail kept disappearing and urban sprawl was obviously encroaching rapidly on everything in the vicinity. I’d be chugging along the edge of a little cornfield on a clear ATV route and then suddenly I’d be scooting across a frontage road. I’d be like “WTF happened to the cornfield? I’m in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut!” It was confusing as all get out. (In retrospect I wish I’d stopped for pizza. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?)
Finally, a break! I spied a bit of that large trail system I’d groused about three posts ago. It was about a half mile away. I was nowhere near it and the land between us showed no ATV tracks. It was the kind of ugly reedy shit that just screams “protected”.
I was on the shoulder of a two lane divided non-interstate that had a lot of traffic. I think technically it’s called the “verge”? It’s the grassy part that slopes away from the road. It’s legal to be there on what’s called (euphemistically) the “ditch trail”. On the other hand, I didn’t see any ATV tracks. (This doesn’t mean it’s illegal, only that locals with ATVs know of a better route.) I decided to follow the road to the trail on the other side of a little swamp.
I charged out on the wide steep sidehill, well below the eye level of cars some 50 yards away and 10 yards above me. Rather unexpectedly, the damn terrain dropped out. The road stayed high and level but the adjacent ground dropped several dozen feet to a dense reedy mess at the bottom. It was about as steep as physically possible for that kind of soil. It was like God took a big open grassy football field and tilted it 60 degrees. (God knows how they mow the brush on the sidehill but the upper part was grassy. Twice a year using something with tracks I’m guessing.)
I slid on the seat (I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt!) and my feet had no purchase on the icy floor. Now I was practically prone on the stupid bench seat. Of course, the Argo didn’t give a shit. An ATV will react to a rider’s weight and they’re easy to roll. If I’d been on an ATV I’d have been lying in the mud 40’ below that spot. If I’d been in a wider UTV? I’m not sure. Well Curmudgeon, what did you just learn about the absence of ATV tracks?
Ironically, two deer stood on the steep hill munching grass. A zillion cars zooming by just 60 yards away but the deer were below the horizon and essentially invisible. Probably during hunting season there’s a thousand of them having a block party right at that spot. Clever critters. They hardly noticed me.
The Argo kept happily chugging along and I could be dead for all it cared. I kept my grip on the handlebars and aimed it DOWN so I could get my ass back in the seat where it belonged. By then I was at the bottom of the steep hill and the situation was a mess. The roadbuilders had just dumped a zillion yards of topsoil right on top of the area (swamp and all). Some half dead trees at the base were sticking out and beyond that was a sea of reeds. The edge was a brushy 10 yard wide wet confusing no-man’s zone of half frozen goop. I’d just driven right into it.
I was pretty sure the Argo would chug right through the center of that mess but who knows if the swamp was tied up in some paperwork definition of irreplaceable valuable wetland (notwithstanding they’d built a highway through it). Better to turn around in the impossibly tight spot without chewing up the reeds or getting stuck. I also wanted to get the hell out of there before someone noticed me and I wound up a laughing stock on social media somewhere. (That said, you could probably live a whole life just below passing car’s eye level and never be seen.)
I popped it into R and the beast crawled backwards up the very steep bank like it was just nuthin’! Wow! It didn’t even work hard. No spinning wheels, no loud motor noise, no shimmying… it just crawled out the mess where I’d put it like a dumbass. I broke out into a sweat but the Argo didn’t.
By then I’d had enough fun. Fuck the big trail system that I never found. I’d done a fair test of the Argo and that was the point. (I’d also changed my mood which was the true purpose.) Time to get back to my truck (and its heated cab).
Unfortunately, I had no clear idea how I’d gotten there. I just kept following the ditch trail more or less the way I’d came. It wasn’t exactly the same way but it was about right. Sometimes there were ATV tracks in the ditch, other times it disappeared into urban sprawl. I was pretty close to the dealer by then.
Then I spied it. The perfect test!
There was an area of ditch that was deeply filled with water. Flooded actually. It was about 8’ wide and maybe 40’ long. It was at least 2’ deep in the center… maybe more. It was technically in the “ditch trail” definition so why not?
I hopped out to put in the two drain plugs and then gingerly… ever so gently… drove it right into the water. Argos are supposed to float. I knew they’re amphibious. This is within their design specifications…
But, until you’ve done it, you’ve no idea! Holy shit it was awesome!
It crawled into the water (which was much deeper than I’d guessed) and then could tell from the feel that no wheels were touching the ground. Some of the water was iced over, but the Argo just smashed the thin ice. The Argo didn’t give a shit about anything really. I didn’t have to rev the engine or spin like a maniac. My feet didn’t get wet, a great splash didn’t erupt and make a mess, there was no drama at all. It slid into that spot like a duck taking to water.
I let off the throttle and just floated… amazed at what I’d just done. No shit, I’ve pulled trucks, cars, jeeps, tractors, and everything else into and out of water hazards and mud pits. I’ve a lifetime of training pounded into my head that games like this end with anything from an expensive repair to a ruined afternoon. Not so for the little Argo.
I was impressed. I named it!
