'Bud's Landing' drew duck hunters for decades with a safe harbor and 3.2 beer. Now it's giving way to canoes and kayaks.

MINNEAPOLIS — If you listened to those who knew Bud Joseph, he’d roll over in his grave about what was happening to his historic boat landing on the Mississippi River near Hastings.

Cherished by duck hunters since the 1930s as a safe place to launch their boats, the site recently won approval to be developed as a county “use area” for canoeists, kayakers, paddleboarders and other outdoor enthusiasts.

The bad news for waterfowlers? The $4.63 million project cuts them out. Their trailered jon boats with longtail mud motors will be disallowed starting next year.

“I’ve been hunting for 65 years and I have to say it’s really a disappointment,” said Ron McNamara of Denmark Township near Afton.

Widely known as Bud’s Landing, the little beach at the bottom of a steep hill in Nininger Township is regarded by area duck hunters as a safe alternative to the state-owned river access about a mile away on Hillary Path. Two duck hunters drowned off Hillary Path in the 1990s when winds out of the northwest stirred up fierce waves that tipped them into the cold water.

Boaters who choose Bud’s Landing don’t have to reckon with those winds to reach the public hunting grounds around Spring Lake Islands Wildlife Management Area.

“It’s so wrong what they are doing,” said Larry Josephs of West St. Paul, a nephew of the late Bud Joseph. “It feels like someone else is imposing their values on the place. How about the people who have been enjoying this sport for 100 years?”

He said his uncle welcomed hunters and anglers to the landing as far back as the mid-1930s. He built rental cabins and opened a 3.2 beer joint called Bud’s Place that served pizza and Stewart sandwiches. “Uncle Buddy,” as Josephs knew him, offered kids 5 cents for every empty beer bottle they picked up from the picnic grounds.

Families would come for the weekend, pitch tents and cook outdoors. Bud’s Place sold shotgun shells to hunters and live bait to anglers and regulars would forage for watercress in nearby streams. Josephs remembered the unlevel pool table inside the beer joint. There was also Yak-Yak, a big black Labrador who jumped in any hunter’s boat to retrieve ducks or geese.

The rustic resort thrived as a getaway for decades before closing in 1985.

“It was really a paradise down there … a famous place," Josephs said.

Bumble bee concerns

Once Dakota County purchased Bud’s Landing in 2012, it never opened as a public landing. Rather, officials immediately provided waterfowlers special access by permit. The last of those daily, $10 access tags will be issued this month as Minnesota’s waterfowl season winds down.

County commissioners sealed the fate of Bud’s Landing on Nov. 6 by voting to revamp the site with a design that will prohibit conventional duck hunting rigs. Changing the design to accommodate boat trailers would disrupt high-quality habitat for the federally endangered rusty patch bumble bee, said Yao Xiao, project manager of the Mississippi River Landing Use Area and Access.

Bud’s has always accommodated turnaround space and parking capacity for three to four boat-and-trailer rigs at a time. But the approved development is designed to add trails, an accessible floating pier, self-service kayak rentals, picnic tables, portable toilets, an outdoor classroom, fishing access points and vegetation restoration.

The planned improvements around the shore that overlooks the Spring Lake portion of the Mississippi will be connected by an Americans with Disability Act-compliant path to an upland trailhead facility.

“The team will also study the feasibility of providing a small pavilion building with storage,” according to the project summary given to county commissioners.

Niki Geisler, Dakota County parks director, said the county’s application for state grant money to upgrade Bud’s Landing was based on a master plan to draw more people to a culturally significant place along the river.

“We really have high hopes we can bring people to the river,” Geisler said.

Former Dakota County Commissioner Joe Harris spent decades finding and acquiring land for public use along the Mississippi, including Bud’s Landing. He’s also a waterfowl hunter who has been trailering a boat to the site since the 1970s. He likens the current access road to a “cow path.”

Harris said he’s not against new amenities, but he wishes the needs of duck hunters could be addressed somewhere in the vicinity of Bud’s Landing on the western side of Spring Lake Park. Even a no-frills access would spare hunters from launching into the wind-driven whitecaps common at Hillary Path. Harris said there was always talk when he was a commissioner of the county working jointly with the Department of Natural Resources to build a safe alternative.

“I would like to see [Bud’s Landing] stay available to us, but I’m not going to break a pick over it,” Harris said. “I just wish they were being a little more inclusive.”

Harris said the water off Bud’s Landing is filled with stumps and sandbars and he has hardly ever seen paddlers in the area.

“It’s not that great of a place to go canoeing,” he said.

What’s in a name?

Bud Joseph died in 1993, and Harris was involved in the negotiations to buy the property from Bud’s son, Gene. Part of the deal, Harris said, was that the place would always be called Bud’s Landing. Gene Josephs died in August.

“Bud would have never sold to us, but we eventually won Gene over,” Harris said. “It was going to stay in his dad’s name.”

When Dakota County unveiled its schematic design for the site at an open house on Sept. 30, there was no reference to the place as “Bud’s Landing.” Instead, an overview document named the project: “Mississippi River Landing Use Area and Access in Spring Lake Park Reserve.”

When asked about the naming agreement, Xiao and Geisler said they were unaware of it but the county would review the sales terms.

Larry Josephs is hoping the county honors the legacy of his Uncle Bud, but he has doubts.

“Who cares about doing the right thing?” he said. “Of course they should honor it but everything these days is so willy-nilly.”

Xiao said the next step for project managers is to move to a secondary design phase. As of late November, officials described the proposed river access as nonmotorized. But going forward, Geisler said, it will be described as a “carry-in access” that will allow for small, motorized watercraft that can be carted in or hauled to the landing without a trailer.

Ron McNamara, a regular user of Bud’s Landing for late fall duck hunts, said conventional outboard motors would bottom out on countless stumps and sand bars in the area, making them impractical. The longtail mud motors commonly used by duck hunters are able to plow and ram past those obstacles, but they’re far too heavy and bulky to carry in, he said. Besides, he said, any watercraft small enough to carry into Bud’s Landing would be at risk of capsizing in nasty weather.

“Why can’t they build a normal boat launch that nonmotorized boats can also use?” McNamara asked. “It doesn’t work the other way around.”