Show us your BOAT!!!

Love my 18 ft bay boat.

 

I sold a 1993 21-foot Skeeter BayPro center console bay boat on Sunday and bought a 2005 18-foot Kenner center console bay boat on Monday. My gas savings between that Johnson V-6 3.0L Limited Edition outboard and the Kenner's Mercury 3-cylinder inline 90hp outboard was so much that I was able to pay my $167.10 boat note each month with the savings. And that was figuring gas at $1.79/gallon! It was like I sold that gas hog Skeeter and someone gave me a BRAND NEW, FREE 18-foot center console boat. Truth be told, in 1993 I went to the Houston Boat Show to buy a 21-foot Kenner center console. The Skeeter was $3,000 cheaper, $15,999. Owning a 21-foot or larger center console is a rite of passage for most fishing boaters. You gotta' get it out of your system. You gotta' own one to understand how a boat that big OWNS YOU. Then you mature and figure out that an 18-19 foot center console is all a man needs, and a lot less commitment. These pictures taken in February, a week before I sold it, right on this boat ramp.

 

And here I am thinking a 23+ foot center console would be my next boat….

 

Go for it! If you have the time to do the proper maintenance and hull upkeep on one, GETCHA' ONE! It is one of the rites of passage we all gotta' go through to keep our Good Ol' Boy card! But, if you are as anal as I am about the upkeep of what you own, a big boat like that will, eventually, whip your ass and cause you to throw in the towel as I did. Do it while you are young, because a 23-foot+ CC will make you its bitch!

To whit: You probably didn't notice that Limited Edition didn't have a lower unit on it. It was in the lower unit vise in my shop. I was rebuilding it, AGAIN, for the last time (thank God) before I sold it. ALWAYS something. ALWAYS! And if you think you can afford to just drop these new ones off at the boat shop every time this stuff crops up....you gonna' be a poor man. You know how they say a boat is just a hole in which to throw money? THAT.

These new 4-strokes we can't work on. It's gonna' be $400-$1000 every time you drop it off for a little problem. I'll take my little 2-stroke 90hp dinosaur any day. I've already had to put a $3,000 powerhead on it because of my stupidity and laziness, the kind that sets in when it wears you down and makes you its bitch. I didn't run Yamaha Rig-Free in my gas, but that job (incl lower unit refresh) only cost me $400 because I have a very good friend who is the best boat mechanic between Houston and New Orleans. His name is Dennis Hebert, and he and his work are legend along the Gulf Coast. THANK GOD for Dennis Hebert. You should be so blessed. Kept the old powerhead because Dennis said he could rebuild it in an hour with $200 of cylinder sleeve, piston, wrist pin and rings. (Use dry ice to shrink the cylinders, drive one out, one in, chamfer ports, then reassemble piston assembly, DONE.) So I have a spare motor in the box out there in the shop when I need it. HOPEFULLY, never again. I have gone back to using Ring-Free religiously now. He rebuilt that 3.0 Limited Edition for me too, but that was a $2000 job, and that was employee pricing because I worked there at that time. As previously stated, big boats will work you and your wallet like a rented mule.

Doug, I love your Key Largo. That is NICE!

 

23+ ft with a big HP motor will definitely drink some fuel but maybe not as much as you might think. My 19ft bay boat has a Suzuki 140. At 4200rpm I can run at about 30mph and burn around 5.8 gallons per hour in fuel.

 

That’s not bad at all.

My TriToons most efficient RPM/Speed combo is about 3k/18mph.

I’m still a ways off from getting a center console, we have an infant right now but when he is bigger I’d like to be able to fish the intercostal and offshore a little. Have to get a Tundra to tow it too I guess

 

When I retire I plan on getting an offshore capable center console. For now, the boat I have does pretty well fishing (mostly Beaufort SC area)inshore and the lakes around here.

 

Gimme it

 

All I have.

 

And that is ALL YOU NEED! NICE rigs right there! I'd put a 65" umbrella behind the seat and fish the shit outa' one of those.

 

Until it gets windy out. I towed a bunch of kayakers back a couple weeks ago who got caught out in the wind. After a couple runs back and forth where I was trolling and watching them struggle and make no forward progress I tossed them a line and towed a train of them back in.

 

Awww that was nice of you! I’m sure they appreciated the help.

 

Hell yes. Nice move.

 

At some point you realize you're just being a real dick laughing at them struggle and decide it would be a good idea to help. Not like I was having any luck catching fish that day anyway.

 

The laugh is always the first thing that happens…..I get it. I have a terrible sense of humor!

 

You vs. the guy she told you not to worry about.

 

The same would be true if I pulled up next to yours, you being the guy she told me not to worry about lol.

 

Always a bigger fish right?

 

Just those two engines cost more than my complete boat and truck combined.