The perfect boat

[Gary Korsgaden]

Originally Posted by Robertf61065

My father fished out of Reunion Bay south of New Town on Sakakawea and would design is own boats. His thought was that the 16 foot Lunds fit his needs as he usually fished alone. I was with him one weekend when the other fisherman came up to us at our camp, and asked my dad where he got his boat from. My dad told him how he built it himself from a basic "bare bones" lund and why he did things the way he did them in the boat. The gentleman walked back to his truck and came back with a notebook. He introduced himself as a designer from Lund and was very impressed by the work and layout of the boat my father had come up with. Me being a dumb kid, of course I didnt pay any attention for it, but I will never forget how proud my dad was in talking to the stranger from Lund about his boat.
Like an earlier poster said, there is no perfect boat for everyone, but to have the skills and knowledge to customize it to meet your needs in my opinion is really what it is all about.

thanks for sharing....Lund has always been responsive to anglers and this is a great example

[Ltrain]

Originally Posted by That Minnesota guy

Do you own the best boat for your style of fishing? Has your style of fishing changed throughout the years? If you could design / build the perfect boat for yourself what would it be?

Winter has set in and I'm tired of the football fights.

The boat i have now, in my signature, is perfect when the wife factor is accounted for. It really does fish amazingly well and I have it optioned to the nines.

However if I was designing my perfect boat, which i did when i thought about having one custom made it went like this-
23 ft Aluminum plate boat deep V front deck with walk through full windshield with full canvass,eisenglass enclosure. Instead of having traditional side driver console , I'd have a center console where i could stand and steer then have six removable pedestal seats running down- three each side. Dual 16 Simrad evo 3s's at center console. One 12" on the bow and one 12" at the stern, 72" 36v Terrova bow motor( unless a brushless 72 comes available). 7 ft of Traxtech tracks running down each side, rod trees, holders and downriggers filling them out. Boat would be powered by a Yamaha 200 vmax sho chipped to 330. Also a 15hp Merc efi kicker tied into main controlled by an itroll. Main also hooked up to Simrad auto pilot with precision 9 compass. Airmar TM 150,3 in 1, 3d and HDI transducers on the transom. All vinyl floor with rear washdown ,livewell spanning rear transom. That's my dream boat, which resides in my head- perhaps some day it will materialize, but probably not but it's fun to dream.

[Anonymouse]

Memory metal that when zapped would pop open to a comfortable 24' cuddy for overnighters or a16' shallow draft river rig or a belly boat you propel with swim fins - depending on circumstances.
Science fiction aside (although memory metals DO exist, just not that versatile) it'd be nice if you could have a boat that somehow adjusts length to facilitate handling in tight spaces yet extends out big enough to handle big water - kind of like how those collapsible fishing rods work by sliding inside the previous section.
That way you could go from 1-2 man duck boat/skiff to a full-blown family rig.
Dream on.

Having run the gamut from belly boats to planks tied to 55 gal. barrels as a kid on the Chippewa River, to our present 22' glass cuddy, Anonymouse has to say, for the type of fishing style (pretty laid back) and waters here (don't road the boat any further than necessary, which is about 2 blocks down the street) ya can't really beat the cuddy for comfort combined with reasonable handling size.
Can sit on the bow, sit on the swim platform, or just hang lines over the sides and lounge in the cushy padded seats. Any way ya choose to fish it's roomy enough to get at least 6 lines in while anchored or slow trolling and lacks nothing for comfort on a 24-72 hour excursion, while still being manageable enough to launch & retrieve alone if necessary.

Typical bass-style platform boats and deep-V walleye rigs just are NOT all that comfortable for these old bones to spend long days or overnight on the water, in - and they don't handle all that much better than the cuddy either & sometimes worse in rough water.

[buckaroo]

I DO own the best boat for my style of fishing as it happens. I primarily fish for bass here in Texas and trout and walleye when I was (and am) in Wyoming. For these species on the bodies of water I fish, my original 1988 Ranger 680t is still the best boat I could ever imagine.
Plenty of interior room, nice v hull, small enough at 17’ to be manageable by myself (how unusually fish), but big enough for when the water gets roiled. With a 60hp Yamaha on the back, I get about 35 mph tops, which is perfect for me. I can also troll around 1-1.5 mph before needing to resort to the bow mount minn Kota. It’s had many iterations of electronics, motors, and doodads over the 30+ years I’ve owned it, but I still wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[Mark Pothen]

REW summed things up perfectly. Well said !

[kswalleyer]

i have the perfect boat for the situation but it takes 2!

Originally Posted by Mark Pothen

REW summed things up perfectly. Well said !

Now thats funny. Why would being paid for be so important ? I would rather make payments on a 100K boat than tie up 100K to have a nice boat. If you turn your boat every few years to stay fresh and not have to continually upgrade components out of pocket then payments make more sense at todays interest rates.

[Mark Pothen]

I don't thinj the average Joe is goung to be trading every few years

Originally Posted by Mark Pothen

I don't thinj the average Joe is goung to be trading every few years

Turning your boat every few years is a bit of work but in the end you'll always have fresh components, batteries, and engines. rarely will stuff break.

[Mark Pothen]

Then you have more money than most on this site. 😆