Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Florida Alligators?

boats are expensive new better to find one a couple yrs old with low hours.

This is very good advice. The tip of the gill plate basically has a razor blade on it. It will also destroy landing nets and cast nets. Also don’t make it a habit to grab any saltwater fish by the lip or stick your fingers down into their mouth to dislodge a hook.

If you are handy at all a five grand boat will put you on a pile of fish. Ten grand will get you a nicer boat and twenty will get you a really nice used boat. A bay style boat is a little bigger and a little higher sided than a flats boat but is still useful on the flats but will allow you to slip offshore a few miles on calmer days. A true deep vee offshore boat will suck inshore and vice versa for a true flats boat. Florida bay is shallow but the chop will get nasty with Weather or a strong onshore breeze.

Thanks Dave.

What's the difference between a bay style boat and a flats style boat?

Best part of Florida imo is the panhandle. Panama City to Pensacola has great fishing and hunting. People are nice and you don’t need to learn Spanish. If you really are moving to Homestead you are in for rude awakening in how you will be treated as a white English speaking man in all of South Florida. As a truck driver I will not go south of mile marker 76 on I95. Except for a sliver of land along the water south Florida is a third world chithole.

Google Hewes redfisher for a representative flats boat and Pathfinder 2200 for a representative bay boat. Lots of variations of both styles but the those pictures should give an idea.

Know the difference between a yankee and a damn yankee?

A yankee comes down for a visit.

A damn yankee comes down and stays.

Whatever you buy make sure you have plenty of room for gas, plenty of room for water, and some shade (canopy). You'll be better off with an ocean going (deep v) boat to use in the bay than a bay boat in the ocean. decide where you want to spend your time, then buy a boat for the ocean.

flats boats are designed to run skinny, a bay boat has more draft and can handle rougher water.

Coastal I like Apalachicola, Homosassa, Ponte Vedra, St. Augustine, inland, a little west of Ocala, up through about Ft. White. A few other isolated spots.

Traffic sucks in SFL (From Ft Pierce all the way down to Homestead), also Jax, O-town, and Tampa.You could pretty much draw a line from Ft. Myers to Ft. Pierce, and I would pass on anything south of that line.There is some very nice coastal stuff south of that line, but the cost of ownership is really high! Anything you can afford inland will be hot, humid, bug, reptile, and mexican infested.

You could pick up a used Flats boat in the teens to low 20's, quite a bit more if it is only a year or two old. Remember, they are a hole in the water that you throw money in. Really not much point to being in SFL without one though.

Do they still put the "We speak english" signs in the window, or have they given up on that entirely.




Clar-ve-is, You'll find a lot of Cubans amongst the hispanics in that area and they tend to be quality people.

Agree on the Cubans.

Bay boat is like what you’d get if a bass boat humped a walleye boat. Flats boat is more like a cross between a bass boat and a sheet of plywood covered with woven glass and gel coat. Lol.

I partially agree on the Cubans. The old Batista Cubans are gold but the boat lift Cubans are a mixed bag at best.

Zzz zzzzzzz fish on. Looks like the chumming is starting to pay off. Enjoy your move to the sunshine state.

It takes about 3 different boats to do whats around you there.

Sumtin' small for the lakes, rivers and canals. I gotta 16ft welded tunnel hull with a 20hp Honda 4 stroke for that.
Some would rather hang a 300hp OB on some sorta ridiculous looking bass boat..to each his own.
A little yak in the back of your truck can make for some quick easy fishing in all those canals.

A Flats Cat is a good option for backwater salt flats, works for me anyway, Red's Snook and Tarpon mostly but tons of other species.

A good center consoled bay boat, pick the breed, there are many good ones. 22-24ft, 90 to 300hp. Twins, if ya want to stretch one to 28ft and pretend you have an offshore boat. You'll have your day if ya do.

I opted out on a offshore boat and just book charters a few times a year, cheaper in the long run. Sail's, Tuna, Dolphin, King Mackerel, etc.... Care, feeding, insurance, dually truck or boat slip for a real offshore boat just runs through the roof in costs, I quit that a long time ago. If I was living on the water in the Keys I'd have one.

I do have a really good charter outta Islamorada I use , he's never failed me at producing he's pricey but well worth it.. Last trip down we got 5 Sails kite fishing...

I haven't gotten a return call from my Glades guys yet, death in their family, I'll hook ya up with him but I'll wait until after the first...:-)

Jeff,

That's good stuff. Thanks.

Would never need an offshore. Have more than one kayak/canoe that I will be taking down there. A center consoled rig sounds ideal to me but was wondering if an airboat would be essential down that way. I guess time will tell. Ultimately....



Thanks again,
Travis

I've had bears and wolves in my yard. I walked around the side of an artesian well house and face-to-face with a lynx that was getting a drink. A few days ago I called a coyote to less than 20' from my dining room window. I could not get used to Big Al in my yard.

This still doesn’t sound like an apology.

Airboats can be tons of fun. In that country rules and regs can keep you out of a lot of areas with airboats.

If you just get the boat bug and wanna buy sumtin',
Might consider a good mudmotor on a flat-bottom to get to most areas an airboat can go but without special reg's restricting you.

Live? I'll stop by and see you next time I go to the Keys. Alligators are everywhere down there, and it won't be hard to fill a tag. When you get ready to buy a boat go to www.thehulltruth.com It's a great site.