“I shall call you… BattleDuck.”
Slow and easy I churned down the length of it. At the other end it caught traction easily and drove right out of the water, not so much as an inch of wheel spin. Wow!
That was so awesome! I turned around and went right back in, this time faster. I cruised to the end and back out. I think I was most impressed that I didn’t get even a drop of water on me. This was a freezing cold, hypothermia inducing, menace and the machine scarcely noticed it. BattleDuck was truly an amphibious machine. I paused and leaned over the side to check it out… I was in at least 4’ of water!
Then it happened. It’s not true that all fun leads to embarrassment but a lot does.
“What. The. HELL. Are. You. Doing!?!”
I was happily spinning down the water the third time when I heard someone shouting. I paused. I looked up. There was a guy on shore absolutely steaming with rage. He’d definitely like to kick my ass. He was accompanied by an older fellow, probably his father, who looked far less pissed but still somewhat unhappy.
What the hell was I doing?
From one point of view I was driving around in the legal ATV trail in an area that was formerly rural and had grown a lot lately.
From another point of view, I was a random asshole driving around in front of some dude’s radiator repair shop.
That’s not cool. I was super embarrassed.
“I am so sorry sir. I’m a total dick and I apologize.”
“GO. FIND. A. LAKE.”
Good point. Technically I hadn’t broken any rules but I had certainly been rude. I should have found a lake. I apologized as I started to churn to the exit point.
“Sorry, went for a test drive. Got lost. I promise you’ll never see me again.”
The father figure was mollified and chuckled a bit. This caused son to yell at him. “WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT!?!”
I’m sure it’s a faux pas to drive in some dude’s ditch but he was very pissed. Maybe he thought I was tearing up his grass? (I wasn’t, the tires weren’t even touching the ground… but how could he know that?)
By then the old guy was laughing, I was apologizing, the Argo was already crawling up onto the ground (not making any ruts!), and the dude was mad at everyone. “YOU’RE BOTH JERKS!”
I made a friendly hand wave, smiled as best I could, and (before he decided to get up close and personal) blasted down a paved frontage road at maximum Argo speed. He didn’t chase me. Whew!
Ten minutes later I’d turned it in at the dealer. “Gosh, I’m sorry but I may have pissed off a guy at the radiator shop nearby.” The salesdrone was unconcerned. “Meh, fuck him.” I suspect there’s more to the story than I know. He handed me a bunch of brochures and sent me on my way. They don’t bother hard selling Argos; either I’ll come back for it or I won’t.
Conclusion:
Argos are terrible at normal situations and so awesome at weird ones that I got screamed at by a radiator repair man.
I can’t afford an Argo but I grok their allure. I also get why you’d keep the thing far away from towns! I did feel sheepish that I’d done a rude thing… but it was one of those accidental events that just happens. Hopefully the guy finally calmed down and/or stopped yelling at his dad. I also hope y’all got a laugh out of my mild misbehavior.
Also, this happened a month ago. It tamed my Argo lust but didn’t put out the flame. I still miss BattleDuck.
An Argo in a drive-thru pulling up to the window – now THAT would have been cool !
I know! It was a golden opportunity but I didn’t recognize it in time.
AC, you named it, you own it, maybe just not in your possession yet.
Don’t I know it. The thing is waaaaaay out of my price bracket (which is currently $0 and unlikley to climb for a while) but it simply earned the name.
So it’s a boat AND an off road vehicle … I wonder if you can put a sail on it?
Sure you can but it would just sit there like a brick with a sail. It has an optional outboard motor bracket; which I’ve never seen in use. It might be awesome for fishing in small inaccessible ponds and I can’t imagine why all duck hunters don’t have one.
Because Duck Hunters will spend an obscene amount of money on a duck gun, mortgage the ancestral estates for a double flock of decoys, own a tacke-box full of duck calls,and then penny-pinch ammo and supporting equipment.
The Argo would cut into their decoy and alcohol budget.
Plus, some duck hunters use sneak-boats in places where there is water accessible from easy accessible launch points.
Duck Hunters are not like Bass Fishermen, who will willingly spend and mortgage out the wazzoodle in order to get a matching truck, trailer, boat, motor, trolling motor, custom bass fishing clothing, rods and tackle boxes to match the boat scheme, and a 3rd world’s GNP on various lures, plugs and googads.
Delightful tale, AC.
I is confuse, though. You were in a ditch full of water that no sane man would want to be in and Junior was pissed at you and Dad who was chuckling. Humans is weird. I could see an issue if you were tearing up the soybeans, but a friggin’ ditch?
I know right??!?
I was floating in a ditch filled with near frozen water and that’s definitely weird and childish but it’s not like I was hurting anything. Some folks just hate to see a person having fun. (And I was indeed having a great time!) My other theory is that he’s got some sort of a feud with the ATV shop a quarter mile from his radiator shop and I drove right into it. It’s a guess. Who knows.
