Pontoon Boat Seat Mounting

[Travis A]

Hi all,

I just got a used pontoon boat and am going to put a new plastic padded seat on it. I was going to mount it straight to the frame, however I've seen a few pictures of pontoons with seat risers, does this provide any sort of benefit while fishing or does it make stability worse? Also does it help to have a seat swivel or does that make it harder to row/control?

Thanks for any feedback you can offer,

Travis

Example of riser: http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Height-Pedestal-Five-Oceans/dp/B00DSR9BDE/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1423601338&sr=8-6&keywords=swivel+seat+pedestal

[Travis A]

I guess I should also mention this is a single seat 8ft pontoon.

[NCL]

Travis,

The advantage of being higher is two fold, first, you can see better, especially to rising fish, and second, it makes it a little easier to cast, this isn't huge but still a slight advantage. I am sure there is a point at which it would effect the stability of the pontoon. I had a lean tower on my pontoon and would stand to cast and look for rising fish and never had a problem with stability but my pontoon was longer. I never experienced any bad effects of having the seat swivel, I used to usually just turn the pontoon but would sometimes swivel slightly to a side for a quartering cast. Hope this helps.

[Travis A]

Awesome, Thank you very much for the help NCL. I think I'll give the riser and the swivel a try.

Travis

[tcorfey]

In my opinion, the only thing I can think of that might affect your decision of how high to have your seat is how high can you go and still row effectively. I would dry fit the seat height and mount the oars. You don't want to have to reach way down below your knees on each return stroke that would be awkward and uncomfortable. You want to be able to return your oars to the starting position with the oar handle above your leg not below it. If you always use an electric motor I guess it is not a big deal until you wear down the battery and have to row back.

[beachbum2]

I bought a north fork outdoors pontoon boat last year. The seats mount directly the frame. Its great if you want to be able to maneuver by using flippers. However it does make it slightly more difficult to get to sight fish. There several different heights of risers...I went middle of the road with a 7" rise AND a swivel. The height is just fine for the oars AND it allows me to turn to raise or lower trolling motor I have as well. Hope this helps

[jds108]

If you're going to move around using fins on your boots, you want to be low.

As a prior poster said, if you're using oars, you have to factor in the location of your mounts and your rowing motion. If your seat is high your oars will hit your legs on the return stroke.

Just get something that you can play around with, we've all probably got our personal preferences. Mine is to be as low as possible, only because I move around with my fins a lot.

[Travis A]

Great, Thanks for the help everyone! Sound like I should get a riser and a swivel that are separate so I can mix and match to find the best combination. I also never thought about fins, do you guys mostly use them in stillwater or are they effective in streams as well?

Travis

[NCL]

I have only used fins in still water. When in moving water I only relied on the oars.