boat choice advice

[Mike Churchill]

I'm posting this here because it gets a lot more activity than the boat forum:

I have the good fortune of having my parents move into town next week from San Diego. (Mom wants to spend more time with my kids and dad decided it's a good excuse to buy a boat and do lots of fishing.)

My dad and I are looking at boats big enough to hold the family, fast enough to ski behind, but primarily set up for fishing. We intend to fish the delta, the local rivers, and the big lakes with this one. (I intend to flyfish out of it but my dad will spend a good deal of time trolling with downriggers for trout and kings in the lakes.)

We're looking at both new and used boats and the current top of the search list is a 17-foot North River Bayhawk.

The big question I have at the moment is how people see the trade off between a regular outboard, a jet outboard, and an inboard jet. We don't really care if we can go 45 mph or not and we'd like to be able to run up the Feather or the lower Sac, but we don't know how big the down side is on the jet drive in terms of performance and fuel consumption (and whether they have problems with weeds in the delta).

Anyone out there care to share their thoughts / preferences?

Thanks,

Mike

[Dabalone]

North River builds fine alum boats and jets are a good choice if you plan on spending most of your time in the skinny water of our rivers, some areas they would be the only choice for getting you where you want to go. I might be wrong but it sounds like you and the family would be hitting lakes, delta, and lower rivers more, in that case a prop gives you better performance and control using less hp while being much more economical to run. I prefer outboards since they give you more room in the cockpit, I also prefer 2 strokes and the newer ones run very quiet at low rpms, fairly quiet at cruising speeds and the smoking and oil smell is a thing of the past with the dfi technologies. They do however get a bit loud at wot. The newer 4 strokes you can barely hear run.

A multi use boat is a compromise, decide whats most important to you and then begin to compromise for your other uses. For family fun and fishing, Crestliner also makes a fine alum boat with some nice fish and ski models. For flyfishing I would look closely at the front deck and some openness would be important to me. Also, a 17 foot boat gets small fast when you start loading it with people, each person is gonna have some stuff they bring along and a 17 foot boat fills up fast. I have a 17'6" alum with a 115 opti and love it but wish now I would have gone 19' or more. Hope this helps some.

[andanb]

I have an outboard that I mainly use on the delta. It does fine...no weed problems. If you plan on a jet boat, your father (inlaw?) will need a kicker to troll with. This will be fine for manuvering in the delta around weeds without need to fire up the jet pump. I don't think fuel consumption is that big a deal...its just a couple of bucks. I think the overall versitility will more than make up with the additional kinds of fishing you will be able to do. In my boat I can not fish the lower Sac like a jet boat would be able to. I am pretty much limited to the delta, lakes, and not to shallow rivers.

[Tracy Chimenti]

If you have the money, I'd go for a used sled with lots of beam-- A Willie Predator, Alumaweld, etc. Stay around 18-feet and you'll be able to see alot of water and the trip will be more economical than if you were towing a mega-sled. I like to avoid the clipper-type bows-- they'er superb in rough water, but they cost you in the bow deck working space. I also like outboards, as the IO's take up alot of room wher your partner could otherwise fight a fish. Canopies are nice in the heat and for taking breaks, but serve more as a nuisance (a sail) and will have you blown off the hole in no time in a moderate wind.

That said, if you have the money and are moderately mechanically inclined, buy an electro/hyraulic jack plate and a pump and related gear, so you can switch her over from prop to pump when you go to the Delta or the lower Sac.

Tracy

[Mike Churchill]

Thanks for all the good advice.

After spending some hours talking over what we really expect to use the boat for, my dad was leaning towards a Bayhawk with a prop outboard.

Then I got on Craigslist Friday and found an incredible deal: a 2006 20 foot North River Seahawk with a 115 horse Suzuki on an offshore bracket with a $22k asking price.

Boat is flawless and just needs an electric trolling motor to be ready to go. (We pick it up Monday and take it to the shop Tuesday for the trolling motor installation.) With any luck, we hit the delta next weekend for a shakedown cruise.

The Seahawk is even less of a river boat than the Bayhawk, but the extra length means a lot more comfort and safety when we pile the whole family in for a day on the water.

So, the next question is, when we decide to upgrade the fish finder to a GPS unit with a big screen, what models do folks prefer and why?

Mike

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I just went through this with lots of people including serveral top guides.

Lowrance makes good combo units. Very popular.

So does Garmin. They have the easiest GPS system.

The hottest new thing is the Hummingbird 970(?) for over $2000. It has photograph like side finders.

One guide friend who has a large boat (22') with lots of console room prefered a seperate system with a big Lowrance fish finder and a large Garmin GPS.