Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Bay" Boats...

False. I know of two. Both are resting at the bottom just outside the Merrimack mouth...

Very nice fishes.

When I was a teen, I dug quahogs with my friend Joe. My Brother had 2 Bull Rakes and my friend had a 17' flat bottom plywood skiff with a 70 horse tiller. That boat was made in someone's garage and I never felt safe in it. We were kids and making money. One day, we were coming up the Narrow River as the tide was going out. We had water up over the gunnels and we swamped. We bailed out a 17 foot boat with a 5 gallon bucket. Not fun. Fishing in the Barrington River in my 14' Lund, a bloody cruise ship decided to move around it's dock which sent a 10' wave across the river. I went down the trough and the wave came down on top of me. Again with a 5 gallon bucket. Again, not fun. The kid down the street and another kid drown duck hunting when their boat swamped. I managed to live long enough to gain some sense. I've come close to losing 2 boats though.

My friend lost two 20 foot boats. One Aquasport (which broke in half) and a Sea Ox. He was a commercial striper fisherman and was on Quicks Hole off the Vineyard both times. He said he was hit by rogue waves. He was rescued twice and he went out and bought an old 20' Wellcraft he had when I met him. I bought the same boat. I used it for years before it went on to another owner and I got the Sailfish. They market the 21 as a small offshore boat. I think my friend's 25' Gradys and Parkers are "small offshore boats." They want me to go out with them tuna fishing. I have no business out there in my boat. I can stay in the bay and rivers and hopefully have a good margin of safety.

We have some big boat builders : Bluefin, Northcoast, Ocean Bird, Sturdee, Dyer, and Pearson within 5 miles of here. I spent a summer building 26 foot friendship sloops at Quick Step. Aside from the sailboats, we have a tendency to build tall sided boats with deep V's and flared bows. It's almost a formula for our conditions. I always fancied the Western boats and wanted an Osprey with a big hooked bow. Too much bread, but they look seaworthy. They look like they'd float like a duck. We all like to say "when I win the lottery."

I don't play in such big ponds. That said, I've been on some pretty big lakes. I suppose you could get too big of a boat, but I never have. Mine is 19' which is fair sized for a bassboat. The old bassboats were 14-18'. I think there's one now that's 21'. Lots are 19 and 20'. The fastest ones like Norris crafts, Allisons and Storms are awfully shallow-drafted. Guys on the bassboat sites will say you have to know how to drive them, but if you encounter a 10' wake like you're speaking of, well...

In his OP, Texncal doesn't speak of any saltwater fishing. I think he alludes to it later, but when I say a fishnski I'm not talking about any but the most close-in salt stuff. I wouldn't off advice about stuff like that because I don't know about it. Texas Reservoirs...I'm no expert but I've fished a lot of them. Ones in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri too.

The real Bay Boats have a fairly deep draft. They look about like a Multi-Species boat. I think these craft would be fine for most inland lakes like he's talking about but you give up speed. I'm not a speed freak but if a big, dark cloud is on the horizon, I like to be able to beat it to shore and get loaded up. Be advised, I haven't a few times and like baling water with a coffee can, it ain't fun. That is especially true this time of year when lots of times it's 90 degrees and a front moves through with rain dropping it into the low 60's.

I guess you can call anything a "Bay Boat", but IMO some of the things called such nowadays are more bass boats with center consoles. I don't like a bassboat that sits too low in the water and has water about to come over the back end and I do like a full windshield that protects me from the elements.

I don't have plans to put my boat in the salt though.

Man, I love this place. The subject is "bay boats", and in reading through the posts, everything but carriers have been discussed.

'Luminum, modified V (11*, or so), 18', or longer, equip with saltwater motor, troller, and rigging - catch or shoot 'til your heart's content, and remember, always practice catch 'n' release (release, to the grease that is).

+1. My Whaler was a 60s model. I owned it in the late 90s...

Early Makos have an earned reputation as well. Few however would be considered "bay" boats - but then, neither are the majority of boats being discussed in this thread.

In my case I was in my 20s, and it was a friggin' 90' party boat that blasted by. Swamped me with a 8' roller, in between the jetties in the mouth of the 'Mack. It could've been deadly.

I went every night for 5 days to the dock where the boat was out of. It's probably a good thing I never found the skipper of that vessel.

If I could justify it, I'd love an Amesbury skiff for running in rivers, bays, harbors and inshore stuff on flatter days. Oldest continuously operated boat works in the country. Building them since 1793. Place is about a mile from where I live.

www.lowellsboatshop.com

I think most people missed the part where the OP said he wanted one of those type of boats that was used for inshore coastal areas and wanted it to be used on freshwater lakes not the size of Lake Michigan. Lots of boats suggested would never work for bass fishing on a freshwater lake (assuming you could even launch them 1/2 the year due to low water) but really aren't even inshore or near shore boats.

Where's your sense of adventure, man?



Smart move.

You can argue that Champion had the wrong motor on it, even though it was rated for 200 hp. It had been repowered when I got it, and that wonderful V6 Merc weighed 500+ lbs. The boat had a 87-88" beam, IIRC. In later models, to accomodate heavier motors, they had widened the beam, and modified that "boat-tail" to add a little more bouyancy aft.

As it was, to get it on plane, you had to trim the motor all the way down, light it up, then trim back up to run efficiently on plane.

On one occasion I was nearing one spot on the Delta that tends to collect some mini-rogue waves, where three sloughs run together. I wasn't running very fast, maybe 35-40 or so. I hit some waves just right, and manage to launch the boat a sizeable distance into the air. After I landed and collected my wits, I look over at the bank, and several bank fisherman are standing up and applauding.

There was/is a successful pro bass fisherman on the west coast named Gary Dobyns, who was running fast in his Ranger a few years ago. He hit a wave wrong and found himself UNDER the boat, with cracked vertebrae and busted ribs. He hadn't flipped it, simply got thrown out. He had a heck of a lot of experience running fast boats in all kinds of conditions.

Water be a fun, but incompressible fluid, and a harsh mistress.

Yeah no kidding lol. I got caught out in a freak windstorm in a 14' flat boat while coming back from a duck hunt once. It was like once in a century type of deals. No rain, no real clouds, not predicted at all. I was basically only crossing a wide creek on a large lake as it was and it got pretty scary. I got home and they said the wind had got up to 90mph gust and 70mph sustained and wasn't a thunerstorm. Whole part of the state was without power for weeks. Figures it only does that stuff when I was out in a boat.