Duck hunters in Wisconsin aren’t allowed to hunt from boats that have a usable engine on them. The expedient here for outboards is to either puul them if light enough, or tilt them out of the water and affix a cover of some sort. An Argo couldn’t be ‘disabled’ that way, so it would be illegal to hunt from. In fact, you can’t shoot from any motorized platform, ever, without special disabled status. Otherwise, it sounds like the bees knees for here.
Huh? I didn’t know this thing.
So, an outboard tilted out of the water is OK but a drivetrain still installed is not? That must mean no internal engine boats for hunting? What’s the real word difference between a tilting outboard on a skiff and a “through the hull” propshaft on a similar sized craft? How does this have anything to do with duck populations?
I doubt the ducks know if they were shot from an unacceptable craft. Maybe it’s about fetching the duck? Lobbying from the Big Labrador Retriever monopoly? More noble death if a hunter used a canoe paddle? Is buzzing out there with a motorized skiff (or Argo) to pick up freshly shot lunch too easy? Also, this must mean no shotguns on jetskis. 🙂
Actually, I have sympathy here (only a little). The government (State or Federal) is trying to manage shit and part of that is to say “this is OK and that is not”… which anyone smarter than a six year old knows is a doomed idea right from the start. It never works intelligently for edge cases. They’re doomed because they’re not able to use common sense. The technology changes faster than rules can be formulated. Totally logical things that aren’t bad for the resource are allowed/disallowed based on what’s popular 5 years ago.
Lately I’ve mulled over ATVs and it’s an entire universe of edge cases. Where a machine can go in terms of it’s ability and where it can go based on the current mishmashed web of rules are almost unrelated now. It makes my mind hurt (but it is pretty funny). On many trails, a motorcycle is bad but an ATV is good. Possibly because narrow tires create more erosion and big bubbly tires don’t… or maybe because dirtbikes are associated with teenagers in 1970 and everyone hates teenagers from 1970. I can’t tell. Meanwhile, a single seat ATV is < 50" wide so it's good on all ATV trails (even though a motorcycle is only like a foot wide) but a wider ATV is a side by side or UTV and can't legally go on some ATV trails. (I’d just let the wide ATVs sort themselves out. Smash the thing on trees with too narrow of a gap between them and you’ve learned the limits… but nobody asked me.) Back at the ATV plant some smart engineer crammed two seats in 50″ width and I think that’s legally OK on all trails. To make rules for that the DNR had to go from ATV/UTV to ATV 1 and ATV 2… at least in some states… I think. In other situations, a snowmobile has tracks so it’s a snowmobile and is OK on snowmobile trails and nothing else is allowed… which made sense for decades because 4′ of snow would eat an ATV anyway. Now it’s just a matter of money to put tracks on a Razor and I don’t see how that’s different from a snowmobile. Maybe slower and quieter and that’s about it. Yet at least sometimes, tracked ATVs are not allowed on snowmobile trails for reasons I don’t quite understand. It has tracks but it doesn’t look like a snowmobile so I guess that’s the reason? It looks funny from a point of view based on 1990’s technology. Not that nature can tell the difference. How is 4 tracks somehow better or worse for the underlying environment than 1 track and skis? All of this goes completely batshit when some loon puts tracks on an ARGO with eight wheels… it’s not an ATV, it’s not a snowmobile, it’s not a boat… what the hell is it? From a science point of view it’s physically capable of the trail and it’s not tearing the shit out of frozen soil under 3′ of snow so it should be totally OK. What’s the problem? It’s weird!
You can expand this to add horses, mountain bikes, cross country skis, hunters, birdwatchers, and probably left handed neurologists on unicycles. You can bet your ass someone is working on a drone/hovercraft hybrid that can cross any terrain without so much as bending the leaf on a flower. At first it’ll be banned because it’s weird. Later, tearing around on a single track snowmobile will be one for the museum… maybe.
The society that painted themselves into that mess is the same one letting Google figure out which words are OK and which are hate speech. Obviously it’s a quagmire. Any smart person at Google would’ve said “we’re not going to touch that with a 10′ pole”. But they waded into it like dumbasses.
On the other hand… I can’t afford an Argo and don’t hunt ducks so it’s just an amusing question to me.
A.C.
P.S. Now I’m reminded of the advent of snowboards in the late 1980’s. I recall various ski slopes saying “no boards here” and “yes boards over there”… as if 2 skis and 1 board are so different they would get into gang fights. It was a bit of a debate for a while. I’ve not been skiing lately but I assume that’s all worked out. I assume they’re both allowed basically everywhere now. They just gave up trying to split hairs. Lets hear it for letting the universe sort shit out instead of a rulebook.
The no motorized hunting I believe was originally intended to keep people (market hunters originally) from racing from one spot to the next, theoretically blasting away with punt guns, crippled birds tumbling out of the sky helter skelter to paddle in circles until they lodged in reed beds and rotted until they stank.
Yes, an inboard/outboard is strictly prohibited. No hunting from your ski boat or daycruiser, you.
The motorized vehicle prohibition is to prevent road hunting and spotlighting using vehicles.
Of course it doesn’t stop the actual road hunters, scofflaws, and poachers, but it adds on additional fines for when and if a warden catches up to them.
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