Tracker vs. Crestliner vs. SouthFork 16' boats

[CrankinStein]

Guys,
I'm looking at getting a 16 foot boat to fish a small lake near my house with a 25 HP limit on it. I have been looking at Tracker and Crestliner mostly to keep the cost down. I ran across a used SouthFork that looks brand new. How does it compare from a quality point of view to Tracker / Crestliner?
Thanks

[saphireblue99]

Sorry about the late response, I'll throw in my 2 cents. Have had a tracker 17 alum and now a crestliner 16 storm for the last 5 years. Price wise the tracker is the better of the 2, construction wise crestliner by far. Tracker had and still uses wood and composite, crestliner 100% aluminum, quality of welds far better on crestliner. I fish a lake here in eastern pa lake Nockamixon that has a 20hp limit. With 2 big guys in the boat I can only get to 20mph with a 20hp 4 stroke., with 1 person I can get to 24mph. And with 2 I have to shift my weight forward to plane faster and when I fill up the live well that goes over the tipping point and MPH goes down to 10!!! My rule of thumb is look how many used aluminum trackers are for sale at any time on the net, and then look how many crestliners you find..

[njpaulc]

Sorry about the late response, I'll throw in my 2 cents. Have had a tracker 17 alum and now a crestliner 16 storm for the last 5 years. Price wise the tracker is the better of the 2, construction wise crestliner by far. Tracker had and still uses wood and composite, crestliner 100% aluminum, quality of welds far better on crestliner. I fish a lake here in eastern pa lake Nockamixon that has a 20hp limit. With 2 big guys in the boat I can only get to 20mph with a 20hp 4 stroke., with 1 person I can get to 24mph. And with 2 I have to shift my weight forward to plane faster and when I fill up the live well that goes over the tipping point and MPH goes down to 10!!! My rule of thumb is look how many used aluminum trackers are for sale at any time on the net, and then look how many crestliners you find..

Also look how many Trackers are sold and how many Crestliners are sold. There's a lot of used Rangers for sale, does that mean they are bad. Any boat running a third of it's max HP rating is going to under perform.

[texoma]

Just viewing the Southfork websight. Southfork looks solid. Just never heard of them till now. Looks like a WeldCraft from Arkansas.

[CrankinStein]

Thanks guys. I’m still trying to sell my current boat so the input is welcome! ��

[jc1992]

With that HP restriction, might be better option to buy one of the fishing/hunting tiller boats that performs excellent with a 20 or 25 and still has a good fishing platform, or maybe a stick steer boat. Just food for thought. But out of the two I’d choose crestliner due to the fact that I have an excellent dealer close to me.

[TritonTRXV8]

Sorry about the late response, I'll throw in my 2 cents. Have had a tracker 17 alum and now a crestliner 16 storm for the last 5 years. Price wise the tracker is the better of the 2, construction wise crestliner by far. Tracker had and still uses wood and composite, crestliner 100% aluminum, quality of welds far better on crestliner. I fish a lake here in eastern pa lake Nockamixon that has a 20hp limit. With 2 big guys in the boat I can only get to 20mph with a 20hp 4 stroke., with 1 person I can get to 24mph. And with 2 I have to shift my weight forward to plane faster and when I fill up the live well that goes over the tipping point and MPH goes down to 10!!! My rule of thumb is look how many used aluminum trackers are for sale at any time on the net, and then look how many crestliners you find..

Unless something has really changed since 2008 we looked at both crestliner and tracker and the crestliner didnt impress me any. Welds were rough and it had a plastic console and plastic fenders on the trailer. Maybe they different now. Wasnt like the tracker was a geo metro and the crestliner was a cadillac by any means..... tracker does have 2 pieces of wood in it front half of the front deck and floor in the cockpit area that is it. Not sure where they use composite never found any on mine during the 11 years i had it.