Budget Boats: Part One

It's that time of year again. A buddy just dropped $4,000 for an outboard and about $17,500 on a boat to catch the same bass I get out of my old Scanoe or PortaBote. Only tournament fishermen really need this kind of performance that also guarantees big bills for hull, motors and gas. Small, budget boats get most of us where we want to fish without busting the budget. All we need is modest boating skills and enough confidence to avoid the status trap. Who knows, you might get lucky! Arthur Perry caught his world record largemouth bass out of a boat made with seventy-five cents worth of old lumber!

Of course, I'm prejudiced. I built my first budget boat, a canvas and stringer kayak from a BOY'S LIFE design, in high school woodshop. It cost less than $50, but survived Sierra trout floats, foothill farm pond bass trips, Feather River rocks, delta striper trips and rather reckless Pacific Ocean rock fishing near Pillar Point. After 15 years, I gave it to a teenager who glassed the now battered canvas bottom. As far as I know it still floats!

Since then I've used -- I've only owned three or four -- a wooden rowing skiff, two Coleman Scanoes and a Grumman aluminum canoe, four PortaBotes, a Grumman skiff, Sevylor inflatable and Klepper folding kayaks, several inflatable dinghies and two or three johnboats plus, if you are impressed with size, a 38 foot wooden ketch and a bass boat. My current Idaho fleet runs to a Portabote and a Coleman Scanoe. I use oars, sail rigs and a $200 1.2 h.p. outboard. It's important to realize your budget boat savings extend well past the purchase price too. You neither need trailers nor launch ramps. You can reach fish with oars, paddles, sails or cheap gas or electric motors. You avoid luxury taxes.

So, you might ask, aren't there any drawbacks? Certainly some smaller boats offer less safety margin in large or rough water if you lack the boating skills that you can build with lessons or experience. To boat as safely as possible, pick a boat class and type to suit your particular needs. That's a job, these days, with so many options on the market! Let's look at the advantages and drawbacks of each class separately. RIGID HULL ROWBOATS

Semi-V bottom aluminum sharp-bowed boats suit those who brave bigger water and don't mind the extra expense of larger

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