I know I just signed up and you guys don't know me for crap, but I have to vent and I figure this Stratos forum is a good spot, considering the source of I my frustration...sorry for book I'm about to write.
I am trying to buy my first bass boat...it's something I've wanted for a long time and I finally talked myself into. I've spent several weeks looking around the internet, reading, etc about different boats. That how I stumble across this forum. After all my looking and reading, I decided to focus on looking for a Stratos. They seemed to have looks, performance, fishability, ride and good value.
So...I found one online for sale, right around the corner from me..probably not 5 miles. A nice 2004 ProXL 201 at a good price. So last Friday I went to look at it and man was it a great looking ride. The boat didn't appear to have been heavily used for last 5 years at all. I had to leave town that afternoon to go to my grandmother's funeral, so I couldn't do anything right then..plus I wanted to just think it over a little more, big investment. The guy said that he hadn't had many calls about it and that he was only open until noon on Saturday so the chance of it selling was very slim. So, I thought about it over the weekend, decided I was going to do it and then called him Monday morning. I'll be danged if some guy didn't walk in Saturday morning, unexpected to the dealer, and bought the boat. Strike 1.
So...being extremely disappointed I went back and started my seach again. After seeing that Stratos, I have become set on finding one of some sort. Well, I found a 2002 19XL, but it was in Georgia (I'm in Texas). It had a good price on it...quite a bit lower than the 201, but looked good and seemed like it'd be a really good boat for me. I figured I could eat a little extra cost for shipping and a plane ticket...and maybe offset some of it by getting a better price on the boat. I had seen this boat up for sale for weeks by the way. So Tuesday afternoon I try to call...the receptionist says they only have one sales guy in and he was busy right then loading up a boat for someone. They were supposed to call back that day but didn't so I called on Wednesday morning. Want to guess what boat he was loading up? That's right...the one I was looking at. Strike 2.
So...back we go to searching. So yesterday I find a 2005 195XL a few hours awa. I had noticed the boat for sale before, but for some reason didn't pay much attention to it. The picture wasn't particularly good and the price didn't stand out at first. But, I went and started looking a bit closer and thought hey, that boat is pretty nice looking and after some research the price seemed to be actually pretty good. So..I try to call about it today. I called the number listed and the woman didn't know what I was talking about! I used my cell phone which logs the number I dial and I checked it about 5 times to make sure I dialed what was listed...and I did. It may be possible that there was some weird mis-connection to the wrong number through my cell phone. I am going to try again, but the odds of that are slim to none...so it looks like strike 3!
Anyways...going to keep looking I guess. There are lots of other boats for sale out there, but they have to be in reasonable distance of a large city I can fly to and not be so far away that the shipping costs are through the roof, so that limits it somewhat.
Sorry for all the text...if you made it this far, thanks for reading!
Reply With Quote
