They are the number one selling boat so why not.....I bet theres just as many that fish out of pontoons as bassboats.
They are the number one selling boat so why not.....I bet theres just as many that fish out of pontoons as bassboats.
Our best selling model is the Fishin' Barge 20 with a 60 and the vinyl floor!
Born to fish, forced to work.
i bet 75% of the docks here at the lake i live at have 1 pontoon, one local dealer sell nothing but pontoons and he is one busy fella i tell ya!
Just about every boathouse on Lake Wilson, Alabama has a pontoon boat sitting in it--and one or two PWC's.
Very few are modern tritoons with larger engines here. Pontoons last so long that many of the boats around here are early 90's models and still in good shape.
My last pontoon boat was a 24' Starcraft with a Yamaha 115 2 stroke motor, and I retired it last year @ 27 years old.
Bamaman, wife and I are headed down to Joe Wheeler State Park end of Sept for her birthday week of fishing off our pontoon. Mine is a 93 Voyager 20ft with 2011 Mercury 60 bigfoot.
Come on down. You can be down here in 2 hrs.
Be careful @ Joe Wheeler State Park, as they've had some problems with black vultures in the boat ramp areas. They've been eating the rubber off pickup trucks around the windshield and the wipers. They're wreaking havoc. Huntsville TV had a report on them the other day. Other boaters on this website report black vultures all over the U.S. doing the same thing.
We've not been seeing any vultures 20 miles down river.
Been on Joe Wheelers waiting list for a slip. Last I checked I thought we'd heard from them by now. We were down there sometime in May. I love the fishing there. Yep, black vultures in Nashville wreaking havoc around there, but none here in Smyrna (so far). Florence needs to develop their area a little better as its always had good potential but I know of NO marinas anywhere near the city limits although Florence is getting a little too big city britches to my liking. Traffic is getting bad there. I'm from the Hubbertville area if you know where that is (between Fayette & Winfield). Brother lives in Fayette. Rest scattered out between Double Springs and Jasper. I've always been the traveler (Air Force does that to ya).
I've taken my pontoon boat to Houma, LA, Carbondale, IL, Hot Springs, AR, Chattanooga TN, and Elkhart, IN for some of the more longer trips. Can't seem to get the membes on the pontoon boat forum I manage though to go on trips anymore. Gas has risen significantly its seems the last 2 years and hotel prices also has gone up to put a damper on that. Shame too cause we had a lot of fun. At the Arkansas event we bought a pig and took it to a local BBQ place and I paid the chef there on the side to cook it up for us and we ate it at the hotel in a room we rented for a few hours. Geez there was enough pig left that we ate on that thing for 3 days and still took some home.
The event in IL was pretty good too. I made arrangements with the local IGA supermarket manager to host a dinner party as they owned the local burger joint that was only open for lunches. It had a 50's theme interior and he had one of his lady employees be the soda jerk for us and did the servings. We also ate at a local restaurant as a group and they had some good food there too. I managed to talk to the local marina there to rent us some slips on a temporary 3 day basis at a reasonable rate. Yep, those were the good ole days.
The Houma trip was the longest I've ever done. 437 miles one way (and SUCKED gas) only to have the storms pretty much wipe us out from our 20 mile trip but oh boy, was the cajun cookout great. Alligator tail, crawfish every which way you can imagine, catfish, shrimp and I gave away new rod & reels to any kids under 12 that came (out of my pocket) and gave away 3 full worm bags of lures/new worms/jigs etc to the other kids (let them pick what they wanted). I had come across a great deal from one of my former co-worker friends who had a bass pro quite the circuit and he bought all his stuff. In turn - he gave me new reels, fishfinders and any bait/gear I wanted. So in turn, I gave away most of it too (to kids ages 3 to 16). Funny too, cause now 2 of those boys I gave gear to that year, one just got married 3 months ago, and his brother is getting married in November and I got a wedding invitation to go to West Monroe LA (and I'm going of course)Those boys have been guiding me down in Port Fourchon since last year. I've been knowing their dad (he had a pontoon I helped with) and I built a computer for dad and the 2 boys in exchange for a 1984 Johnson 115hp motor (ran great too after I fixed it). That was Christmas week of 2009 (remembered because I had surgery on my wrist and elbow the week prior). Great boys (young men now)
Touch of Class, (Jerry) I see you're in St. Louis. Got a buddy who has a pontoon there. You might know him if you're on other forums like iBoats.com. Now sure exactly what his nym is there, but its usually a variation of rickdb1 or similar (Rick Brown). Very knowledgeable on motors, good guy. He is also a moderator on PDB (Pontoon & Deck Boat Forums) and was an admin on another pontoon boat forum I administered for 5 years on (I'm managing another one now - for ex wife of the other one). I intend to come up next spring to go fishing with him and another guy who lives just north of St. Louis.
Charles:
We had one marina on Shoals Creek that broke loose a couple of years ago and wedged under the Hwy 72 bridge. Tore up a few boats that came with it. When they had the tornadoes come through Hackleburg and Phil Campbell, the same marina was picked up 12' by a tornado, despite having 125,000 lbs. of concrete tied to it.
That marina recently closed, and a new first class marina next to the bridge has opened. They're just about to open a stacked indoor storage building holding 200 boats. Next up is a restaurant and marina office. Finally, this area is going to get a marina they deserve.
What I never understood is why we never had better marinas. Lake Norris above Knoxville has something like 18 marinas, condos and floating houses. Pickwick is 40 miles downriver, and they have some of the largest marinas in the U.S. And Pickwick's waters are not nearly as good for yachts and houseboats as Lake Wilson. People in Memphis and Nashville don't realize that the Tennessee River is the premier cruising river in the U.S.--all 650 miles of it from Paducah to Knoxville.
We intend on pulling our Bennington to Chattanooga via trailer and taking 2 days coming 200 miles downriver--spending the night in Guntersville in a hotel on the water. Another getaway would be going from Knoxville back to Chattanooga and from Pickwick to Paducah. There are great state park marinas and resorts along the way.
ahh cool, I"ll have to check that out late Sept when wife and I go to Joe Wheeler State Park for her birthday trip. It'll take a lot to get us to not stay at Joe Wheeler (love that 6 boat ramp launch with docks and handicap parking). One of my sisters lived in Hackelburg when it came through. Destroyed the house she bought, so she eventually moved to Double Springs. My other sister now, if clouds get dark, it scares her silly and she's ready for the storm shelter she had put in. She was pretty traumatized by it, as it took them 3 days to get to her to dig her out where she could leave. I still go to my brother's (going there Tues in fact) in Fayette, and along the way I still see all the damage and where they piled up the vehicles that were damaged in several spots.
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