The Ins and Outs of Purchasing a Boat

People buy fishing boats for lots of different reasons. However, I'll wager the genesis of many boat-buying journeys is strikingly similar to my own. Close your eyes and picture yourself standing on the bank of your favorite lake. It’s May, the lilacs are blooming and the sun is shining. A slight southerly breeze is blowing into your face. The air smells of fresh earth and flowers. There is a gentle chop on the emerald green water and conditions are, in a word, idyllic. You can almost smell the hot grease and taste the flaky white manna from heaven. That's when it happens...

"Daddy, those guys out in the boat just caught ANOTHER one!" Gracy protested.

"Daddy I wish WE had a boat." Violet whined.

"Honey, I swear a tarantula just ran across my foot!" my wife cried.

"Daddy, what do wood ticks look like again? Something is crawling up the back of your neck."  

"Daddy, are there rattlesnakes in Iowa?"

"Daddy, my boot is stuck in the mud."

"Daddy, my line is caught in the weeds again."  

"Joel, is that poison ivy the girls are sitting in!?"  

"THAT’S IT! WE’RE GETTING A BOAT!!!"

how not to buy the perfect boat

They say that acknowledging you have a problem is the first step. I was no longer in denial about needing a boat, and I knew my brothers had restored an old 14’ flat bottom a few years prior. I also knew they’d gone in together on another fixer upper and that the Jon boat may be for sale. Several hundred dollars later, I was the proud owner of a vintage 1960s flat-bottom loaded on a mismatched homemade trailer. The craft was outfitted with an anemic 55 pound trolling motor, but heck I didn’t need an outboard anyways. Right? What the boat lacked in looks it made up for with panache! Amongst the faded green paint it had decades of registration stickers boldly displayed like WWII fighter plane kills. Adding to the visage, my brothers had expertly installed plywood platforms fore and aft with a custom floor down the center. They finished the boat off with two comfy pedestal seats and a captain’s chair in the back. The vessel had so much character I was certain it would pacify any fish that gazed upon its dimpled and dented hull. Heck, it looked so good I half expected fish to jump in the bucket on our first outing! While my hopes were a little exaggerated, my family caught a lot of fish from that little boat in the short time it was in service. Unfortunately, after a couple years we outgrew the Jon boat and were in the market for an upgrade.

After several weeks of searching on Craig’s List, I finally found the “ideal” boat, a 1986 Lund. The 16’ semi-v had the cool red trim (you know the one), a 55 pound trolling motor, and an off-white 9.9 Johnson outboard. The smart looking vessel had a 5” color fish finder as well as life jackets, fuel tanks, battery charger, anchor, landing net, and rigging. This boat was all business, “ready to fish”, and I couldn’t be happier. This was THE boat that would last my family a lifetime.  

When I arrived at the seller’s home, I knew I was going to buy the boat the second I laid eyes on it. After some brief horse trading and taking a spin on Saylorville, we landed on a price. With my wallet a few thousand dollars lighter, I brought the vessel home and introduced it to my wife. Being 2 feet longer than the Jon boat and rated to hold 6 people, she was cautiously optimistic the boat would be a good fit for our family.  

The 30 minute drive to Littlefield lake lasted an eternity! I couldn’t wait to launch the aluminum masterpiece and do some serious fishing! After my wife and 3 kids climbed in, I pushed us off and took the helm. I immediately thought the 6 person rating on this boat was optimistic at best. With the 5 of us onboard there was barely enough room for rods, tackle boxes, bait, and a cooler. While we were certainly safe and riding well above the water line, the lack of wiggle room had alarms blaring inside my head. However, I squelched the noise of impending doom and gunned the electric motor towards the distant submerged brush pile. We hadn’t even gotten a line in the water when it happened…  

“Daddy, tell Violet to quit touching me!” Gracy whined.

“Daddy, Gracy is on my side!” Violet retorted.

“Honey, I can’t straighten my legs.” My wife groaned.

“Daddy, Gracy just stomped on my pole and broke the tip off!” Owen howled.  

At that moment, Roy Scheider spoke ominously to me from the grave, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat...”  

One stressful fishing season later, I was again in the market for a newer, bigger, boat. After suffering too many instances of “the bad touch” and “punchies”, I was bound and determined to have more than enough room on the next boat. In a rare moment of clarity it came to me. I would buy a pontoon boat! Yes! Brilliant!

After another round of searching on Craig’s List, I found a budget-friendly ‘toon and traded the Lund straight up for it. The barge was a 20 foot behemoth rated for 10 people, and the tandem axle trailer that cradled its girth stretched nearly 29 feet from tongue to tail. Fortunately I had a compact tractor, and its loader was strong enough to shoehorn the leviathan into my machine shed. However, even with 385 horses, my crew cab pickup often struggled to pull the juggernaut through the rolling hills of southwest Iowa.  

When we eventually launched “Large Marge the Barge”, it indeed had more room and creature comforts than the previous two boats. With a 10 person rating and 96 inch beam, we easily carried 4 adults and 3 children at one time with ample room for gear and coolers. The Bimini top provided welcome shade and respite from the sun on hot days. My daughters even had room for their Barbies and played in the shaded refuge when fishing was slow. However, the spacious quarters came with significant drawbacks.  

