Grin'n from ear to ear.....

[66KingFisher]

As you know I returned from a vacation to Florida on monday to find that my fishin buddy Ron, had sold the classic old fishing boat we'd been fishin out of for the past 2.5 years. I was kinda bummed, but I knew that old boat didn't really suit our needs, and we had talked several times about getting something different....I like to bass fish and Ron prefers crappie and panfish, but we both just like to fish. Monday night he told me to "start looking" for a replacement rig, and Wednesday night i'd told him about the stuff i'd found on Craigs list and a few other classified websites.....By saturday night he'd reviewed all the ads, and decided he didn't want to keep shopping or mess with someone else's 20+ year old boat and motor, and he called me today and said "come go look at a boat with me".....So the next thing I know we'd drove 70 miles to a marina in Hot Springs, and after a bit of comparing and a couple of test drives in lake Hamilton, we left for home, towing a new Tracker Pro16 bassboat.....lol Its just too bad it was gettin dark by the time we left or we'd of launched in lake Ouachita for a bit.

It certainly wasn't the biggest fanciest rig they sell, but it'll do everything Ron and I want, at a price that didn't break the bank. We ended up with the four stroke Mercury 30hp, which was the max the hull was rated for,and while its not gonna set any speed records it will get us across the lake, and better yet "Back" to the boat ramp....hahaha....Which was always the question in the back of our minds when using the Evinrude that was almost as old as we are.....That usually kept us from venturing too far from the ramp...lol....That and we had to troll back when the motor didn't start a couple of times. As a bonus, Mercury was running a special till the end of the month, and the motor came with a 5yr warranty instead of 3, so that was cool.

While I don't actually own the boat, i'm still excited about it....Ron is my best friend and he's made it perfectly clear that its as much mine as his and, I have 100% access to it anytime I want, so needless to say, i'm looking forward to fishin this year.....I won't know how to act fishin from a bassboat again....hahaha....its been along time.