BigAngus752

We are outside of Urbana. We've been fishing small lakes for the past few years and hope to spend a lot of time at Shelbyville now that we can get out on the water. I'm from Peoria originally so you can bet we will be over at Banner Marsh too.

My dad was a bass fisherman and one of my best childhood memories is dad and I fishing the Ozarks and watching a huge bass hit my floating Rapala and then flip back and forth on the surface just like on TV. I stopped fishing when I was 20 yrs old but now, at almost 50, I'm married to a woman that loves to fish. We have been gradually increasing our fishing time and we just bought our first boat. A Ranger RT188. Now we are ready to get serious about it and look forward to a retirement of fishing all over the country. We are here to learn! Looking forward to all the experience you guys have to offer.

Thanks all!

TRIGGER PULLED! Update to our story. We just found a 2016 Ranger RT188 with 10hrs on it. Guy bought it, barely used it, and found out what he really wanted was a pontoon boat. It's a 115 Mercury with dual consoles, auto bilge, front and console electronics, custom cover. We got it for $5500 less than the new RT188 on the dealer's floor. Very happy campers here. Thanks to all that helped us out with advice. I think we found our retirement boat. This one should last us.

240?! That's living!

My preference also but my wife disagrees. She would rather be comfy barefoot or sitting on the deck and have to pay for carpet replacement in the future. Hey, when your wife is gung-ho about getting a fishing boat you don't argue the little things!

No! Hadn't even heard of it. Nice. That's the biggest issue for me and the Tracker. We cannot store it inside. I could buy the best cover in the world but I would still worry about the wood. We are browsing some aluminum decks now. REally liking the Crestliner VT18 and the Ranger 188C.

We are looking at a boat this weekend (our first real fishing boat) and it comes new with a less-than-desirable Lowrance Hook 3 on the dash and nothing at the bow. I would like something just a tad better on the console that will network with something nice at the bow. I think a Hook 4 will fit in the same space as the Hook 3 and I'd like to buy another Lowrance unit for the bow. Does anyone know if I can network a nicer Lowrance unit with the Hook 4? Any suggestions on a Lowrance unit for the bow? I want to network the two so that when I'm sitting at the bow and set a waypoint it will show up on the console unit. If something I've written here is stupid please bear with me. Like I said, we are shore fishers getting our first new boat. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

That makes perfect sense. We will play with the boat some, but like I said it will be very little compared to the time spent for bass and panfish.

Thanks Scott! That is exactly the kind of experience we were hoping to hear about.

I am retiring in 2yrs and 3 months. I will still work either part time or an interesting full-time job that likely won't pay well, but we will basically be on a fixed income with my pension. My wife feels strongly that now is the time to buy our "retirement" fishing boat. Something that we will use for fifteen years at least. We have settled on a Tracker Pro Team 195TX. It is at the very, very upper end of what we can buy. We were looking at the Lowe Stingers and Tracker 175s when we stumbled on the 195. It is a winner for us. It's got a huge deck and plenty of power. It needs a 24v TM upgrade but it's a great fishing platform and yet it's big enough and powerful enough (150hp) to pull my teenage son on a wakeboard and my wife can lay out on the enormous deck like it's a pleasure boat. Have any of you kept your bass boat for 15yrs or more? Is this a logical tactic for us? Just so you know, I am very particular about my stuff. I bought my Harley in 2003. I bought my 1968 Mustang in 1990. I still own both of them. We take care of our stuff but we are not experienced boat people so we need your input about: 1. What do you think of our idea of buying our "retirement" boat now so it's paid off by the time I retire? 2. What do you think of our choice of boat? We will be 80% small/medium lake fishing and 20% pleasure boating. We know there are "better" boats out there but at $26,500 this one is at our very upper limit. We feel like this is the biggest all around best boat we can afford. This is a huge decision for us and we are long time shore fishers with little boat time. We'll happily take any advice you would care to offer! Thanks!