Like a Top Fuel dragster, “Large Marge” only liked to be driven in straight lines and precise handling on structure proved futile. If the wind blew more than 10 mph it was impossible to keep her planted and on the fish. Even with two 25 pound anchors and 50 feet of line for leverage, the vessel pivoted wildly or simply dragged the weights across the bottom. Launching and loading the boat was daunting at small lakes as the ramps simply weren’t designed for the large boat and trailer. The vast majority of the time it was only my wife and kids on the boat, and the aforementioned challenges soured more than one outing. Instead of being an inspiring mentor and teacher, I was most often an angry pirate. Arrrrrr!  

a new approach

After three attempts, and more than a few thousand dollars invested, I still hadn’t found my ideal boat. I finally realized that a more thoughtful and deliberate approach was needed. Buying boats and trying to adapt them to my family’s fishing style simply didn’t work. Instead, I needed to define our boat requirements first, and then find one that met 80 to 90 percent of them. Before you buy a boat, I recommend you answer the following questions as honestly and realistically as possible.  

where do you fish the most?

The type of water you fish most often should be the key driver in deciding what type and size of boat you need. For example, if you fish lakes in SW Iowa with electric motor restrictions and small ramps, you probably shouldn’t buy a large bay or pontoon boat with a 200hp outboard. Similarly, if you mostly fish interior rivers with relatively shallow water, unless you enjoy getting stuck in the mud or banging into rocks, you’re not going to be happy with a large deep-V and long shaft outboard. Finally, if you frequent the large glacial lakes or reservoirs in South Dakota or Minnesota, you don’t want to be caught in a squall and big waves in a small flat-bottom boat. The bottom line here is to match the type and size of boat with the intended application. Then invest in appropriate motors that deliver the most value.

Because I mostly fish small to medium size lakes in SW Iowa, I chose a 17’ deep-V for my 4th boat. Moreover, since most of the places I fish have electric motor restrictions, I invested in a quality 80 pound 24v trolling motor vs. a large outboard. Although most would consider the 60hp on my boat on the small side, I rarely use the big motor anyway, and the money saved by not upgrading to a 90hp or 115hp was significant. These savings allowed me to instead invest in high-end electronics with sturdy RAM mounts.  

on average, how many people will you have in the boat?

In a perfect world, we would be able to get together with friends and family every weekend to go fishing. If this was the case, and I had a large lake to play and fish on, a deck or pontoon boat would be my go-to vessel. These boats have huge capacity and more than enough room for you and your closest 9 or 10 friends. However, in reality most serious fishermen will seldom have more than 3 or 4 folks in the same boat. As a result, I recommend choosing the type of boat first and then selecting one rated for 6 or 7 people. However, don’t make the same mistake I made and take these ratings too literally. Being able to hold 6 and being able to fish 6 is not the same thing. This is especially true if some of your friends are bigger or taller than average. In my experience, planning to fish with 2 people less than the maximum rating will ensure that you have adequate room in the boat for most situations. However, if you plan to do a lot of casting during your outings, you may want to further reduce the number of folks onboard to ensure safety and comfort. Nobody wants to get a wooly bugger or much less a 6/0 Triple Threat stuck in their ear!  

should you buy new or used?

Everybody has an opinion on this one, and if money isn’t an issue some can afford to order their ideal boat and eat the depreciation. If you’re fortunate to be one of the lucky few, ordering a new boat is as simple as going to your favorite boat shop or one of the big outdoor stores. Cabelas, Bass Pro, and others sell boats from various popular manufacturers and most even have floor models available to inspire you. However, be very cautious about buying a “package” boat off the showroom floor. These boats are often mass-produced lower-quality units with underpowered trolling motors and entry level electronics. Upgrading to more powerful premium modules will add significantly to the price tag, and if you want the dealer to perform the upgrades you’ll get charged labor for removing the factory units and receive very little on trade. As a result, I recommend you decide on the model of boat first and then add the trolling motor, electronics, and outboard rather than going with one of the “one size fits all” boats.    

I’ve had fantastic luck with used boats, and a little common sense goes a long way. In the world of pre-owned fishing vessels if something looks or sounds too good to be true run, don’t walk, in the other direction. An old river rat once told me that the word “boat” was short for “bust out another thousand”, and a faulty trolling motor or seized up outboard can cost you many times that.  

There are a few cardinal rules to follow when purchasing a used boat. First and foremost, never make a purchase sight unseen. In my experience, often the pictures listed on Craig’s List or Boat Trader are recycled from the prior purchase or days gone by. I once stopped by a guy’s house to check out a shiny Pro-V with a showroom finish. What I saw in person nearly brought tears to my eyes. Years of abuse and dock rash had destroyed the finish and decals to the point one could barely identify the manufacturer. The once attractive custom travel cover was riddled with holes and only half the snaps still worked. Although the owner wrote these defects off as “cosmetic”, the bird’s nest of electrical wires and old fishing line under the deck foreshadowed a more sinister reality.

Don’t even start negotiating with a seller without performing a thorough inspection and test driving the boat. While one can learn a good deal about a boat from pictures and YouTube videos, camera angles can hide blemishes and idling an outboard in a tank doesn’t confirm it will shift into gear. Without taking it on the water, you can’t identify steering or other performance issues, and you certainly won’t know if the boat has any leaks. How can you confirm the live wells and bilge pumps operate if you’re not on the water to flip the switches? Electrical problems can be tedious and time consuming to trace in a boat, and anyone who has ever re-wired a boat’s trailer lights can attest to this point.

It took several years and thousands of dollars for me to find the right boat for my family. I did almost everything wrong during my journey, and I hope that others can learn from my mistakes. With a little diligence and a more disciplined approach, I’m certain that anyone who reads this story will find their ideal boat on the first try. If not, just be prepared to bust out another thousand!