I am looking to buy a boat to fish and occasionally duck hunt the rivers and lakes in upstate sc and also make trips down and fish inshore waters. I want a smaller shallow draft boat and was wondering what would be best. Would a high tide/ fast craft type around 15-16 ft with a 40 or 50 or would a 15-17 ft aluminum boat with the same size motor better suit my needs? The majority of the time it would just be me and one other person or me alone. My budget is around 5000-5500 if this makes a difference. Also may look at carolina skiffs in the 16-18 ft range as I this is more for fishing as I already have a small jon boat I duck hunt from
Anybody?
If it were me I’d go with the bigger aluminum boat. That would give you more flexibility and probably more room. Room and storage are high on my priority list. Also would give you the shallow draft for inshore fishing.
'06 Mckee Craft
184 Marathon
DF140 Suzuki
Thanks for the reply. I’m looking at Carolina skiffs and found a nicely kept 17ft in good shape with a 60. I am going to look at the boat and test run it in the next day or 2 and see how it is. The boat also has a lot of room and also storage under the front deck
All three boats you mentioned are similar style and will serve your purposes well. I went with a 16’ HiTide “Flats” version for the wide walk around gunnels and better storage since I do a lot of casting from the decks and I wanted some V to cut through the chop in shallow bays. But, the V and heavier decks requires more power than a flat bottom jon. Something with deeper sides would be drier in open water. Everything is a trade off. My best advice is to get something a little bigger than you think you actually need.
Thanks for the advice. I was thinking I wanted a 15-16 ft if I got a carolina skiff and this one is 17 so I’m hoping I’ll have plenty of room for 2 people and our stuff
Yes it will. There is a lot more deck space on a carolina skiff than with a v hull.
4 people gets tight and hard to plane
Key West 2300cc Mercury 225 optimax “Fish Tale”
The age and price stand out to me a bit. I haven’t priced these lately but a quick CL search turns up this much newer 20’ for about the same $$$. http://charleston.craigslist.org/boa/4520781441.html
16’ High Tide Flats (Green) w/Yamaha 90
I tried to contact that guy with the 20ft a few times and never heard anything back from him.
I’m meeting the guy with the 17 carolina skiff at lake wateree tomorrow afternoon to run the boat and I’m going to give it a going through and check compression and all of that. Any specific things I need to check?