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Getting revved for a new boat
It’s difficult to fathom, but in just three months, I’ll be fetching the BassCat from storage and driving to Mosquito Creek Reservoir for spring’s first bass trip.
For me, fishing is far more fun from a boat than from the bank. So while I pass some of the “off” season casting for causeway crappies or standing in a stream drifting nymphs for steelhead, I’m much happier fishing from my boat.
It’s been said the two best days of boaters’ lives are those when they bought and sold their boats. That’s poppycock. My two best days happen annually: when I bring the boat home from storage and when I take it for the year’s maiden voyage.
Often, those days are one and the same. I’m always chomping at the bit to get to the lake once the boat is home.
Now is the time to shop for a boat if you’ve decided 2016 is the year you are going to make the plunge. Whether it’s your first or your 10th, bringing home a new boat is every bit as exciting as pulling into the driveway with a brand-new car.
The finish sparkles, the lines are sleek and the smell is fresh and fantastic. The big outboard and propeller scream of speed. And the compartments are clean and expansive, ready to stow any and all manner of lures and gadgets.
Whether an angler prefers to fish for walleyes, bass, redfish or tuna, there are boats built specifically for their needs. Around these parts, of course, walleye and bass boats are big sellers, with manufacturers such as BassCat Ranger, Triton, Nitro, Skeeter, Lund, Alumacraft and others making vessels popular with species-specific anglers.
I’ve shopped for boats relatively few times. What they lack in terms of numbers, they more than make up in excitement. Our first boat was a spur-of-the-moment impulse buy after stumbling onto a mini boat show at Southern Park Mall.
The next two boat-buying experiences were after I’d made up my mind exactly which marque I wanted. The Ranger was wonderful and served for 15 seasons, and now the BassCat is as pretty as the day I drove it home from the dealer in Wabash, Ind., five years ago.
Much of the fun is in deciding what kind of accessories to include. Selecting depth finders, GPS mapping, trolling motors, shallow-water anchoring systems like those from Power Pole and Talon, and other bells and whistles helps make the boat personal.
Some manufacturers offer online tools that enable customers to tinker with color schemes and stripes, carpeting and trailers to really personalize their rigs. Barb and I spent several weeks working through hundreds and hundreds of possible combinations, finally settling on a red and white scheme that still is eye-catching today.
A day on the water in a great boat almost doesn’t even require fish to make it complete. Almost, I said, but not quite. Today’s fishing boats are designed to help anglers better than any generation of watercraft preceding them.
Since the days of dugout logs and thatch-hulled vessels, fishers have ventured onto the water to get better access to their quarry. “Fish where the fish are” is Rule 1 for us anglers, and today’s boats are outfitted with the technology to accomplish just that.