For so many years I told myself that I did not have time to go fishing because I was working so much, then last year I realized that I need to work less and fish more. So that is exactly what I did. I was fishing out of a small 12 ft boat and it was great for one person to fish out of. But when my son started to show interest in fishing with me we struggled to fish out of that small boat.
So I started to looking for something better suited to what we needed. My son was getting pretty involved and most every time I was on the water he was with me. So I was looking or another aluminum boat that was longer and wider. While looking I ran across a fiberglass bass boat that was in really good condition. It was 18.5 ft long and had a 175 hp outboard on it. I expected it to be way out of my price range. I called about it anyway. The owner said that the outboard did not run, but that he had not tried to fix it. I went to look at the boat on the off chance it was something I would be able to haggle on the price. The boat for its age was in excellent condition. It had new carpet and a new trolling motor and new graphs, even the batteries were new. The owner was going to buy a new boat and need to get this one gone before he could buy the new one. I did the typical checks, transom, bow hook and the keel all were in order. To my surprise all of the electrical worked and the outboard had tilt and trim that worked. I made my offer on the boat knowing that the outboard was not running. It would turn over but would not start. The owner of the boat said he would take my offer and that he would give me the custom cover that went with it along with an extra hummingbird graph.
Before I knew it I was pulling that boat home and had no idea if I had just spent money on a boat that had a bad motor on it. I got it home and pulled the motor cover off and some other plastic shrouds off to reveal the problem the engine had. Turns out the rectifier on the engine had caught fire and burned up. The part was about 250 bucks and a couple hours labor to put it on. To my amazement the boat fired right up except it was not firing on all 6 cylinders. After some head scratching and some getting smart on 2 stroke outboard engines I found that the timing was not set correctly and it needed new plugs. Got all of that fixed and the engine fired up and ran perfectly. I fished out of it on some local lakes that were electric only. I took it to Jackson lake to try out the big motor. It ran great and it was fast hitting 58mph with me and my wife and son in the boat. Then it hit me, I had just made a great purchase on a boat that was big enough for my family to fish on. We were at the lake every chance we got fishing in the evenings after work and on the weekends at one lake or another , catching a lot of fish in the process. I even got my wife to try fresh water fishing and she would go with me after work sometimes just to read or hang out on the boat while we fished.
I had to put in some work to get a boat that was good to fish out of for our needs and I did it for a very reasonable price. It was all worth the extra effort to be able to spend the days on the water with my family. My son has become quite the fisherman most times catching more fish than his dad but that is ok with me. It is the memories that we have made out on the water that are more important to me. Seeing my son catch his first fish and then catching his first bass on a crankbait was worth all of the money I spent and the time I spent working on this boat. This year will be great because we are going to get to go fishing for the entire season and we will get to fish during prime time in the spring.
Stay tuned for an update on the fishing adventures this year.