One Man Pontoon boat
I had the bad luck of having my 12' aluminum John boat stolen from my back
porch a couple of weeks ago. (I live on a lake) I'd been thinking about
buying another one or maybe one of the small plastic two man boats like the
Bass Hunter.
Last week I happened to see a one man pontoon boat on sale at Rural King for
$189. I bought it and it's been one of the best things I ever did. I have an
18' bass boat with 125 hp Johnson to fish our local bass tournaments.this
little boat is powered by me and two ores. I took it out for the first time
several days ago and just had a blast.
You only sit about 2 inches off of the water and you get wet. It's not a
boat that you'd want to use if the water isn't warm. I'm about 260#s and the
boats rated at 300 so anyone smaller might not have this problem. One of the
things that made using this boat so nice, was that I was forced to fish slow
(rowing isn't geared towards speed) and I found that I covered an area much
better than I do when using a trolling motor. I also caught more fish than
usual, probably because of the slower fishing technique.
I was amazed at how quickly I caught on to rowing quietly. I hadn't rowed a
boat in 25 years. At 57, I'm no spring chicken, and I was a little sore the
next day. Actually, the exercise should be good for me. The boat only weighs
about 50 pounds. I just lift it into the back of my Jeep, hook up a couple
of rubber tie-downs, and I'm ready to go.
In Indiana, you have to register a boat that uses an engine of any kind,
even a trolling motor. Since this is a rowboat, I didn't have to bother with
that. No numbers, no hassles, just get in and go. I purchased a small 12
volt inflator for $10 which attaches to the cigarette lighter. It takes less
than two minutes to air up both pontoons. It came with a manual pump that I'
m sure would have been just fine.
I've used this boat now for three of the last five days and I'm going out
again in the morning around 4:30 AM. There are a few drawbacks. The worst
one is.you need to be extremely careful about dropping things. There's NO
bottom. There's a pouch on the top of each pontoon that easily holds my
tackle, sandwiches, cell phone, etc. I put my cell phone in an inflated,
airtight ziplock bag, just to be safe. I have a picture phone. It's really
neat to be able to send a picture directly from the lake to someone's
computer. I have fishing buddies email addresses already keyed in so I just
point, click, and hit send!
This is getting long, sorry. You probably have gotten the idea by now that I
really like this little boat.
I have access to a lot of small lakes (ponds really) and stripper pits that
I can't wait to fish. My big bass boat just isn't practical in these places.
I'll post again in a few months and let you know if I'm still as happy with
it as I am now. Things might change after the "new" wears off, but I think
I'm hooked :-)
If you want to see one, go to eBay and search for "one man pontoon." There's
usually one or two listed.
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